"That I saw the man Kennell deliberately trip Herc—Seaman Taylor, I mean, sir—as he was walking the boom the day he boarded the Manhattan."
"You mean the day you dived over after him? It was pluckily done."
"Yes, sir. Kennell had been badgering him in the boat, and then deliberately tripped him."
"That chimes in with the reports I have heard about Kennell," remarked the captain. "However, that matter is past, and official action cannot now be taken. I have spoken to the gunnery officer, Lieutenant Timmons, about you two boys, and to-morrow you will be a part of the crew of the fifteen-inch guns in the forward turret."
Ned's heart was too full for utterance. He stammered his thanks, and obeying the captain's curt nod of dismissal, hastened from the cabin, his head fairly buzzing over the good luck that had come to them.
"If I am not mistaken," thought the captain, as Ned left the cabin, "I have selected two good bits of material in those lads for Timmons. Yet the experiments with that Varian gun are going to be dangerous, and perhaps I was wrong to place those two boys in peril. However, the life of a sailor is made up of risk and danger, and there is no more danger with that gun than with any other piece of modern ordnance. It is only because it is untried that it seems more fraught with possible mishap."
Had the captain possessed the gift of prophecy—— But what man or woman does? If they did, perhaps many of the experiments which have proved of the biggest ultimate benefit to the world would never have been tried.
Ned, his head fairly buzzing with his good fortune, hastened forward. He wished he could communicate with Herc and cheer up that captive by news of their good fortune. Musing thus, he had the misfortune, as he reached the fore deck, to collide with a man hastening in an opposite direction.
He looked up with a quick word of apology, and found himself gazing full into the scowling features of the Dreadnought Boys' arch enemy—Kennell!
"Out of my way, you young mucker!" glowered the man, with a look of hatred, "or I'll maul you up as badly as I did that red-headed young cub."