“Come, old fellow,” coaxed the bearded one, “you’ll do best to join your friend in a good nap.  Get up in the berth.”

“Lemme alone,” protested the boy, thickly, feeling that he was being lifted.  Jack struggled, partly rousing himself.

“Come, get up into the berth.  You’ll be more comfortable there.”

“Lemme alone.  What are you trying to do?” demanded Jack, swinging an arm.

Curtis dodged the light blow, then gripped Jack Benson resolutely.  “Now, see here, young man,” hissed the bearded one, “I’m not going to have any more nonsense out of you.  Up into the berth you go!  Do you want me to hit you?”

Another man thrust his head down the cabin hatchway, showing an evil, grinning face.

“Got ’em right?” demanded the one from the hatchway.

“Yes,” snapped the bearded one, then turned to give his attention to Jack Benson, who was putting up an ineffectual fight while Hal slumbered on.  “Now, see here, Benson, quit all your fooling!”

“You lemme up,” insisted the submarine boy, in a low, chill voice, though he swung both his arms in an effort to assert himself.  “M not goin’ t’ stay here.  Lemme up, I say!  ‘M goin’ back to—­own boat.”

“The submarine?” jeered the bearded man.

“Yep.”

“Guess again, son,” laughed Curtis, jeeringly.  “You’re not going back aboard the submarine to-night.”

“Am so,” declared Benson, obstinately, though his tone was growing more drowsy every instant, and his busy hands moved almost as weakly as an infant’s.

“Listen, if you’ve got enough of your senses left,” growled the bearded men.  “You’re not going back to the ’Farnum’—­neither to-night, nor at any other time during the next few months.  You’re bound on a long cruise, but not on a submarine boat.  I am the captain here, and I’ll name the cruise!”

CHAPTER XVIII

HELD UP BY MARINES

It was barely a minute afterward that Jack Benson lapsed into a very distinct snore.

“No more trouble from this pair,” laughed the bearded one to his companion at the hatchway.  “Now, I’ll douse the cabin light, and then we’ll cast off.  This thing has moved along very slickly.”

Eph, after having made up his mind to turn in early, had found his sleepy fit passing.  He read for a while in the cabin, then pulled on a reefer and went up on deck.  Williamson was already in a berth, sound asleep.

“It would be a fine night if there was a moon,” Eph remarked to the marine sentry on deck.

“Yes, sir.”

The marine—­“soldier, and sailor, too”—­not being there for conversational purposes, continued his slow pacing, his rifle resting over his right shoulder.

As Eph strolled about in the limited space of the platform deck he heard a distant creaking.  It was a sound that he well knew—­the hoisting of sail.