“Escaped!” exclaimed Mortlake, but to Roy’s quick ears, despite the other’s attempt to disguise his relief, it stood out boldly.

“Yes, escaped.  Partly owing, I confess, to my overzealousness.  There has been foul play here somewhere, Mr. Mortlake.”

The officer’s voice was stern.  His eye flashed ominously.  Just then old Mr. Harding came puffing up.

“Oh, so you got the boy, hey?” he cackled, but Mortlake shut him off with a quick word.

“No.  This is the real Roy Prescott.  It seems that a trick has been put up on us all.  The lad we mistook for Roy Prescott was some one impersonating him.  This lad has been the victim of a vile plot.  While we were watching here for his supposed appearance and the revelation of his treachery, some rascals had locked him in a cellar.”

The lieutenant’s words were hot and angry.  He felt that he was facing two clever rascals, whose cunning was too much for his straightforward methods.

“You—­you amaze me!” exclaimed old Mr. Harding, looking in the moonlight like some hideous old ghoul.  “What game of cross-purposes and crooked answers is this?”

“That remains to be seen.  I shall see to it that an investigation is made and the guilty parties punished.”

Was it fancy, or did Roy, for a second, see Mortlake quail and whiten?

But if the boy had seen such a thing, the next instant Mortlake was master of himself.

“It seems to me to have been a plot put up by my workmen,” he said.  “If I find it to be so, I shall discharge every one of them.  Poor fellows, in their mistaken loyalty to me, perhaps they thought that they were doing me a good turn by trying to discredit my young friend—­I am proud to call him so—­my young friend, Prescott.”

For the first time, Roy was moved to speak.

“I hardly think that your workmen were responsible, Mr. Mortlake,” he said slowly and distinctly.

“You do not?  Who, then?”

“I don’t know, yet, but I shall, you can depend upon that.”

“Really?  How very clever we are.  Smart as a steel trap, hey?” grated out old Harding, rubbing his hands.  “Smart as a steel trap, with teeth that bite and hold, hey, hey, hey?”

“Instead of wasting time here, I propose that we at once go to the house in which Roy was confined, and see if we can catch the rascals implicated in this,” said Lieut.  Bradbury.  “Can you guide us, my boy?”

“I think so, sir.  It’s not more than half an hour’s tramp from here,” said Roy.  “Let’s be off at once, otherwise they may escape us.”

“Ridiculous, in my opinion,” said Mortlake decisively.  “Depend upon it, those ruffians have found out by now how cleverly the boy escaped them, and have decamped.  We had much better get back to town and notify the police.”

“I beg your pardon, but I differ from your opinion,” said the naval officer, looking at the other sharply.  “Of course, if you don’t want to go——­”