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. He felt that his command was questioned by the sailors.

As the boy gloomily dispatched his own supper, his ear caught a faint persistent tapping on the iron wall which faced the mate's cabin. At first he paid no attention to it, assuming it was the contraction of the iron in the cooling temperature of the oncoming night that made the popping. But as he ate it was at last borne in that these taps came in the irregular but orderly sequence of a telegraphic code.

With this thought in mind, he listened attentively. In his work as engineer he had had occasion to study up Morse in heliographing.

It proved one of the most senseless messages the boy had ever translated:

“Tiny arm, men plan mu.” Then it was repeated, “Tiny arm, men plan mu.” This odd sentence was retapped four or five times and at last ceased. It was perhaps some beginner learning the code, but who in that crew could be working out the telegraphic code? Leonard thought over the men, one by one, but struck nobody who appealed to him as an incipient telegrapher.