It was the medical officer who actually spilled the story of Red’s heroic act, in dragging Don from the sinking seaplane. The stocky lieutenant himself would never have let the real facts be known. He hated to be made a hero. As it was, he could only shake his head and scowl while the ship’s doctor heaped praises upon him.

The doctor didn’t leave anything out. He had been in the boat which put off to the seaplane from the Gatoon, and he’d seen about all there was to see.

He described how Red had thrown off his life belt and dived under the sinking plane. He told how helpless the boat’s crew felt, when they got there and found neither Red nor Don.

Two of the sailors had kicked off their shoes, ready to dive in after the missing officers, when suddenly the lieutenant’s red head broke surface. He was gasping for breath, and the commander was completely out when they were pulled aboard.

In the excitement, said the medical officer, the Scorpion pilot, floating unconscious in his life belt, was almost forgotten. Now, everybody aboard ship was saying that Lieutenant Pennington rated a gold medal, and....

“Red, you old porpoise!” broke in Don Winslow, sitting bolt upright. “Give me your flipper, and stop making faces like a seasick 'boot’! I’ll get square with you some day by saying your life—don’t worry!”

Red met his commander’s handclasp with a crushing grip, his embarrassment suddenly gone. He knew that Don would never try to thank him outright, or praise him in words for an act of simple loyalty. Their friendship went too deep for that sort of thing.

“And now, Doc,” said Don, “I’m going to jump into a uniform and go out on deck. I see we’re under way again; and I want to talk with Captain Riggs about safeguarding the ship between here and Port-au-Prince. Probably there’ll be no second attack, but it’s better to be prepared.”

The medical officer protested. He said Don had suffered a slight concussion, along with a scalp wound. He warned that moving about could bring on a fever. But he might as well have talked to the ship’s mainmast.

Don was hurrying into his clothes even before the doctor had finished speaking. He was feeling better every minute, he declared, and he wasn’t going to stay below for a mere bump on the head!

As he spoke there came a knock on the door. It was Lieutenant Darnley with a queer piece of news. The prisoner Corba had been asking urgently for Commander Winslow and he refused to say why. Lieutenant Darnley thought that if the commander were well enough....

“I’ll be with you in two shakes, Lieutenant,” Don assured the Gatoon’s executive officer. “That lad Corba knows a lot more than he has told us yet. If he’s ready to spill something interesting, I’ll be glad to listen.”

There were only two roomy cells in the Gatoon’s brig. With the rescued crews of the Scorpion airplanes, they were crowded to capacity. Corba and Mink shared their cell with the pilot of the seaplane who had recovered consciousness.

Don, standing before the cell door with Red and the other two officers, noted the pilot’s makeshift head bandage.

“You’ll have to tend that man’s wound right away, Doctor!” the young commander said sharply. “He’s an enemy, in the service of a criminal chief, but he’s a human being all the same.... Master-at-arms! Bring that prisoner along with Corba, now!”

A moment later, both prisoners were led out, handcuffed. The doctor took the wounded man under guard to the sick bay while Don moved off out of earshot with the shifty-eyed Corba.

Red, glancing down the forecastle, caught the look of amazed interest on Don Winslow’s face.

“That guy Corba must be giving him some potent dope!” he remarked in an undertone. “I’d give a lot to know what he’s saying!”

“You’re right, Pennington,” Lieutenant Darnley agreed. “Commander Winslow isn’t excited easily, I’ve noticed, but he’s sure getting that way now. Looks as if Corba was shooting the works!”

Don Winslow’s air of mystery, as he returned with Corba, did nothing to allay Red’s curiosity. Even when the Scorpion agent had been returned to his cell, and Lieutenant Darnley had answered a call to the Gatoon’s bridge, the young commander refused to answer questions.

“Come along to the sick bay,” he told the red-haired lieutenant. “We’ll see how sawbones is progressing with his latest patient.”

When the two officers entered that portion of the Gatoon’s sick bay which served as an operating room, the handcuffed pilot was sitting in a chair under a strong electric light. A portion of his scalp had been shaved, and the medical officer was sterilizing the raw furrow left by a glancing bullet. One of the slugs which had pierced the seaplane’s cabin had nearly snuffed out the Scorpion flyer’s life.

