“No, sir.”

“You are fully aware of what you have answered?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good.”

That was all.  A midshipman’s word must be taken, for he is a gentleman—–­that is to say, a man of honor.

“Mr. Dalzell!”

Poor Dan stirred uneasily.

“Mr. Dalzell!” This time the Naval officer’s voice was sharper.

Dan acted as though he were waking with difficulty.  He had no intention, in the face of a direct question, of denying that he had been absent without leave.  But he moved thus slowly, hoping desperately that the few seconds of time thus rained would be sufficient to bring to him some inspiration that might save him.

“Mr Dalzell, come to attention!”

Dan stood up, the personification of drowsiness, saluted, then let his right hand fall at his side and stood blinking, bracing for them correct military attitude.

“It’s too bad to disturb the boy!” thought Lieutenant Adams.  “Surely, this young man hasn’t been anywhere but in bed since taps.”

None the less the Naval officer, as a part of his duty, put the question: 

“Mr. Dalzell, have you, since taps, been out of this room?  Did you return, let us say, by the route of the open window from the terrace?”

Midshipman Dalzell stiffened.  He didn’t intend to betray his own honor by denying, yet he hated to let out the admission that would damage him so much.

Bang!  It was an explosion like a crashing pistol shot, and it sounded from the corridor outside.

There could be no such thing as an assault at arms in guarded Bancroft Hall.  The first thought that flashed, excitedly, through Lieutenant Adams’s mind was that perhaps the real delinquent guilty of the night’s escapade had just shot himself.  It was a wild guess, but a pistol shot sometimes starts a wilder guess.

Out into the corridor darted Lieutenant Adams.  He did not immediately return to the room, so Dave Darrin, with rare and desperate presence of mind, closed the door.

“Get back into the meadow grass, Danny boy,” Darrin whispered, giving his friend’s arm a hard grip.  “If the ‘loot’nant’ comes back, get up fearfully drowsy when he orders you.  Gape and look too stupid to apologize!”

Lieutenant Adams, however, had other matters to occupy his attention.  There was a genuine puzzle for him in the corridor.  Just out, side the door of Midshipmen Farley and Page there lay on the floor tiny glass fragments of what had been an efficient sixty-candle-power tungsten electric bulb.  It was one of the lights that illuminated the corridor.

Now one of these tungsten bulbs, when struck smartly, explodes with a report like that of a pistol.

At this hour of the night, however, there were none passing save Naval officers on duty.  None other than the lieutenant himself had lately passed in the corridor.  How, then, had this electric light bulb been shattered and made to give forth the sound of the explosion?