A PUZZLED CAPTAIN
Amid a confusing sound of tooting whistles, the clanging of bells,
hoarse commands shouted back and forth, the _Silver Star_ made her
way through the shipping of the harbor, and pointed her nose toward
the mysterious Pacific--the ocean that held so many strange lands and
islands,--the ocean on whose broad bosom perhaps, Tom’s father and
mother were drifting helplessly about, in a wreck. Or mayhap they lay
beneath the waves.
But Tom did not dare dwell on that terrible possibility and, for the
time being, he resolutely put all thoughts of never seeing his parents
again, out of his mind.
“I’m just going to find them!” he cried bravely, though he knew he had
a hard task ahead of him.
But just now the busy scenes that were taking place, as the steamer
started off on her voyage, held his attention, and for a moment he even
forgot the mysterious passenger who had gone to his cabin in such a
hurry.
“Well, Tom, my boy!” exclaimed Captain Steerit, as he looked at our
hero, “we’ve got good clean weather to start off with, and, if I’m any
judge, it will hold for some time.”
“It isn’t so rough on the Pacific as it is on the Atlantic; is it?”
asked Tom. “At least I’ve read so, and the name----”
“Don’t get that idea into your head,” laughed the commander. “The
Pacific is peaceful in name only. Of course I don’t mean to say that it
isn’t calm a good bit of the time, at certain seasons of the year, just
as the Atlantic is. But when it wants to kick up a fuss it can make a
bigger one than that ocean you’ve got back east there.
“Yes, when we get a storm out here, we certainly get a bad one. But
I’m not looking for trouble. We’re going to point our nose into the
nicest part of the ocean, to my thinking. You’ll enjoy it, even if you
have a hard trick at the wheel ahead of you. There’ll be lots to see,
especially if you go all the way to Australia with me.”
“Well, I expect to go there,” answered Tom, “for I haven’t much hope of
sighting anything near the place where the wreckage was seen.”
“Nor I, either,” spoke the captain, “though I didn’t want to discourage
you. The drift of the current, and the wind, wouldn’t let anything stay
in one place long.”
“Then I’ll just have to go on to Sydney and start my search from
there,” ventured our hero earnestly.
“Well, yes, I suppose so, though of course there’s a bare possibility
that we may sight something on our way out.”
“What do you mean?” asked Tom quickly, a new hope springing up in his
heart.
“I mean that the _Kangaroo_, from all accounts, was coming over about
the same path in the ocean as we’ll take going out. She was to stop
at Honolulu I see by the papers, just as we are. Of course she was
wrecked--or at least we’ll suppose so--before she got there. And if we
sail over the same course we may sight her--or what’s left of her.
“Mind though!” the captain went on quickly, as he saw the look of
despair on Tom’s face, “I’m not admitting that she was wrecked. Just as
you have told me, I believe that she may have been disabled in a storm,
and part of her gear, her masts and her lifeboats, may have been swept
overboard. That has often happened. In fact it’s happened to me when I
had charge of a big sailing ship.
“But it’s possible to rig up a jury mast, make some sort of sail, and
stagger on, when by all accounts one ought to be at the bottom of the
sea. So you see it doesn’t do to give up hope.”
“And I’ll not!” cried Tom. “Oh, I do hope we can pick up the
_Kangaroo_. I’m going to keep a lookout every day.”
“Yes, you can do that,” agreed the captain. “I’ll let you take a good
glass, and I’ll also instruct the lookout to keep his eyes peeled day
and night. But it’s too soon to begin yet, so you might as well take it
as easy as you can. Say, did you notice the passenger who came aboard
in such a hurry?”
“Yes,” answered Tom, for the ship was now well on her way and there was
less of interest to hold our hero’s attention.
“Did you think he acted in any way funny?”
“Well, yes, I did,” admitted Tom. “He didn’t seem to know exactly what
to do.”
“And another thing,” went on the captain. “It seemed to me that the
sight of you scared him.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Tom, though he was aware that the captain was
eyeing him sharply. “Why should he be disturbed on account of me?”
“I can’t say, I’m sure. Did you ever see him before?”
“Not that I know of,” replied Tom. “Though when I heard his voice it
sounded like some one I’d heard before, though I couldn’t be quite
sure, and just now I couldn’t even place the voice.”
“Well, perhaps I’m mistaken,” admitted the captain. “No matter. Have
you got your stateroom in shape?”
“Yes, but I guess I can put a few finishing touches on it. I’ve been so
interested in watching our start that I haven’t been below much.”
