Once more in their cell the lads sat dejectedly on their bench. They had small desire for conversation; each felt his doom pressing upon him, and strange to say with this weight of trouble their thoughts turned to Langdon.
“If we are to be executed,” Phil said sorrowfully, “poor Langdon must have already met his death.”
Sydney had not the heart to reply. He nodded his head sorrowfully. Then a thought struck him, and he raised hopeful eyes to his companion’s face.
“He must be near us, Phil,” he exclaimed. “Can’t we find some means of communicating? If we could only talk their language we might ask our jailer; he appears friendly and probably knows.”
Phil was silent for a few moments, then he suddenly began to whistle loudly the stirring music of their class song. The tune brought tears to Sydney’s eyes. It took him back to the day the brigade of midshipmen marched by the reviewing stand for the last time with his class as seniors. Two hours afterward, with his diploma in his hand, he had shaken hands as a graduate with the secretary of the navy. What a terrible contrast! Then a sudden fear took possession of him. Had Phil lost his mind? Was the knowledge of their terrible end too much for his nerves and had his strong mind succumbed? While these disquieting thoughts were coursing through his brain, Phil ceased whistling and listened eagerly. From a distance a high-pitched treble of a whistle came indistinctly to their ears amid the noises of their cell.
The Chinese crowded about Phil in evident delight, while a number of jailers stood outside the half-closed door peering inside, smiles on their ignorant faces.
“They seem to enjoy my music,” Phil said in a perfectly rational voice; “but thank goodness, Langdon is still alive!”
“Maybe it was from one of the sailors,” Sydney suggested.
Phil continued his whistling for many minutes until his listeners had become thoroughly accustomed, then he put forth his strategy.
“Langdon knows our signal code,” he said quietly, “and I’m going to try to whistle him a message, if we can only get these fellows quiet. At least we’ll find out who it is that is confined near us.”