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CHAPTER XXV.
THREE MINUTES OF LIFE

Before the first sharp sting of the wound that had halted the Dreadnought Boy had subsided, Ned found himself once more a prisoner. He had torn the gag from his mouth as he ran; but he made no effort to shout, knowing that it would do no good in that desolate region. He calmly submitted to being rebound, this time his legs also being tied tightly.

"We'll take no further chances with you, my young rooster," commented Kennell, as he made a double half-hitch on Ned's leg thongs; "but you were a greeny to think you could get away as long as Ralph Kennell could hold a gun."

Although the wound in his leg gave him acute pain, Ned was pretty sure it was only a flesh one, and had not shattered the bone; for which he felt thankful. Ned was made of that kind of stuff that never gives up hope, and, even in the desperate position in which he now was, he yet decided to make the best of it and watch for any chance that might present itself to extricate himself.

"Come on, come on," growled the elder Pulsifer, as Ned was once more hustled roughly into the tonneau of the machine. "We can't waste all night on that cub. Silas and Carl told us that you were a good fast worker. We're not paying you to take all night over it."

"All right, guv'nor; keep your shirt on," rejoined Kennell; "let her rip. We've got him hog-tied now, all right."

Not long after, the auto shot into a dark, shadowed cañon, which seemed to bisect the range of rugged hills, and came to a halt on the other side. The stop was made before a small house, built in the native style, in front of which stood a row of royal palms.

"Home, sweet home," grinned Kennell, with grim humor; "come on, younker, pile out, there."

Ned almost yelled with pain as he straightened up on his injured leg, and Kennell, noticing him wince, gave a loud, brutal laugh.

"Hamstrung, by the great bow-gun!" he exclaimed. "I guess you'll give us no more trouble."

To Ned's relief, for he had almost begun to share Kennell's belief that Varian had been over-drugged, the inventor had opened his eyes a few moments before they reached the hut, and murmured feebly. His words lacked sense, however, under the influence of the drug as he still was.

"Bring them both into the front room," ordered the elder Pulsifer, as he climbed down from the driver's seat.

The "front room," it transpired, was a sparsely furnished apartment, containing a table and two or three chairs, and nothing else. The floors were bare and of polished wood after the manner of the country. Ned guessed that the place was occupied only temporarily by the Pulsifers as a quiet spot in which they could meet their agents, secure from outside observation. The fact that they had brought an auto to this part of Cuba, where horses are mostly used, lent color to this supposition.

Dave Pulsifer's first act was to light a lamp, which he placed on the table; his second, to ignite a cigar, and his next to offer a chair to the white and shaky inventor.

"Sit down, Varian," he said. "We don't wish to injure you, or hurt you unless we have to; but, as you wouldn't talk business over quietly, we have had to adopt these means of bringing you to terms."

Glad enough of a chance to rest, Mr. Varian slipped wearily into the offered chair. Ned was shoved along by Kennell till he stood behind the inventor with Kennell close at his elbow. Since his frustrated escape, the wretches who held him captive were taking no chances of another runaway.

Schultz, Silas, and Hank Harkins stood behind the younger Pulsifer, who had now joined his brother at the opposite side of the table to that at which Mr. Varian's chair had been placed. Before the younger of the worthy pair of brothers lay a revolver convenient to his hand. As he regarded Mr. Varian intently, his jeweled fingers played with its butt suggestively.

The inventor made no reply to the elder Pulsifer's remarks, and the foreign agent – as he now stood revealed – continued in a sharp tone. This time he came right to the point.

"Varian, we need not beat about the bush now. We want those plans and the formula."

"I have not got them," replied the inventor, in a low, shaky voice.

"You lie!"

It was a sure indication of Mr. Varian's pitiable condition that he made no move or spoke no word at the insult.

"You searched my pockets before you forced that stuff over my face," he breathed. "You know that I have not got them."

