“I believe Syd is right,” he said half aloud; “this close application to work has gotten on my nerves. I take things too seriously. I hear a noise in the turret, and the ship being a regular sounding-board, it may have come from anywhere. Then why should I take for granted it came from the handling room? And then I find a small gold locket which I at once take as a sure sign that I am right in my conjecture.” Then his thoughts became more serious. “But if it was in the handling room, it shows that some one was there who had no business there, because when I called he did not answer. Could any one wish to injure the turret gear? Had Lazar an enemy?” For hours that night he lay awake revolving in his mind all the possible phases of the incident and at last dropped into a troubled sleep. Awakening the next morning he was in a state of mental depression. An overpowering desire to open the locket came to him which he could not refuse. He took it out of his bureau drawer and forced the tiny thing open. A girl’s face looked out at him. He studied it carefully, then closed the locket and threw it back into the drawer with a gesture of disappointment. “I wonder what I expected to find there,” he said with a sarcastic smile. “My nerves are in about the same condition as those of a man before his first battle. I shall certainly be happy when it’s over.” “Mr. Lazar is in the turret, sir,” announced O’Neil, putting his head in the midshipman’s mess room, while Phil was eating his breakfast, “and he’d like to see you.” “We are to fire as soon as the umpires arrive, Mr. Perry,” Lazar informed him as the midshipman crawled down through the scuttle and stood by his side between the two big guns. Phil wavered in his inclination to inform his division officer of the incident of the day before. “The umpires are here, sir, and the captain says you will fire first. Let him know when you are ready to go on the range,” reported the orderly, from the turret top. Phil found himself at his station in the handling room. The mystery was still a secret. All thoughts of the affair were quickly forgotten. His mind was now on the work of supplying ammunition from the magazines and shell rooms as fast as the two metal tubes above could hurl it at the target. The shell rooms were opened and the big shells were brought out on the overhead tracks ready to be placed on the ammunition cars, then to be hoisted to the turret fifty feet above. The magazine doors were closed, but the hinged metal flaps were undogged and men stood ready to enter the powder magazines and pass the charges of powder through these fire-proof flaps to those in the handling room, then to be placed with the shell on the car. Standing surrounded by his twenty-four men, Phil waited the order from Lazar to load the cars. “Mr. Perry,” Lazar’s voice came down the flexible speaking-tube. “Aye, aye, sir,” Phil answered back. “Are you ready?” “All ready, sir,” shouted Phil. “Load!”