CHAPTER XI.
IN THEIR ENEMIES' HANDS.
"Well," said Ned, in the calm, even tone which seemed to come to him inall emergencies, "what do you mean to do with us now?"
"Yah!" jeered Chance, thrusting his face forward evilly, "you thinkwe'll tell you, don't yer? You just lie there and don't get up if youknow what's good for you."
As he spoke he produced a pistol as if to emphasize his warning.
"You can't scare us in that way, Chance," resumed Ned, "you wouldn'tdare to----"
"You don't know what I'd dare," retorted Chance; "I hate you, NedStrong, and now it's my chance to get even with you and with yourbutting-in chum."
"Come, don't talk any more nonsense," rejoined Ned, "I can makeallowances for a small nature actuated by motives of meanness andjealousy. But it's about time to end this nonsense. We'll be late forlights out if we don't all get back. If you'll come to your properminds and end this foolishness, I'll promise not to report anythingabout to-night's work, unless questions are asked, and then I'll haveto tell the truth."
Merritt had been talking apart with the two others, whom we know wereHerr Muller and Bill Kennell, but whose identity was, of course, amystery to the boys. He now came forward. He was just in time to catchNed's last words.
"Maybe you won't get a chance to tell the truth or anything else, NedStrong," he said; "as for injuring us with the navy, you couldn't dothat if you tried. We're through with it."
"You're going to desert?" demanded Ned.
"Just what I'd have expected of you two rats," snorted Herc.
"Call it deserting, if you like," parried Merritt, "I call it quittingjust as----"
"Oh, you're a quitter all right," struck in Herc, "a quitter fromQuitterville--one of the first settlers there, I guess."
"Are you going to be quiet?" hissed Chance.
"When I get good and ready, as the thunderstorm said to the old maidwho complained she couldn't sleep," responded the freckle-faced lad.
"Leave him alone," said Merritt, "we can afford to let them talk theirheads off if they want, to; they'll be quiet enough before long."
"Well, come on. Let us be moving," interpolated Herr Muller's voice;"himmel! we have a long tramp before us."
"That's right," assented Merritt, then, turning to Chance, he went onin a low tone, "It was a good thing that we decided on that place thisafternoon. It's not more than three miles from here. We can get there,put these two cubs under lock and key, and be snug in bed withoutgiving the alarm, if we're cautious."
Chance nodded and gave his unpleasant chuckle.
"Has Muller got the keys?" he asked.
"Yes. On the plea that we wanted to explore the place the old watchman,who hasn't been near it for a month, loaned them to him."
Ned caught some of this conversation and his heart sank. It appearedplain enough that their rascally captors had already decided on a placeto confine them. Some isolated building, so he judged, though what itsnature could be he could not imagine.
"Come, get up," snarled Chance, addressing the lads as soon as hiscolloquy with Merritt was concluded.
"We will when you take these bracelets off our ankles," rejoined Herc,motioning with his head at the ropes which bound their feet.
Merritt and Chance quickly cut loose the Dreadnought Boys' foot thongsand Ned and Herc stood erect. But if they had entertained any idea ofescape, it was quickly cut short.
"See this," warned Chance, tapping a pistol which belonged to Kennell."It's got a silencer on it, and if either of you try to run you'llget a dose of lead, and, as the report isn't louder than an air rifle,nobody will be the wiser."
Ned nodded.
"I compliment you on your generalship," he said contemptuously.
A few seconds later they moved off. Muller led the way. By his sideshuffled a figure strangely familiar to both lads, but neither ofthem could place it. All their efforts to catch a glimpse of the twoleaders' features were cheated too, both by the light and the fact thatthey kept their faces studiously turned away.
They pressed on for a mile or two through woods and across fields, andpresently a whiff of salt-laden air struck Ned in the face.
"We're getting near the sea," he thought. "I wonder if they mean totake us off some place in a boat?"
But conversation had now ceased between Chance and Merritt, and theothers were too far ahead for the lads to catch a word. Before longthey emerged, without warning, from a clump of woods, directly upon awide expanse of salt meadows. The lonely wastes stretched as far asthe eye could see. Fleeting glimpses of moonlight, as the clouds sweptacross the sky, showed the glimmer of the ocean beyond. They couldcatch the sullen roar of the surf on the beach.
Without hesitation, Herr Muller struck out across the salt meadows,following a narrow path between the hummocks of salt grass. Here andthere they crossed stretches of marshy land where the oozy mud came totheir ankles.
All at once there suddenly shot up from the gloomy wastes therectangular outlines of a large building of some kind. As they drewcloser to the dark bulk the boys could see that the walls were piercedwith numerous windows in monotonous rows. Soon the further fact becameevident that each window was barred. There was something indescribablydepressing about the aspect,--the gloomy, vast outlines of the dark,deserted building ahead of them, and the pallidly moonlit wastes ofsalt meadow all about it.
What could the place be? No light appeared in any of the numerousapertures, and the silence hung heavily about it. Suddenly thereflashed across Ned the recollection of a flight he had taken some daysbefore when he had soared above a building which, in the daylight,resembled this lonely place. The sight of it standing isolated and vastin the midst of its wild surroundings had impressed him, and on hisreturn he had inquired about it. They had told him that it was an oldlunatic asylum. The state had erected it there some years before, butthe atmosphere of the salt meadows had proved malarious, and it hadbeen abandoned.
A bulbous-nosed, red-faced old tippler in the village had also beenpointed out to him as a man who held down "a soft snap," by beingappointed "watchman" to the deserted pile. Evidently the keys had beenobtained from him and the gloomy buildings were their destination.
That this was the case they were speedily to learn. Herr Mullerapproached a stout-looking door, in the top of which was a small,grated opening. Inserting a key he turned the lock and flung the dooropen. A damp, decaying odor,--the breath of a deserted human dwellingplace,--rushed out. In spite of himself Ned shuddered. It reminded himof the crypt of an old church he had inspected in Spain when the shipswere on their European cruise.
Muller, who seemed to know the way, threaded several long passagescarrying a candle which he had ignited at the doorway. In this mannerthey traversed a considerable distance. At every turn fresh corridors,long and empty, appeared. The place was a maze of passages andstairways.
At length he paused in front of a rather small door at the end of ahall which, judging from the stairs they had climbed, must have beennear the top of the building. He flung this door open, and the nextinstant the candle was extinguished,--evidently with the intention ofconcealing his features,--and the boys were roughly thrust forward.
If they had not been taken totally by surprise they might haveresisted. But the shoves came suddenly, and projected them into a roomthrough the door before they realized what was happening. The nextinstant the door clanged behind them, just as Herc hurled himselfagainst it.
They heard the lock grate and some bolts clang heavily as they werefastened in.
"Bottled!" gasped Herc, truthfully if slangily.
But Ned had pulled out his pocket lantern and was examining the placein which they had been imprisoned. He was struck by something peculiarabout it. He reached out a hand and felt the walls. They were smoothand yielding. They had been covered with some soft substance. High upwas a small window with thick metal bars.
"What sort of a place is this?" gasped Herc as he, in his turn, feltthe yielding, cushioned
walls. "These walls feel like the upholsteredchairs in the skipper's cabin."
Ned battled with a catch in his voice before he replied. He had graspedthe truth of their almost hopeless situation.
"Herc, old boy," he said, putting a hand on his shipmate's shoulder,"brace up for a shock. This place is a deserted lunatic asylum, andthey've locked us in what was formerly used as a padded cell forsolitary confinement."