"Again I say you lie. You were consulting with Captain Dunham, of the Dreadnought Manhattan, earlier this evening. You were seen to show him the papers, and explain some of the points of the test which is to be made of your gun shortly. Come, we don't want to be unnecessarily rough with you. Are you going to give the papers up?"

"No!"

The answer snapped out like the crack of a whip.

Ned noted with satisfaction that the inventor's former fire and decision seemed to be returning.

"Then we must search you. Men – "

The elder Pulsifer pointed to the inventor, while the younger covered him with the revolver. One of the latter's bediamonded fingers was crooked on the trigger as if he longed to pull it.

Instantly Carl Schultz, Silas and Hank, who had all three started forward at the command, seized and held Mr. Varian tightly, while the younger Pulsifer, still with his revolver in hand, tapped the inventor's coat to find the hiding-place of the papers.

"Ah!" he exclaimed suddenly, with a cry of triumph. A crisp, crackling sound had rewarded his search.

An instant later, from a secret pocket in the inventor's coat, he had drawn forth a flat bundle of papers. The two Pulsifers, their eyes shining greedily, scanned them closely beneath the lamp, and then uttered what was a perfect howl of baffled rage.

The blueprints of the breech-block, without which the gun would be useless and the formula so much waste-paper, were not there.

"Look here, Varian," snarled the elder Pulsifer, "we've been pretty lenient with you, so far. We intend to be so no longer. Where are those blueprints?"

"Where you will never get them," bravely replied the inventor.

"You are overconfident, my friend," sneered the elder Pulsifer. "We not only will get them, but by your own lips you will tell us where to go to acquire them."

If the faces of the Pulsifers had borne an evil look before, they became as avid as those of vultures now.

The inventor, who was fast overcoming the effects of the drug, folded his arms defiantly, his captors having released him when the search was given up by the younger Pulsifer.

"Bind him!"

The command was snapped out by the elder of the brothers.

Instantly the three hired rascals who had held him before pounced on the inventor, and roped him tightly in the chair.

Resistance was useless, and the inventor submitted to the ordeal with an unflinching countenance.

"Now, then, Varian, have you changed your mind?"

"Not yet; and I never shall if you wish to know, Dave Pulsifer."

"Very well. We have tried fair means, now we'll adopt other tactics."

The Pulsifers whispered together a few minutes, and then the younger brother left the room.

He returned with a fair-sized keg, which seemed to be heavy. This he placed in a corner of the room.

"What on earth are they going to do?" Ned wondered to himself.

He was not to be left long in doubt.

The younger Pulsifer's next move was to open a cupboard in one corner of the room and produce a short length of candle.

He eyed this critically and then produced a silver match-box.

A tense silence hung over the room, as the flabby-faced Pulsifer moved about making these preparations. Both Mr. Varian and Ned eyed him with close attention. They felt that somehow or other, incomprehensible as these preparations were, that they boded no good to themselves.

The younger Pulsifer lit the candle and then turned to the two captives with a smile.

"This candle will burn, roughly speaking, for five minutes," he said. "I am going to place it in this barrel of powder. The stuff is not as powerful as Chaosite, but it will serve the purpose," he added, with a side glance at the inventor.

As he spoke, the wretch ripped off the wooden heading of the barrel, which had already been loosened, and placed the candle upright on its contents.

This done, he once more turned to the inventor.

"Now, will you tell us where those blueprints are, and give us an order for them?" he snarled.

"Not in the longest day you ever lived," replied the inventor firmly.

"Good for you," shouted Ned; "if we are to go to the bottom we'll go down with colors flying, Mr. Varian."

"That's right, my boy; spoken like a true jackie of Uncle Sam," said the inventor approvingly.

"Very fine, heroic and melodramatic," sneered Dave Pulsifer, "but think a moment, Henry Varian. That candle is getting shorter. In a few seconds we shall withdraw, not wishing to be present at the final act of the tragedy. Think of your wife and children – "

This time the inventor groaned, but an instant later recovered himself.

"I would rather leave them the memory of a loyal citizen and American, than give them the companionship of a coward and a traitor," he replied.

