"That being the case," said Ned hotly, "I shall not bother you further. Good afternoon."
"Hold on there! Humph! humph! Not so fast!" exclaimed the other, rising and stepping swiftly between Ned and the door, "you've to wait here a while."
"Wait!" echoed Ned. "I can't wait. Why, man alive, the safety of the fleet depends on my reaching there."
"Oh, nonsense! You don't mean to say you've brooded over that story so much you believe it yourself?"
Ned was first thunderstruck and then horrified. In living through the extraordinary events of the recent past, it had never struck him how fantastic and impossible they would seem to the average man.
"But it's true, I tell you! I can prove it, every word!" he burst out.
"How?"
"Why, by my shipmate, Hercules Taylor."
"Where is he?"