CHAPTER III.

A TERRIFIC EXPLOSION IN THE NIGHT.

Matt Randolph looked at the name of the club, as Spickles had written it, and spelled it out so that all his crew could hear him. All of them seemed to "take it in," or got its meaning from his boatmates. They all laughed, with the exception of the coxswain, and he was inclined to frown.

"It is easy to get at the meaning of such Greek as that, even if a fellow has not fitted for college; and for my part, I should not care to join a club with such a name," said he, with a look of disgust on his face, which was also evident in his tones.

"I expected you to join us as soon as we found you, Matt," added the captain of the schooner.

"You reckoned without your host, then.--Ready to give way!" said the coxswain.

"Hold on a minute, Matt! Do you go to Sunday school now?" jeered Spickles.

"Every Sunday."

"I am sorry for you. You are under the thumb of that old hunker who calls himself the principal, and you don't know enough to catch the straw when you are drowning. I gave the old hunks some!"

"And he took you by the collar, and put you into your boat, and served you right. Give way!" added Matt.

"He's an old squalipop; and he will be likely to hear from me again! He is no gentleman, and he treated me like an uneducated owl. I shall pay him off for it, or my name is something besides Spickles," foamed the skipper of the La Motte.

At this moment, and while the barge was backing away, one of the party brought out a tray, on which were tall glasses filled with beer; and each member of the Nautifelers Club took one of them.

"Here's to the Nautifelers Club! Lots of fun to them, and confusion to old Squalipop!" shouted Spickles, at the top of his lungs, as he and his companions drank off the contents of the glasses.

The barge darted away from the schooner, and was soon out of hail of her. It was evident that the members of the club with the Greek name had bargained for an extensive frolic of the coarsest sort, and most of the crew of the Winooski were simply disgusted with the members of it. Some of them had come from the city, and were more or less familiar with such sights.

"I should rather like to join that club," said Tom Topover, when the boat was some distance from the La Motte.

"You are not one of that sort of fellows now, Tom," added the coxswain. "You have got beyond that kind of a life, and I hope you are strong enough to keep above it."

"You know how to preach, Matt; but I don't want to sit under your preaching. Those fellows are going to have a good time; and I think they will enjoy it," added Tom pleasantly, as some of his old temptations came back to him. "Do you know those fellows, Matt?"

"I know Spickles; but I never saw the others before, though I think they behave like gentlemen compared with their leader."

"He is a jolly fellow," added Tom.

"Spickles's father was formerly a wealthy man in the city, and his son stole a thousand dollars from him. Since that I have kept out of his way, and I will not associate with him."

"What did he do with the money? Give it to the missionaries?" asked Tom; and his companions noticed that he talked a good deal worse than he meant sometimes, and could not entirely rid himself of his former ways of expressing himself.

"He took a steamer to New Orleans, and spent his stolen money in dissipation. When it was all gone, he had to come home before the mast in a bark. He is a bad boy, and his father could not manage him. If he had been sent to the Beech Hill School, it would have made a man of him. I don't quite understand, though I can guess, how he can take such a trip as the one he is now making; for his father lost his money, failed, and is now at work as a clerk."

"Perhaps some of the other fellows have rich fathers," suggested Ash Burton.

"It may be so, but I don't believe it. The sons of rich fathers, when they want to go on a frolic, don't make such a fellow as Michael Angelo Spickles their leader," added Matt.

"Is that his name?" asked Ash.

"They say his mother don't like the name of Spickles, and gave him a high-sounding handle to it to smooth it off. I don't know any thing about it, Tom Topover; but if I were a betting man, I would wager two to one that Spickles stole the money which is used to pay the expenses of the La Motte," continued Matt impressively.

"Then, again, perhaps he didn't," replied Tom.

"I think he did; and he didn't steal it from his father this time, for Mr. Spickles did not have it. Now, Tom, whether he stole this money, or not, he will certainly come to grief. In a month, a year, or ten years, when you see him in the State prison, you will be glad you were not a member of the Nautifelers Club," said Matt, as he consulted the paper in his hand to recall the Greek word.

"You don't know what is going to become of that fellow any more than you know what is going to become of me," added Tom.

"Certainly I don't know; but when you see a young fellow like Spickles, drinking, dissipating, insulting a gentleman like Captain Gildrock, it is easy enough to see where he is coming out. I used to drink beer with Angy, as we used to call Spickles when he was a more decent fellow than he is now, and I know something about it."

"Didn't you like it?" asked Tom.