"More heroics; really, Varian, if you were going to live, you might tackle a melodrama with good success. Come on, boys. Two minutes of time are up. In three minutes more this place and those in it will be blown to pieces. Good-night and – good-by, Varian, and you too, you spying, sneaking, informing cub. If you relent, Varian, shout loud, and we shall hear you."

With this bitter fling at the Dreadnought Boy, the Pulsifers and their evil companions withdrew, Hank Harkins pausing at the door to remark:

"I guess I'm on top now, Ned Strong."

Ned disdained to reply, but, instead, as the door closed behind the men who had planned such a refinement of cruelty, he fixed his eyes on the candle in the barrel. Pulsifer had taken the lamp when he and the others withdrew. The light of the waxen illuminant, that was rapidly growing shorter and nearer to the powder, was the only radiance in the room.

"In three minutes," Pulsifer had said.

Ned's eyes regarded the flickering candle with a look of despair.

It grew lower and flickered. One more such wavering of its steady flame and the end must come.

CHAPTER XXVI.
A BLUFF CALLED

Ned cast his eyes despairingly this way and that, in the hope of spying something that might promise even a faint hope of salvation.

"Ned," it was the inventor's voice; but it sounded faint and far off, "shall I call out?"

"And betray your trust – no, sir!"

"Thank you; I thought you would say that. There is no chance of our getting away?"

"Not a loophole that I can see, sir."

"So be it. The explosion must come in a few seconds now, and all will be over."

The inventor bowed his head. Ned's brain worked as it had never worked before, but, think as he would, he could not contrive any avenue of escape. "If only I could work these ropes loose; if only they'd left the lamp – I'd have risked knocking it over and burning them off. If only – "

The boy came to a sudden stop.

On the floor by the table he had espied a small, gleaming point of fire – the burning stub of a cigar, carelessly thrown aside by one of the Pulsifers. They smoked only the best of cigars and the weed burned red and strong.

To Ned its spark rekindled hope.

That tiny glow meant perhaps life and freedom.

Without an instant's delay, he threw himself on the floor, for, bound as he was, he could not bend or move. Otherwise he would have taken a chance on burning through his thongs at the candle in the powder keg.

The Dreadnought Boy rolled himself toward the burning cigar butt. Mr. Varian watched him wonderingly, but made no comment. He realized that the boy had found what he thought was a way of escape.

Ned placed his mouth alongside the cigar, and after some difficulty got it between his teeth. He took a few sharp puffs, as he had seen smokers do, although the rank taste of the tobacco sickened him. It was Ned's first and last smoke.

With the end of the cigar now blazing redly, he was ready for the next step. Dropping the "weed," he wriggled along the floor till he had brought his bound wrists up to the red end. Then he pressed the rope down on the glowing tobacco, with a silent prayer that he might be in time.

A smell of burning rope filled the air.

A second later Ned Strong, his hands free, uttered a low cry of triumph.

He had won the first step of the desperate fight for liberty.

Rapidly, with his freed hands, he felt in his pockets. His captors had forgotten – or, as was more probable, had not deemed it worth while – to search him. His jackknife was in his pocket. To sever his leg bonds was the work of two quick slashes. In his excitement the pain of his leg was forgotten. All that the Dreadnought Boy knew was that he had a fighting chance.

Hastily he stepped up to the powder barrel and prepared to pluck out the candle. This was risky work. Not only might the Pulsifers or some of their gang be on the lookout, but he might, in his haste, spill a spark which would blow both himself and the inventor sky high.

As he reached the side of the keg, however, Ned's first utterance was a gasp of surprise and then a low laugh.

"Bluffed!"

The exclamation came sharply as he plucked out the candle and threw it to the floor. Luckily it did not go out, for the next instant he realized that he would have to use its light.

Hastily he made his way to the inventor's side. A few quick slashes of the knife, and Mr. Varian stood free, words of gratitude on his lips and a light of admiration in his eyes.

Ned hastily checked the other's words.