“Well, I’m going down to get something to eat,” went on the commander
with a smile, “and if you’d like to come along I can offer you a meal,”
for he had arranged that Tom should sit at his table.
“I will!” exclaimed the lad. “This sea air makes me hungry.”
“I thought it would,” responded the commander, with a laugh. “Keep her
on this course, Mr. Merton,” he said to the first mate, who had come up
on the bridge, at a signal, to take charge of the wheel.
“I wonder if I ought to knock on his door and ask him if he’s hungry?”
spoke the captain, half aloud, as he and Tom went below.
“Who?” inquired our hero, though the question was not exactly addressed
to him.
“That passenger I was speaking of--Mr. Pierson Trendell his name
is--the one who came on board late. He was recommended to my care by a
friend of one of the owners of this steamer, though I don’t know him
personally. He’s going to Honolulu for his health I understand. Guess
I’ll have to be decent to him, though I didn’t take much of a notion
to him, and I don’t like anyone who can’t arrive on time.
“But I’ll take a chance, and ask him to come with us and have a little
lunch. As you say, this sea air does give one an appetite.”
They were on the berth deck now--the deck where Tom’s stateroom, an
outside one, was located. The captain turned into a passageway, and
paused before the door of a room not far from our hero’s.
“This is his berth,” he remarked as he rapped on the panel.
“Who’s there?” came a quick demand.
“Captain Steerit,” was the reply. “Would you like to come to lunch with
me, Mr. Trendell?”
“In a private room?” was the query.
“No, but at my private table.”
“Any one else?”
“Humph! You’re mighty particular,” murmured the commander. “Why, yes,”
he made answer in a louder tone. “My friend, Tom Fairfield, is coming
with us. Shall I have a place laid for you?”
“No, thank you--er--that is, I’m not feeling very well. The motion of
the boat, you know--in fact I haven’t quite got my sea legs on. Some
other time, Captain.”
“Oh, very well, just as you like,” and with rather a frown of
annoyance the captain passed on.
“Very strange,” he murmured, half to himself, but loud enough for Tom
to hear. “They said he was an experienced sailor, and had been in all
sorts of rough blows. And yet he’s seasick when the water is as calm as
a millpond. I can’t understand it,” and the puzzled captain shook his
head.
“Can a person get seasick more than once?” asked our hero, rather
anxious on his own account.
“Oh, yes, there are lots of such cases. And again there are some who
never suffer from it. It’s all a matter of nerves, I think. It never
bothers me, and yet I had a first mate once, who was always very sick
the first two days out, and then he’d be as steady on his legs as a sea
lawyer. But every new voyage it would be the same way. But come in to
lunch now,” and he led the way to a private table, where Tom was soon
putting away a substantial meal that was more like dinner than luncheon.
There was only a slight motion to the _Silver Star_ now, hardly any
more than to Tom’s motorboat when he had been out in a blow, and he was
beginning to feel that he would not suffer from seasickness.
Captain Steerit left him to his own devices after the meal, for the
commander had many things to look after. Tom went to his own stateroom,
which he put in shipshape. Then he went on deck again.
The Golden Gate was fading from sight now, and the routine of a vessel
out at sea was well under way. Tom saw several passengers, but the man
he had begun to classify as the “mysterious one,” did not appear.
“If he’s going to be seasick now’s his chance,” mused Tom, for there
was now quite a decided roll to the ship.
But it did not bother our hero, who was feeling in excellent health. Of
course he could not help worrying about his father and mother, but he
looked on the brightest side, and made up his mind that if there was
any possibility of rescuing them he would do so.
It was coming on toward evening, and Tom was wondering how he would
sleep on his first night at sea. As he passed near the bridge, on the
upper deck, he saw Captain Steerit and the first mate in conversation.
“I can’t understand it,” the commander was saying. “He comes on board
as a man who is traveling for his health, and who wants to get all the
sea air he can. Yet when I give him an outside stateroom, near young
Fairfield’s, he goes and changes it before I know it. He won’t come
out to lunch, and now you tell me he asks to have all his meals served
in his cabin.”
“That’s it,” said the mate. “He sent the steward to ask me, and I
thought it best to speak to you.”
“Quite right. Well, I suppose we’ll have to let him have his way, but
I can’t understand it. He wants fresh air, but he won’t come out and
get it,” and the captain filled his lungs with the salty, ocean breeze.
“Very puzzling! Very puzzling!”