Page:Cruise of the Jasper B (1916).djvu/312

 ton that released the spring. The black entrance of a subterranean passage yawned before him.

He stared in astonishment. The three detectives were pointing at the tunnel with plump forefingers and bland, triumphant smiles.

"Nothing is impossible, my dear Cleggett," said Barnstable. "The tunnel had to be there!"

"It explains everything," said Cleggett. "But a tunnel into my ship!"

And, in truth, for a moment he felt disappointed in the Jasper B. A tunnel is all very well leading from the basement of a house, or extending backward from a cave; but Cleggett felt that it was scarcely a dignified sort of arrangement, nautically speaking, for a ship to have leading from its hold.

It seemed, somehow, to stamp the Jasper B. indelibly as a thing of the land rather than as the gallant creature of piping winds and following seas. Could the Jasper B., a bone in her teeth and her tackle humming, ever again sail through Cleggett's dreams? For a moment, if the worst must be known, he was almost disgusted with the Jasper B., considered as a ship. For a moment he was willing to believe that Cap'n Abernethy was nothing but a Long Island truck farmer, and not of a seafaring