The "old man," in full uniform, with a sword at his side, Lieutenant-Commander Scott, and several of the officers stood in a little group chatting, as the prisoners were brought aft. All wore side arms and what the Jackie calls "quarter-deck faces"--meaning that they looked as stern and uncompromising as flint. "I guess I'll get life," muttered Herc to himself, as he heard the stern doom, of stoppage of five days' pay and ten days in the brig, without future shore leave, pronounced on three sailors who had been found guilty of coming on duty in an intoxicated condition, at New York. "You men are to understand that the United States navy has no place for men who wilfully indulge in such practices," the captain had said, with blighting emphasis, as the men trembled before him. "Clean men, clean-living men is the material the government wants, and such as you are better out of the service. The navy is better off without you if you go on as you have been doing." Herc felt his cheeks blanch as pale as had the countenances of the guilty ones as he heard this stern speech. Next came the turns of the two men who had shared the same cell with him. "Carl Schultz, ordinary seaman, and Silas Wagg, ordinary seaman," read the captain's yeoman who acted as a sort of "clerk of the court." "What's the offense?" asked the captain. "Overstaying their shore leave four hours, sir," was the rejoinder. "Any previous bad record?" "No, sir. I have found none," volunteered the master-at-arms. "Men," said the captain, in the same icy tones as he had used toward the three intemperate prisoners, "you are guilty of a serious offense. In the navy regularity should be a watchword with all of us. It may seem to you that to overstay your leave by four hours was but a small matter, and that you yourselves would not be missed among eight hundred or more men. Yet every one of the crew and each of your forty-two officers has a niche of his own to fill. We are all cogs in the same great machine, servants working for the good of the same government. "If any one of us is derelict in his duty, he is not only derelict to himself and to his officers, but to his country and his flag. Always bear that in mind. As this is your first offense, and your officers tell me you are hard-working men and good seamen, I shall dismiss you with a reprimand. But mind," he added sternly, "if either of you is brought before me again I shall not prove so lenient. Carry on." With grateful faces, the two men hastened off forward. How Herc longed to tell of what he had heard in the cell! But he dreaded to make himself appear ridiculous by reciting what might seem an improbable story, cooked up by one who already rested under a cloud, so he said nothing.