budding young naval officers fairly bent to their work, tautening and
loosening on the blanket until their muscles fairly ached.

It was lofty aerial work that Eph Somers was doing. Up and up--higher
and higher! Without the need of any effort on his own part young
Somers was now traveling upward at the rate of ten or eleven feet at
every punctuated bound.

Then, suddenly, there came a sound that chilled the blood of every young
cadet midshipman hazer present.

"_Halt!_ Where you are!"

Under the shadow of the barracks building a naval officer had appeared.
He now came forward, a frown on his face, eyeing the culprits.

It is no merry jest for cadet midshipmen to be caught at hazing! And
here were some thirty of them--red-handed!

CHAPTER XII

JACK, BENSON, EXPERT EXPLAINER

At the first word of command from the officer several of the cadet
midshipmen who were near enough to an open doorway vanished through it.

As the officer strode through the group of startled young men a few
more, left behind his back, made a silent disappearance.

There were left, however, as the officer looked about him, sixteen of
the young men, all too plainly headed and led by Cadet Midshipman
Merriam.

"Young gentlemen," said the officer, severely, "I regret to find so many
of you engaged in hazing. It is doubly bad when your victims are men
outside the corps. And, if I mistake not, these young gentlemen are
here as temporary civilian instructors in submarine work."

Mr. Merriam and his comrades made no reply in words. Nor did their
faces express much. They stood at attention, looking stolidly ahead
of them, though their faces were turned toward the officer. It was
not the place of any of them to speak unless the officer asked questions.

Severe as the hazing had been, however, Jack and Hal, at least, had
taken it all in good part. Nor was Jack bound by any of the rules of
etiquette that prevented the cadets from speaking.

"May I offer a word, sir?" asked Jack, wheeling upon the officer.

"You were one of the victims of a hazing, were you not?" demanded
the officer, regarding Jack, keenly.

"Why, could you call it that, sir?" asked Jack, a look of innocent
surprise settling on his face. "We called it a demonstration--an
explanation."

"Demonstration? Explanation?" repeated the officer, astonished in his
turn. "What do you mean, Mr.--er--"

"Benson," Jack supplied, quietly.

"I think you would bette