Early the following morning the tug from the academy would take her in tow again to complete the trip down the broad Chesapeake to the open sea.
It was a few moments after three bells (nine-thirty o’clock) in the night. The three classes of cadets making up the crew were supposed, with the exception of a small anchor watch, to be reposing peacefully in their hammocks.
Some were, and some were not.
When the watchful officer of the deck went his rounds after taps he found all well, and the deck echoing to the more or less melodious snoring of the occupants.
He was an officer shrewd in his generation. He had passed through the academy himself, and he had made more than one practice cruise in the old ships used for that purpose. And he remembered just such a night when, in his second year, he had started on plebe hazing expeditions with kindred spirits.
After leaving the berth deck he paused at the head of the ladder and listened. It seemed as if the chorus of snores below had slackened somewhat.
The officer chuckled and then quietly slipped down the steps again. He had no desire to catch any one in wrongdoing, but the memory of old cadet days was too strong to resist.
The berth deck lamps were burning brightly, but the major part of the great deck was in deep gloom.
Over in one corner where a jumble of hammocks made a haphazard patch of dark and light shades, several pairs of legs appeared underneath the swinging beds.
A low laugh came through the gloom, but it was speedily checked by a warning hiss. Several hammocks stirred uneasily, then came a snap and a thud, the latter followed by a howl of alarm.