your first lieutenant?"

"Ensign Gordon Fillbrook," replied Corny promptly.

This was a correct answer, and Christy saw that his cousin had fully
armed himself for his daring scheme, whatever it was.

"Your second lieutenant?"

"Ensign Frederick Jones," answered Corny, with some hesitation.

"Now will you inform me, Mr. Passford, who your officers were?" The
commander pointed at Christy. "Your executive officer?"

"My cousin gave his name and rank correctly."

"And the second lieutenant?"

"Ensign Philip Bangs."

"Here you differ. Did you make a report of your voyage home, Lieutenant
Passford?" continued the captain, pointing at Corny.

"I did, sir; for we captured a privateer on the voyage," answered Corny.

"Did you keep a copy of that report?"

"I did, captain; I keep copies of all my reports. I have them in my
valise," answered he of the South in a matter-of-fact manner.

Christy laughed in spite of the importance of the investigation at the
coolness and self-possession of his cousin; but he could not understand
how Corny would be able to produce a copy of his report, which was in
his valise with several such papers.

"I must trouble you to produce it, Lieutenant Passford," added the
commander.

"Perhaps I ought to say in the beginning that it is not in my own
handwriting, for after I had written it, Mr. Jones copied it for me,"
Corny explained, and, perhaps, thought he might be called upon to give a
specimen of his chirography.

"That is immaterial," added Captain Battleton, as Corny left the cabin
to procure the document. "Have you a copy of your report, Lieutenant
Passford?" He pointed to Christy.

"I have, captain; and it is in my own handwriting," replied the officer
addressed.

"Produce it, if you please."

He had placed his valise in the gangway, and he had not far to go to
procure the report, his first draft of the document, which he had
revised and copied at Bonnydale.

"I don't think we are getting ahead at all, Mr. Salisbury," said the
captain, while the cousins were looking for their reports.

"I confess that I am as much in the dark as I was in the beginning,"
replied the executive officer.

"I can make nothing of it," added the surgeon. "It looks to me as though
the commission alone would have to settle this matter."

"I don't see how I can go behind the official documents," replied the
commander as Corny presented himself at the door.

A minute later Christy appeared wit