"It seems ridiculous," stated the commander of the _Kennebunk_. "And yet we must not refuse to believe that the secret agents of Germany are at work in the most impossible places. If they could sink this great, new vessel in mid-ocean! Mr. Smith," to his first lieutenant, "have that part of the ship searched. Find out what causes the sound which has been heard before you make your report. We'll investigate this matter to the very bottom."

CHAPTER XXIV

TICK-TOCK! TICK-TOCK!

The superdreadnaught was so huge a ship, and the divisions of the crew were so busily engaged in drills and other work, that few, indeed, knew that the "ghost of the _Kennebunk_" was being investigated by the officers.

The ship was storming along her course through the sea at a pace which fairly made her structure shake. Had one been able to be out upon the sea on another ship and watch her pa.s.s, her speed would have been impressive, indeed.

Routine work went on, and the bulk of the ship's company knew nothing about that little party of searchers at work deep down in the ship.

Whistler was one of those a.s.signed to find the cause of the "tick-tock"

noise, and it was he who finally suggested the spot where the mechanism which caused the sound might be found.

The party had searched the lumber room and the compartments on both sides, that above, and the one directly beneath the room in question.

Nothing was discovered save that the sound seemed clearer in the lumber room than elsewhere.

Overhauling the stuff stowed there did no good. They seemed no nearer to the sound. And as the latter was not continuous it was the more puzzling.

"Don't you think we ought to open that chest, sir?" asked Whistler of the warrant officer who had immediate charge of the work.

"It doesn't seem to come from that box," objected the man.

"It doesn't seem to come from anywhere exactly," Whistler said. "It is sort of ventriloquial. One time it seems to be from one direction, then from another. But that chest hasn't been open----"

"Whose is it?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Who does know?" the warrant officer asked.

But n.o.body seemed able to answer that query. The searchers gathered about the chest that had been pulled out of the heap of rubbish. It was ironbound and made of heavy planking.

"It gets me!" murmured the officer.

Just then the sound started again: "Tick-_tock_! Tick-_tock_!

Tick-_tock_!"

"It don't come from that box!" declared one man.

Whistler stooped and put his hand on the cover. "Wait!" he said suddenly. "Just feel this, sir."

"What do you feel?"

"There is vibration here. And it isn't the vibration of the ship's engines, either."

The warrant officer rested his hand upon the chest. He looked more puzzled than ever.

"Get something and break the lock!" he commanded.

"Wait a minute, sir!" cried Whistler. "If there should be some infernal machine in that box we must take care in opening it. Maybe the carpenter can pick the lock."

"Good idea," agreed the officer.

The carpenter's mate was sent for. He came with a bunch of spare keys and a pick-lock. The latter had to be used skilfully before the lock of the chest was sprung.

Then the warrant officer suddenly experienced an accession of caution.

He refused to have the cover of the chest lifted until the chest itself was carried carefully out upon the open deck.

No sound came from the chest now, if that had been the locality of the tick-tock noise. The vibration could be felt just the same.

The men were ordered to stand back and the warrant officer courageously lifted the lid of the chest. Nothing happened.

There was an empty tray in the top of the odd chest. That, too, was cautiously lifted out.

There came suddenly a faint buzzing from the interior that startled everybody near. Then followed the ticking sound, which lasted at least a full minute.

The warrant officer jerked away a layer of pasteboard that hid what was under the tray. Several grim cylinders lay side by side in the chest's bottom. They were connected by wires with a mechanism that hummed like the purring of a well-piled motor.

"Clockwork!" exclaimed the carpenter's mate, bending over the chest.

"That's what she is. Ah! It reverses itself. See that spring--winding tighter and tighter? Why, it's almost perpetual motion! Some inventor that fellow!"

"What fellow?" growled the warrant officer.

"Whoever built this."

"Can you stop it without exploding those cylinders?"

"Great Scott! Do you s'pose that's dynamite under there?"

"Or T N T."

The petty officer thrust an iron bar suddenly into the heart of the complicated machine. Something snapped. The mechanism stopped.

"Great heavens, man!" gasped the warrant officer, "suppose you had set it off?"

"No. Couldn't be done till the spring here was wound up to the top-notch. This machine was arranged to run for weeks. Some ingenious arrangement, take it from me!"

The discovery and destruction of the infernal machine, and a big one at that, relieved the tension of feeling aboard the warship. As Frenchy Donahue remarked:

"It's bad enough to have a banshee _tick-tocking_ around the place; but that tidy little bunch of cylinders would have made a lot more noise if they had been exploded."

But the matter was serious. The captain took the opportunity to lecture the entire ship's company regarding foolish rumors and gossip.

"If there is anything strange comes under your notice, report it properly," he said. "Don't camouflage it with a lot of superst.i.tious nonsense so that the officer you report to must disbelieve the yarn.

There never was a strange occurrence yet that could not be explained."