It was the first chance either Don or Red had had to examine their captive’s features. Strangely enough, they were not those of a criminal. If it had not been for the man’s wildly staring eyes and look of pained bewilderment, they would have been almost handsome.

There was something hauntingly familiar, too, about the man’s face and build. Studying them, Red decided he had seen the fellow—or his double—somewhere, and not so long ago!

If Don Winslow had the same notion, he didn’t mention it. He waited until the doctor had finished work. Only when the armed boatswain’s mate stepped forward to take the prisoner back, Don stopped him.

“Leave the patient here, and give me the key to his handcuffs!” he told the surprised guard. “I’ll be responsible for him. You may return to your post outside the brig.”

With a puzzled “Aye-aye, sir!” the guard departed. Don closed the door and turned to the prisoner.

“Who are you?” he asked bluntly, looking the man square in the eye.

“AndrÉ, Count Borg,” the fellow replied mechanically. “I am a licensed pilot and a native of Listonia....”

“Snap out of it, man!” barked Don Winslow, stepping closer. “Do you know what you’ve got on your wrists? Take a good look!”

Dazedly Borg’s eyes dropped to the steel handcuffs, as if seeing them for the first time. With a harsh cry he leaped to his feet, his lips drawn back in a snarl of fury.

“What does this mean?” he shouted, wrenching at the clanking chain. “You dare to handcuff me like a common criminal? What right have you to confine me?”

“Sit down!” thundered Don Winslow, forcing the man back into his chair. “You are under arrest, Count Borg, in connection with a plot to destroy the United States Navy gunboat Gatoon. Following the orders of your criminal chief, the Scorpion, you picked up two men in life belts—”

“But, Don!” burst in Red Pennington. “The guy knows all that. Why not get down to brass tacks and make him tell something worth while—for instance, where the Scorpion has his headquarters?”

A wild laugh from the prisoner interrupted at this point. Pounding his manacled hands against his knees, the man who called himself Count Borg rocked back and forth in hysterical mirth.

“Mad! Mad!” he choked. “We are all mad and locked up in the crazyhouse! One talks about scorpions and life belts; another raves about brass tacks! But nobody tells me how I got here, and I—I cannot remember....”

With a groan the fellow raised his hands to his temples. Shifting from clear, unaccented English, he began muttering to himself in some harsh, foreign tongue.

The medical officer reached for a hypodermic needle, but Don Winslow seized his arm.

“Get him a glass of cold water, Doc,” the young commander advised. “This man isn’t crazy. He just thinks he’s nuts, because....”

Pulling the doctor over to the sink, Don whispered rapidly in the other’s ear. Their conference lasted two or three minutes, long enough to get the goat of Lieutenant Red Pennington, who was about fed up on being a mystified onlooker.

When the doctor returned with the water, his manner was briskly professional.

“Tell me, Count Borg,” he said, “just what is the last thing you remember doing, before you woke up in the brig half an hour ago? If there has been some mistake in your identity your answer will clear the matter up.”

The wild look on the prisoner’s face was now gone. In its place was a puzzled frown, and his whole manner had quieted.

“There certainly has been a mistake, gentlemen,” he replied. “But to answer your question—the last thing I recall is walking up Cherry Street toward Brooklyn Bridge, about half past one last night. I remember hearing stealthy footsteps behind me, coming closer. After that, everything is a blank!”

There was a queer silence following Borg’s words. Finally, the medical officer broke it after meeting Don’s glance.

“And what,” he asked in a strained voice, “would you say the date was yesterday? I mean, the day of the month and the year?”

“Why—er,” responded the prisoner slowly, “April fourteenth, nineteen thirty-three. Am I right?”

“Wrong, by seven years, my friend!” Don returned, stooping to unlock the handcuffs. “Your memory has done another blackout, Count Borg! The first one was when a thug knocked you out on Cherry Street, New York, in nineteen thirty-three. The last one happened this morning when you were wounded in the head by a machine gun bullet. Since you’ve evidently forgotten your whole life between those dates, there’s no reason for treating you now as a dangerous criminal.”