Ned half staggered from his seat and came toward him. The sailors stood to one side, in a half-awed fashion. Ned's face, after his long and trying strain, was ghastly. His eyes shone with an unnatural brightness.
"Well, my lad," said the commander briskly, "what is the meaning of all this?"
"I—I—can I speak——" began Ned.
But suddenly the decks and the eager faces about him seemed to join in a mad dance. He swayed weakly, and would have fallen, had not some jackies near at hand caught him.
"Send that man to the sick bay," ordered Commander Dunham. "There's something out of the ordinary in all this," he said in a lower tone to his officers.
Ned was half-carried, half-supported, to the ship's hospital. He soon recovered from his temporary weakness, and asked to see the doctor at once. When that dignitary responded to the summons, he drank in, with eager ears, Ned's astonishing story. The result was, that Commander Dunham was at once requested to visit the sick bay. A conference ensued, which lasted till almost dark. By that time Ned was fully recovered.
It was after dark that a torpedo-boat destroyer, with Ensign Bulkley in command, slipped away from the fleet and vanished in the fog. On the conning tower, beside the officer, was Ned Strong.
The powerful searchlight cut a bright path through the mist ahead. Somewhere in that smother lay the craft they were in search of, the anarchists' sloop, on board of which Herc was a prisoner. How eagerly Ned longed for the fog to lift, may be imagined. But they cruised all night without a sign of its lifting. By daylight they were some distance out at sea. When, at eight o'clock, the fog began to lift, the shore was revealed, before long, as a dim, blue streak in the distance.
But nobody had eyes for that when a sudden shout went up from the lookout forward.
The man had sighted a sail on the horizon. But as they drew closer to it, the craft was seen to be a schooner with a short, stumpy mizzen-mast.