An Annapolis First Classman

"What's the reason, Robert?" repeated Helen with her eyes full of interest and concern.

Just then, the far-away bell of the "Santee" was struck four times. "Six o'clock," exclaimed Robert; "we've a whole hour before supper; let's walk along the sea-wall to College Creek and back; we'll just have time to do it." Poor Robert then relapsed into silence; he was happy to be with his friend again and eager to tell her that he could not explain his peculiar conduct; but he could not talk.

His mind was in confusion, yet seemed a blank; and the trivial things about him took a prominence that in milder moods would have remained unnoticed. He noted with the eye of a naturalist a squirrel that scampered across their path, and ran along the fence, disappearing up a maple tree; two robins were scolding and fussing in the tree top near their nest. And from the coxswain of the racing shell, out in the Severn River, came regularly, like the tick-tock of a clock, the monotonous words – "Stroke – Stroke – Stroke." Thump, thump, thump went his heart. "Stroke – Stroke – Stroke," called out the ruthless coxswain to his tired crew on the river a quarter of a mile away.

Robert did not know what to say. His heart was so full he could not speak lightly. Helen looked straight ahead and said nothing, waiting no doubt for Robert to begin his explanation. Each was intensely uncomfortable. After Maryland Avenue was crossed, Helen turned to her companion and wistfully said: "I thought you had so much to talk with me about, Robert; but you haven't said a word. What is the matter; are we not good friends? Or is there some misunderstanding which prevents our talking to each other?"

"Oh, Helen," cried he, "I'm awfully disturbed about something. It is of such a peculiar nature that I can't talk about it to any one. Can't you trust me and not ask me to explain myself? You see sometimes things occur that a midshipman can't talk about – it has nothing to do with any action of yours or mine, – I think so much of your friendship that it distresses me to appear as if I had any other feeling – "

"Robert, if you really are so anxious for my friendship, what Naval Academy affair could happen that would send you running out of my house and that would prevent you coming to see me?"

Then a great light broke upon her, and stopping suddenly, she confronted Robert and said excitedly:

"Robert Drake, I understand at last. You saw Harry that night, after I left you in the pantry. It was your duty, I suppose, to report him and you didn't do so because of – of the rest of us. And you haven't called since because you are afraid you will see him again. I'm right, I know I'm right!"

Robert looked helplessly at her, and then said: "Helen, you and I have been good friends, haven't we? And can't good friends expect favors of one another? Now I've a real favor to ask of you, and it's this. Don't think of this matter, and please, oh, please, don't talk about it. Don't talk about it to your father and mother; I beg of you don't refer to the matter in any way."

"Robert, I really will do as you want me to, though I don't see why you have been so much upset. Harry isn't Frenching any more; he has promised me not to do that again. And even if he should you will not know of it or see him at my home; but I'm confident he won't, now that he has given me his word. Won't you come next Saturday and have supper with us? And bring Mr. Stonewell and Mr. Farnum with you."

Robert returned to his room in a happy mood. He had worried much at how the Blunts would look upon his abrupt action, and of his sudden avoidance of their home. He had decided not to call so as to take no chance of seeing Harry Blunt there, and he knew he could never explain the reason of his action to any of the Blunts. But now he felt that Helen, in a way at least, understood; she would require no further explanation and would not gossip about his reasons. And also he believed that Helen would so arrange it that he would run no chance of seeing Harry Blunt at her home when that young man had no right to be outside of the Academy grounds.

And so Robert felt more light-hearted than for many days, so much so that after supper, while preparing for the next day's recitation, Stonewell, who knew his roommate's every mood, looked up smiling and said:

"Well, Bob, what is it; have you won the flag ahead of time, or have you made up with Helen Blunt? I've noticed you haven't been going to her house much of late; and for some time past you've been as glum as a Russian bear."

"Never you mind, Stone, I'm just feeling pretty fit, that's all."

Ten o'clock soon came, and with it out went the lights in Bancroft Hall and a perfect stillness broken only by the tread of midshipmen making taps inspection. Soon this measured tread ceased and complete silence reigned.

And then out of this profound stillness came again that terrible cry, shrieked out in affright, startling every midshipman in the armory wing of Bancroft Hall. "Help! Help!" Far away it first seemed, and yet it was plainly heard.

With lightning speed Stonewell leaped from his bed and jumped into his clothes.

"Turn out, Bob," he cried. "I've a job to do, and won't be with you; turn out everybody in armory wing; tell Farnum to have everybody fall in by companies on the ground and first floors," and Stonewell dashed from the room.

Again the weird shriek sounded, now heard much plainer. Robert had followed Stonewell out of the room, and ran down the corridor shouting: "Turn out, everybody! Company officers, get your companies together!"

Midshipmen from all the rooms poured into the corridors.

"Help, help, save me, save me!" in agonized fearful tones were resounding throughout the building. And these cries became clearer on the lower floors. They seemed to have started from above and to have come down gradually.

"Help, help," rang out the cry, now apparently on the first floor; it seemed to come right from the midst of a throng of midshipmen falling into their places in company formation; these were entirely mystified. And then the cry descended and was heard on the floor below, the ground floor.

"Where is Stone?" asked Robert of Farnum; "do you know where he went? He said he had a job to do."

"I turned out when I heard that awful yell," replied Farnum, "and I saw Stone run down these stairs into the basement. I wonder why he went down there."

Robert and Farnum were standing before the first division of midshipmen in the middle of the corridor, just in front of the stairway that led to the basement. "Where is Mr. Stonewell?" called the officer-in-charge, Lieutenant-Commander Brooks; "look overhead in each corridor – what's that going on on the stairway?" he suddenly exclaimed, interrupting himself.

