"I don't know whether we care to hear any story," observed "Hay." "Better keep it until later, 'Stump.' The night's too wonderful to do anything except lounge around and think. Whew! isn't it dark?" "This story I was going to tell you requires a setting like this," replied "Stump." "It is about a ship that started from England years and years ago. She had as passengers a lot of lunatics who were to be experimented upon by a doctor about as crazy as they. He bought the ship, fitted it up with a number of little iron cages, and set forth with his queer cargo. Ten days out, the lunatics broke from their quarters and captured the vessel. One of them, who had been a sea captain in his time, took charge, and proceeded to carry out a little idea of his own, which was to make sane people crazy." "That was turning the tables with a vengeance," drawled "Dye," from his perch on an upturned pail. "I wonder if he was any relation to 'Cutlets'?" "A lineal ancestor, I'll bet a biscuit," chimed in "Hay." "Don't you remember the quotation, 'By these acts you will know their forefathers,' or something like that?" "Well," resumed "Stump," "the crazy captain put the doctor and the crew in the cages and began to feed them hardtack and berth-deck scouse and salt-horse and--" [Illustration: THE SEARCHLIGHT "SWEEPING BACK AND FORTH ACROSS THE BLACK OF THE HORIZON"] "Must have been a Government naval contractor in his time," murmured "Morrie." "I bet I know the rest," exclaimed the "Kid," coming up in time to grasp the situation. "The captain set his prisoners to carrying coal from the after hold forward and then back again, didn't he?" "If you fellows think you can tell the story better than I can, go ahead," retorted "Stump," in disgust. "You are like a lot of old maids at a sewing circle. I give--" "What was that?" suddenly cried "Hay," springing to his feet. "If it wasn't a flash of light I'll eat my--" A figure hastily emerged from the gloom aft. "Go to your stations at once, you men," called out a voice. "General quarters!" As we scurried toward the hatch a great shaft of light appeared off the port beam, and began sweeping back and forth across the black of the horizon. "Good heavens!" exclaimed "Hay," "it's a searchlight on some man-of-war. We're in for it now!" CHAPTER XIII. A NARROW ESCAPE. The finger of light sweeping the heavens above the distant horizon meant to us the presence either of friend or foe, and the question was one we had little desire to solve at that moment. Rumors of Spanish warships lurking in the waters adjacent to Cuba were rife, and it had even been stated that another squadron inferior only to Cervera's fleet was somewhere in the neighborhood.