“There is one thing we forgot when we were down aft,” suddenly observed Joy, placing one hand in the region of his fifth button. “We clean forgot the grub.”
“I won’t go down there if I starve,” came from Nanny, his face paling.
“We will have to do something,” said Clif, decisively. “There must be food on board, and water, too. I saw several boxes and tanks below. I don’t like the shades of departed Frenchmen, but I’ll do a great deal to keep from starving.”
“Suppose we go down and make plenty noise,” suggested Trolley. “We take clubs and--wait a bit.”
He hurried forward, and presently reappeared from the officers’ quarters with one hand clutching a pistol and the other a long, wicked-looking sword. Flourishing the latter, he cried:
“I cut the neck of any ghost now. Come! we march down right away.”
“He! he!” laughed Nanny; “Trolley, you have a different class of ghosts in Japan than those in other countries, I guess. Swords and guns are no good.”
“We try, anyway,” placidly replied the Japanese youth. “Who come with me?”
“Who go first?” was Trolley’s next question.
“You, confound your thick head!” retorted Joy. “Haven’t you got the weapons?”
Seeing no loophole, the Jap gingerly approached the door of the conning tower. Clif, who was close behind, suddenly uttered a deep groan.
Trolley dropped the sword and made a wild leap backward. A series of weird Japanese expletives came from his lips, then his jaw dropped when he caught sight of Clif’s laughing face.
“Oh, you fool me, eh?” he said, slowly. “Well, I go down and fool ghost.”
With that he vanished through the open door of the conning tower.
“We can’t let him have all the fun,” declared Clif. “Come on.”
When the three--Nanny accompanied them--reached the lower deck they found Trolley seated upon a chest, calmly surveying the field. He held the revolver in one hand, and the sword at a parry in the other.
“No hear anything yet,” he said, grinning. “I guess----”
“Gosh! there it is again,” ejaculated Nanny. “Let’s go back. I don’t want----”
The words ended in a wail that sent cold chills through the cadets. For a moment it was in the minds of all to beat a hasty retreat, but Clif set his teeth, and said, determinedly:
“I won’t be frightened away from here again. Some one is playing us a scurvy trick. That wasn’t French; it was Spanish. If any chump----”