“Beg your pardon, I guess I--I feel queer. My head is all dizzy.”
“I don’t doubt it!” snapped the first lieutenant. “You have made a beast of yourself. This is intolerable.”
“Doctor, examine him,” said the captain, curtly.
The surgeon placed his head close to Clif’s mouth, examined his pulse and eyes, then reported, briefly:
“He is certainly under the influence of some strong stimulant, but I can’t detect any odor of liquor.”
Captain Brookes turned to the executive officer, and said:
“Place all of them under close arrest. See that they do not----”
He was interrupted by a faint knocking under his feet. A couple of planks were lifted and Judson Greene, perspiring and miserable, was lifted into view.
The rope and gag removed, he explained that he had been brutally set upon by Faraday and the other plebes, and thrown under the stage.
Just as he concluded his doleful tale, the surgeon, who had been poking about, discovered the pail which had contained the lemonade. A few cupfuls still remained in the bottom.
“What’s this?” he exclaimed, excitedly. “Hum! traces of chloral, and gin, and beer. Ye gods! what a combination! I must test the devilish mixture. Hum! no wonder the lads went crazy. Captain!”
That officer hastily joined him. Holding the pail at arm’s length, much as if it were a charge of dynamite, the surgeon continued:
“Here’s the solution to the secret, sir. I can see it plainly. It’s a trick, a dastardly trick to disgrace these poor lads.”
The worthy surgeon was not a graduate of the academy, had not been an upper classman, therefore he could feel for the “miserable plebes.”
“You say the lemonade has been drugged?” asked the captain, incredulously.
“Undoubtedly. Just smell this peculiar odor. Can’t you trace the characteristic scents of gin and chloral?”
The captain could not, but he was willing to believe the surgeon, knowing that he was a very capable man who had made a hobby of drugs and narcotics.
“If that is true, it certainly alters the case,” he said, reflectively, glancing at the members of the late “Naval Academy Plebe Troupe,” who were either asleep or showing every indication of becoming so, with the exception of Clif.
The latter was evidently making a desperate effort to throw off the effect of the drugs. His eyes were brightening, and he stood erect.