A midshipman was seen fairly running up the dark stairway, dragging by the collar of his coat another midshipman, who was vainly endeavoring to regain his balance and foothold.

The first midshipman was Stonewell. In a moment he had reached the head of the stairway, and then, with a mighty effort, he hurled his heavy burden from him.

"It's Bligh," cried out Robert.

"What does this mean, Mr. Stonewell?" demanded Lieutenant-Commander Brooks, in wondering accents. Fourth Classman Bligh presented a rueful, crestfallen figure. Stonewell had handled him with no gentle force, and at the head of the stairway had thrown Bligh violently from him; and he now lay in a heap on the floor. But evidently he was not seriously injured, for he commenced to sob convulsively.

Stonewell came up to Lieutenant-Commander Brooks and quietly said: "Sir, some time ago I thought I learned the source of the mysterious cries we heard then and which were repeated a few minutes ago. I went up into the tower and saw a boatswain's chair in the ventilating shaft which leads from the top of the building to the basement. This boatswain's chair was on a long rope which led through a pulley block overhead, and by it a man can lower himself from the top of the building to the basement in the ventilating shaft – I suppose it's there so that a person can lower himself to make any repairs that are needed in the shaft. When I heard the cry to-night I ran to the basement – to the opening of the ventilating shaft – and before long I could see somebody coming down. I didn't know who it was, but suspected it was Bligh, and it was. He gave his last yell when he was even with this floor. Then he lowered himself to the bottom and I collared him just as he got down."

Mr. Bligh was a pitiable spectacle. "It was only a joke, sir," he gasped incoherently. "I meant to do no harm, sir; it was just a little fun. Mr. Stonewell had no occasion to use me so roughly – he hurt me, sir."

"Go to my office immediately, sir," ordered Lieutenant-Commander Brooks. "I will attend to your case later. Mr. Stonewell, you have done well, as usual. Dismiss the battalion, turn everybody in, and have the usual inspection made," and the officer-in-charge left and returned to his office.

Fourth Classman Henry Bligh got up slowly. He looked from face to face; not one friendly expression did he find.

Full of pent-up feelings which he dared not express Bligh turned and left.

"Dismiss the battalion, sir," ordered Cadet Commander Stonewell to Cadet Lieutenant-Commander Farnum.

"Companies are dismissed," rang out through the corridor. "Go to your rooms immediately and turn in. Company officers make the usual taps inspection."

CHAPTER XV

STONEWELL RECEIVES A LETTER

When Henry Bligh became a midshipman he was not at all a vicious young man. But he arrived at Annapolis with an unformed character. His predominating trait was a desire for applause, and early in his fourth class year his football ability had many times earned for him vociferous applause. It was his predominating desire, a passion to become personally famous, that had urged him to give the signal for the Gates forward pass when playing against Harvard – the dishonor attached to the act had not been clearly fixed in his mind. The immediate result, his dismissal from the football squad in disgrace, his execration by the entire brigade of midshipmen – the change of his position from one of bright fame to contemptuous disesteem, had immediate effect upon the unformed character of Mr. Henry Bligh. He was plunged in the blackest of gloom and he brooded day and night over his troubles.

It was a pity he had no close friend to talk with, no older midshipman to be advised by. Amongst the midshipmen there had been a burst of anger against him and then he had been left entirely alone.

No organized "coventry" was declared against him, but a most effective, far-reaching one existed. Its direct result was to make Bligh continually unhappy, and this engendered in him passionate anger. Anger must find an object, and Bligh's directed its full force upon Stonewell and Blunt. The former, so he believed, had been the cause of all of his troubles; the latter had supplanted him at football, had defeated him in a personal fight.

On that first night when the midshipmen of Bancroft Hall had been so startled by the awful cry of "Save me," Bligh had been in the basement; he heard the cries and found Farnum, out of his head, seated in the boatswain's chair at the bottom of the ventilating shaft. Bligh of course immediately knew what had happened, but he kept this knowledge to himself.

On the night spoken of in the last chapter, Bligh had been on the sick list, and therefore was excused from company muster. It occurred to him that he could perpetrate this act and scare the hundreds of midshipmen who had showered such contumelious treatment upon him.

It really would have been a good joke had it succeeded, but unfortunately for Bligh his detection rendered his position almost unbearable. He had been roughly treated by Stonewell; and now whenever he passed a cadet officer he was halted and given directions.

"Brace up, Mr. Bligh, put your heels together, little fingers on the seams of your trousers, chest out, belly in, head up, chin in."

Had the joke been done by Glassfell or perhaps any upper classman it would have been laughed at. But to have been perpetrated by a plebe was an indignity to time-honored midshipman custom. And that the plebe should have been Mr. Bligh made the act worse than an indignity; it was an unbearable thought. And so for a while Plebe Bligh figured on every delinquency conduct report. Cadet officers suddenly discovered that Fourth Classman Bligh's hair was too long, his clothes not brushed, his shoes not shined. Bligh grew nearly frantic, morning after morning, at hearing such a report read out as:

"Bligh, Wearing torn trousers at morning inspection.

"Same, Soiled collar at same.

"Same, Not properly shaved at same."

Bligh, much as he was to be blamed, really was to be pitied. No midshipman was ever more friendless, ever more in need of kindly direction. Under some circumstances he might have developed a useful character, a high standard of thought and action. But in his lonely life there was nothing but black, bitter hopelessness. Bligh was in a state of mind to yield to dark temptation if it presented itself. Had his mental state been known some one might have taken him in hand and befriended him and directed his thoughts to more wholesome subjects. But Bligh made no advances to any one and in sad silence unknown and unthought of, brooded tempestuously.