"I can't say that I did: it always gave me the headache, and made me feel more like a fool than I generally do. I used to drink it because other fellows did. When I came up here, I did not want it; and I have been a great deal better without it."

The Winooski went to the other side of the lake, where the coxswain proceeded to train his crew for the work before him. Not a word was spoken that did not relate to the practice, which was kept up till nearly dark, when the barge returned to Beech Hill. As the boat approached the mouth of the river, the La Motte was seen two or three miles to the northward, standing down the lake. Matt hoped that she would not again visit the waters in the vicinity of Beech Hill.

Matt reported to the principal when the boat had been housed, as all who were in charge of expeditions, excursions, or business trips, were required to do. He informed the captain of the departure of the La Motte, and related to him what had taken place during the interview, giving him the name of the club, as written on the paper.

"The Nautifelers Club is well named, if the word is Greek," said Captain Gildrock. "I suppose they are merely engaged in a frolic, and I only hope they will keep away from this part of the lake."

"They came from the northern part of the lake, for they chartered the schooner at Rouse's Point; and I don't exactly understand why they are going off in that direction again," suggested Matt. "They have not yet been to the upper part of the lake, and it looks as though they did not intend to do so."

"Perhaps they have drunk so much beer they don't know what they are about," added the principal. "I should say that Spickles was a bright boy, and it is a thousand pities that he is plunging into excesses."

At the usual hour all was still; and the students, who had had plenty of exercise in the boats as well as in the shops, slept soundly in their rooms. Insomnia was unknown at the institution, and all were active and bright in the morning at an early hour.

Some of them awoke at an unusually early hour the next morning, though it soon appeared that the current of events was not flowing in its ordinary channel. The students and others had been awakened by some extraordinary disturbance, or most of them would have slept till the morning-bell roused them from their slumbers.

As nearly at three o'clock as the hour could afterwards be fixed, a tremendous explosion, with a sound which equalled the report of one of the yacht-guns on board of the Sylph, shook the buildings of the school, and made the windows of the dormitory rattle as though a hurricane had struck them. The very earth seemed to tremble under the effects of the convulsion.

Suddenly startled from their slumbers, those who heard the sound, and had been shaken in their beds by it, were unable to determine where the report came from, or to form any idea of what had caused it. Perhaps half the students in their rooms leaped from their beds, and the other half were partially paralyzed where they lay by the shock.

Doubtless, if they had been awake, and had understood the cause of the explosion, they would have enjoyed it; for the average boy delights in a terrific noise. But they were literally and figuratively in the dark. They could see nothing to explain the tremendous racket which had startled them from their deep sleep, and not a sound followed the shock to give them a clew to the strange event.

Some thought it must be an earthquake; others that it was a crash of thunder which attended the striking of the lightning at some point not far from them. Possibly some of them thought that a daring rogue of the school was playing off a trick upon his companions; and more wondered if one of the chimneys on the dormitory had not fallen over, and crushed in the roof of the building.

It might be an earthquake, for there was no smell of powder, no lightning in the sky; and no one was stirring in the building, as would have been the case if the roof had been crushed. In fact, not even the most intelligent and quick-witted of the students could assign any cause to the event. They stood in their rooms, or lay in their beds, thinking of it for a few moments, waiting for something else to come, some after-clap, which would throw a ray of light on the subject. Nothing came.

Some of the boldest and most energetic of the boys began to put on a portion of their clothes, and unfastened their doors. As may well be supposed, Dory Dornwood was one of the first to come out of the stupor produced by the shock. He had not been awake more than five seconds, before he had jumped inside of his pants, and opened the door of his room.

He looked out into the long hall, but it was as dark as Egypt there; and there was no glare of a fire in the building,--not a flash, not a sound of any kind. He went back into his room, and opened the window. He looked out on the lawn, but there was nothing in motion there. No key to the enigma was within his reach.

But by this time, he heard a sound in the hall. He went to the door, but it was too dark to see any thing. Some conspiracy on the part of a few restless students might have been brought to a focus at this time, and he deemed it prudent to light his lamp before he took any step. If there was any thing to be seen, he wanted to see it.

If any conspirators were trying to knock down the dormitory, or perpetrate a practical joke, he had a desire to know who they were; for all such tricks were at a discount in the school. The principal had no mercy for a practical joker when the feelings or the person of any individual was imperilled by the so-called fun.

There was some one in the hall, beyond a doubt. It might be one of the students, roused, like himself, by the explosion; or it might be an evil-doer from outside of the fold. Dory opened the door again, and thrust the lamp out into the hall, so as to light every part of it.

The person in the hall proved to be Matt Randolph.