"Time for action now, sir," he said briskly. "Can you run an auto?"

"Can you tie a running bowline?" smiled the inventor, who now seemed as cool as ice.

Ned grinned appreciatively.

If all went well, the next step of his hastily contrived plan of escape could be carried out.

"One moment, sir," begged Ned, as the inventor whispered: "What next?"

The boy was over at the side of the keg and rummaging there, it seemed.

"For Heaven's sake, don't waste time on that, my lad," urged the inventor. "Let us make a dash for it. Those men may be near at hand."

"All in good time, sir; but I want to cinch these rascals if we can and cinch them good and tight!"

"But why waste time on that powder barrel?"

"Powder barrel nothing – I mean, it's not a powder barrel, sir."

"What?"

"That's right. Look here!"

Ned held up a handful of papers which he had extracted from the keg.

"When I said 'bluffed' just now, that's what I meant. But, Mr. Varian, we've called their bluff with these!"

"These" were papers which seemed to be maps of different places carefully marked and figured, and other diagrams of different kinds.

"What are they?"

"As well as I can see, sir, material to forge steel chains on those rascals who brought us here. They appear to be plans of United States ports and details of our harbor defenses. But we've no time to look them over now. Come, sir!"

The lad stuffed the papers in his blouse.

He had noticed with his keen eyes that few things escaped, that the Pulsifers had not locked the front door when they entered their hut. He now flung it open, and, a second later, he and the inventor stood under the open starlight, their hearts leaping excitedly.

In front of the door, a dark shadow in the gloom that had set in following the sinking of the moon, was the automobile.

A little gasoline, and more than a little good luck, was all that lay between them and safety.

"Crank her up, sir. I'll stand guard here," breathed Ned.

The inventor bent over the front of the machine and jerked the cranking handle over. There was no explosion.

Again he turned it, without result.

"We'll have to hurry, sir, or else run for it," warned Ned. "Hark!"

Inside the house they could hear trampling of feet.

Evidently Pulsifer and his brother had decided that their "bluff" would have burned itself out by this time, and were returning to the room in which they confidently supposed their helpless victims were lying in agony of mind.

"We'll have to try them another way, since they have withstood the ordeal of powder," Ned heard the elder Pulsifer's heavy voice boom out, half-amusedly, as the inner door of the room banged open.

At the same instant there came a low "chug" from the motor.

"Speed up that spark," ordered the laboring inventor. "No, not that lever. There, that little attachment on the wheel. That's it."

Chug-chug-chug!

"Hurray! that did the trick!" shouted Mr. Varian, forgetting his dignity in the excitement of the moment.

As he spoke, from inside the house they heard, above the roar of the now awakened motor, the shouts of dismay with which Pulsifer and his mercenaries greeted their discovery that their "birds had flown."

"They can't be far off!" Ned heard the heavy voice boom out. "Scatter, boys! After them! One hundred dollars to the lad who bags the first one!"

The front door burst open and out rushed the men who a few minutes ago had been so confident of bluffing out one of Uncle Sam's sailors and one of his brainiest citizens.

"There they are!" yelled Pulsifer, as his eyes lit on the two figures as they lightly swung into the auto. "Don't let them get away! Five hundred dollars if you stop them!"

"Shoot 'em down!" bawled the shrill tones of Schultz.

As the inventor opened up the motor and threw in the clutch several dark figures leaped in front of the machine, and one jumped on to the seat beside Ned.

This last figure – it was that of Kennell – raised a knife high and then brought it down with a vicious swoop. The blade seemed to strike full at Ned's heart.

The inventor gave a cry of dismay.

But at the same instant, like a thing instinct with life, the car leaped forward.

"Stand from under!" bawled the inventor, as he threw in the third-speed clutch.

Ned saw the figures of Schultz and Hank Harkins flung aside by the wheels and go rolling down the steep hillside. At the same time he drew back his fist and sent it crashing into Kennell's face. The knife fell clattering twenty feet away, as the treacherous bluejacket, with a howl of alarm, fell backward.

