"Take your belongings ashore, sir, and report back at camp immediately," was the startling response, delivered in the form of an order by Major Herman Dodley, who was now on the staff of the commanding general. "I have a boat in waiting. If you are ready within two minutes I will set you ashore. Otherwise you will suffer the consequences of your own delay," added the Major, who, while on duty at Port Tampa, had received by telegraph the orders he was now carrying out. CHAPTER VIII CHARGED WITH A SECRET MISSION Having ascertained from the captain of his troop that the order brought by Major Dodley was one that must be obeyed, Ridge went below with a very heavy heart to collect his scanty possessions. As he did so his thoughts were full of bitterness. Why should any one be sent back to that hateful camp, and for what reason had he been singled out from all his fellows? It looked as though he were being disgraced, or at least chosen for some duty that would keep him from going to Cuba, which would be almost as bad. At the same time he could not imagine what he had done to incur the displeasure of his superiors. It was all a mystery, and a decidedly unpleasant one. That the order should come through Dodley, too, whom he particularly disliked, was adding insult to injury. "I'd rather swim ashore than go with that man!" he exclaimed to Rollo Van Kyp, who, full of sympathy, and genuinely distressed at the prospect of their separation, had gone below with him. Ridge had told his chum all about Dodley, whom they had discovered lounging on a breezy veranda of the great Tampa Bay hotel a few days before, so that now the latter fully comprehended his feelings. "It's a beastly shame!" cried Rollo; "or rather it's two beastly shames, and if you say so, old man, we'll just quietly chuck that Major fellow overboard, so that you can have his boat all to yourself. Then, instead of going ashore, you head down the bay for some place where you can hide until we come along and pick you up." "That's a great scheme," replied Ridge, with a sorrowful little smile, "but I am afraid it wouldn't work, and so there is nothing left for me but submission to the inevitable. I do hate to go with Dodley, though." Just here Ensign Comly appeared on the scene with his brother, whom he was bidding farewell. "I say, Comly!" cried Rollo, who knew him, "why can't you set my friend Norris here ashore? It wouldn't be much out of your way, would it?" "Not at all," answered the ensign, courteously. "And I should be pleased to accommodate any friend of yours. I must go at once, though; so, if Mr. Norris will come on deck--" "Oh, but that won't do," interrupted Van Kyp. "He must get off the ship without any one on deck seeing him." With this he explained the situation to the ensign, who readily grasped it, and said: "All right. I'll run my boat in under this sideport, and he can drop out of it if the sentry will let him pass."