"Take that from Herc Taylor!" shouted Ned.

Forward into the darkness plunged the car, leaping and rolling over the rough road.

"Hurt, Ned?"

It was the inventor speaking. His voice was anxious. Already the shouts and cries behind them were dying out.

"No, sir, why?"

"That blow with the knife. I thought it would have killed you."

"Well, it might have, sir, but for this. I carried it for a luck piece, and I guess it's earned its name!"

The Dreadnought Boy held up a tiny silver coin. It had a big dent in it, where Kennell's blade had been turned.

It was old Zack's parting present, the Canadian dime.

CHAPTER XXVII.
A STRANGE RETURN

"You say Seaman Strong made his way after the men you suspected, and that was the last you saw of him?"

Rear-Admiral Gibbons, Captain Dunham and several other officers were seated in a room on the lower floor of the hotel at which the banquet that had ended so disastrously for the inventor, Varian, had taken place.

Herc shifted uneasily on his feet. He felt alarmed before this glittering court of inquiry that had convened as soon as it became apparent that the absence of Henry Varian, discovered shortly before midnight, was no mere accident.

"Yes, sir," he replied to Captain Dunham, who had put the question.

"Can it be possible that the man Strong was in league with the miscreants? The circumstances seem very suspicious," put in the rear-admiral.

"I think, sir," said Captain Dunham, "that we shall find, when the mysterious affair is sifted, that young Strong acted the part of a United States sailor in the matter. I have kept a careful eye on him, and should be loath to believe him anything else than an upright, honest young fellow of uncommon capability."

"Good for you," thought Herc to himself.

"And what were you doing all this time?" inquired one of the officers of the embarrassed witness.

"Picking stickers out of myself, sir."

"What! Be careful, young man; this is no time for levity."

"Well, sir, I guess if you had fallen into a tack-tus bush you'd have been picking those vegetable tenpenny nails out of your system for a while, too," replied Herc in an aggrieved tone, while suspicious twitches appeared about the corners of the mouths of several of the assembly. Rear-Admiral Gibbons got up and gazed out of the window for a moment to conceal his smiles at the naïve rejoinder of the red-headed youth.

Suddenly he turned, with a sharp exclamation.

"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "here comes the automobile, or one just like it, that those two precious rascals, the Pulsifers, used. I've seen it before. As it was the only one in Guantanamo, I remarked it especially."

The officers crowded to the window, and Herc would have joined them, but a marine barred his way.

"Get back, young feller," he warned, suggestively pointing his bayonet.

"Huh! I guess you never had a friend in trouble," grunted Herc, going back to his witness chair in high dudgeon.

But the auto, instead of coming up to the hotel, turned off two blocks below.

"Possibly I was mistaken," said the admiral. "Those two figures in it didn't look like the two scoundrels, but at the distance it is impossible to tell."

"In any event, sir, they cannot escape from Cuba," spoke up one of the officers. "Every port has been telegraphed. Their capture is almost certain."

This was indeed the case. An investigation of the garden had shown clear indications of the struggle that had taken place there the night before, and servants had been discovered who had seen the inventor issuing into the garden with the unsavory Pulsifers. The odor of chloroform still clinging to the grass decided the matter, and completed the chain of circumstantial evidence. Herc, too, had been able to supplement the mute testimony by his story of the convict film and the names of the conspirators. Already a launch full of marines had been sent to Boco del Toros to intercept the yacht Carl and Silas had mentioned in the lad's hearing.

This much having been done, a code message had been sent to the secretary of the navy, who had at once ordered every port in Cuba watched, and detailed secret service men in the United States to special duty to apprehend the Pulsifers if they attempted to land in America.

The examination of Herc, who was, of course, the principal witness, went on.

At its conclusion an officer of the Illinois begged permission to ask one more question.

"My man, did you or your friend talk over this step of his?"

"Not any more than I have told you, sir," rejoined Herc, somewhat puzzled.

"I submit, sir," remarked the officer, turning to the rear-admiral, "this looks somewhat as if the lad was in league with the Pulsifers. We know now, from what this lad has told us, that other members of the crew were disaffected; possibly Strong was bribed, too."

"You don't know Ned Strong, sir," spoke up Herc, "or – "

"Silence, sir!" thundered the officer.

"Huh!" grunted Herc, in a low tone, however.

"As I was saying, sir, the whole thing looks, as you said, suspicious. We know that the lad was recently placed in the forward turret of the Manhattan, and would have had an opportunity to examine the breechblock of the Varian gun. He might even have made rough drawings of it."

"What you say is plausible, Captain Stirling," nodded the rear-admiral gravely.

"I don't believe a word of it!" snapped Captain Dunham hotly. "I'll stake a good deal on that youngster's honesty, and – "

"You'll win!" came a crisp voice from the rear of the room.

The officers turned, amazed, and set up a shout of astonishment as they beheld, framed in the door which they had entered noiselessly, the figures of the inventor, and, standing, cap in hand, by his side, the Dreadnought Boy, the lad to whose pluck and resourcefulness the inventor largely owed his liberty.

"I repeat it, gentlemen," went on the inventor, for it was he who had voiced the interruption; "there isn't a finer, more capable or grittier lad in the service to-day than Ned Strong of the Manhattan."

"But, but – gentlemen, pray sit down – " began the rear-admiral. "Really this is most irregular."

He sat down resignedly as the officers pressed about the inventor and Ned. In a few moments order was restored, and the two newly escaped captives were telling their story.

"But how did you get back from the Sierra Madre Mountains so quickly?" asked Captain Dunham, who was familiar with Cuba and had recognized the location of the Pulsifers' hut from the inventor's description.

"Let Ned Strong tell that," smiled the inventor.

"Why, gentlemen, we – we borrowed Mr. Pulsifer's automobile," explained the Dreadnought Boy.

"Good for you!" burst out Herc, who had been dancing about in the background, hardly able to keep down his excitement. Of course, discipline did not permit his greeting Ned just then, and he had been on the point of exploding ever since his chum entered the room.

In the general excitement no one reproved the impulsive youth, who turned as red as a winter sunset when he realized what a sad breach of naval etiquette he had committed.

"Strong, stand forward," ordered Rear-Admiral Gibbons, as the inventor took up and concluded the story of how they had missed their road, but finally found their way into town, going first to a house occupied by some friends of Mr. Varian's before proceeding to the hotel. At the home of the inventor's friends they had got a wash and brush-up which both stood sadly in need of. Ned's leg, besides, had required dressing. It turned out to be, as he had guessed, only a flesh wound, but was sufficiently painful, though not dangerous in any way.

In obedience to his superior's command, the young seaman took two paces to the front and saluted, bringing his heels together with a smart click, despite the pain his wound gave him as he did so.

"Strong," went on the admiral, "you have done Mr. Varian and the United States Navy a great service. Had it not been for your quick, intelligent work, it might have been that the Pulsifers and the others implicated in this dastardly affair would have escaped. Mr. Varian might not have been with us this morning. I congratulate and thank you on behalf of the government and on behalf of the naval department and officers of this squadron."

Ned's lips moved. Somehow he couldn't speak. Herc's face, bisected by a broad grin, thrust itself forward among the officers till it appeared, like a whimsical moon, between the elbows of Captain Dunham and the rear-admiral.

"I shall see, Strong," went on the admiral, "that some signal notice is taken of your clever, plucky work. You are of the stuff of which real seamen are made and we want to encourage men like you in every way possible. And now, gentlemen, as we are not within hearing of Washington – or the papers – perhaps it might not be inconsistent with the occasion to give three cheers."

"Oh, those crazy Americanoes!" exclaimed the little yellow-faced Cubans, as three long, resounding naval cheers, with a zipping "tiger," rang through the stagnant tropic air and went booming over the water as far as the grim sea bulldogs of Uncle Sam, lying at anchor off the town.