THE WATERSPOUT
“That mysterious man--they’re speaking of him,” said Tom softly, as he
turned away. “I’m glad, after all, that he did not keep the stateroom
near mine. There may be no harm in him, and he may be all right, but he
certainly acts queer, and I don’t want to have anything to do with him.”
Tom retired that night, rocked by the gentle motion of the ship. He
knew, now, that he was not going to be seasick in ordinary weather,
though he realized that he still had to undergo the test of a storm.
“I wonder what it’s like?” he mused. “There very likely will be big
waves and a powerful wind. But I hope we don’t have one. I want to make
a quick voyage, and a storm would delay us.”
Then he thought of the storm that had wrecked the _Kangaroo_ and this
brought the possible fate of his father and mother to his mind. He took
out, and read over again, for perhaps the fiftieth time, the clipping
from the newspaper that had given him his first hint of the bad news.
There were one or two other clippings from other papers, telling the
same story, and a later one, confirming the first dispatch.
“Poor dad and mother!” sighed our hero. “I’m coming to you as fast as
I can. Oh! if only there was some way of reaching you by wireless!
But, even if the wireless was on their vessel at first,” he mused, “it
wouldn’t work after the wreck. I’ll just have to wait.”
He stretched out, but it was some time before he got to sleep, and his
thoughts were rather sad as they dwelt on the possible fate of his
parents.
“Oh, pshaw!” he finally exclaimed, half aloud. “This won’t do! I’ve got
to be more cheerful.” Then he changed his current of thought to the
good times he had had at Elmwood Hall, and soon he felt himself dozing
off, as he recalled the merry midnight suppers he and his chums had
partaken of.
“And when this trip is over I’m going back there, and have some more
good times,” he whispered.
Tom went up on the bridge after breakfast, to find Captain Steerit
looking critically at the barometer.
“Anything wrong?” asked our hero.
“No, not yet. And yet it has fallen a little. I don’t just like it, but
otherwise the weather is good. I don’t see any signs of a storm, so I
guess I won’t worry. How did you sleep?”
“Pretty good.”
“Do you mind the motion much?”
“Hardly any.”
“That’s good. I guess we’ll make a sailor of you, after a while. Be
around at noon, when we take the observation, and I’ll show you how
it’s done.”
“I will,” promised Tom, and then he went around the ship, speaking
to some of the sailors and officers whom he knew. He also made the
acquaintance of several of the passengers. There was one gentleman, a
Mr. Case, who, with his little son, aged about seven years, was making
the trip to Australia, where he had a business, near Melbourne. He
had come to New York with his wife to settle up some affairs, and the
child’s mother had died there.
“And now I’m going back,” the father confided to Tom. “I am going to
try and forget my sorrow--forget it in hard work.”
Tom felt a deep sympathy for him, and for the child, and the latter
lost no time in making friends with our hero. They had many a romp on
deck, and Tom made up a number of games and amusements for the lad.
The promise of uncertain weather given by the barometer was not kept,
and the ship slipped along through the water in a succession of calm,
sunny days. Tom had almost forgotten about the strange man now.
Mr. Trendell was not seen on deck, keeping carefully to his stateroom,
and Tom heard that he was suffering much from seasickness. He felt
sorry for the man, as only a person can who does not suffer from the
qualms of the boat’s motion.
“Jackie was ill on our trip over,” said Mr. Case, the father of Tom’s
little playmate, “but I’m glad to see that he’s well going back. I
guess it’s the attention you give him that takes his mind off it. But
don’t let him be a bother to you.”
“Oh, I like him!” exclaimed Tom, who was fond of children. “He’s a good
sailor; eh, Jackie?”
“Sure,” answered the little chap. “Come on, now, let’s play ring-toss
some more,” and Tom complied.
The passengers, of whom there were only about a dozen, had soon made
friends with each other--that is all but the “mysterious one,” as Tom
still thought of him,--and they all did what they could to make the
time pass pleasantly.
Tom’s sad quest became known to all and he received much sympathy,
while Mr. Case told stories of shipwrecks in which persons, believed
for a long time to be lost, had finally been found. This comforted our
hero very much.
“How anyone can remain below on such a night as this I can’t see!” once
exclaimed a Mrs. Pendleton, who was taking the trip with her daughter.
“Such a lovely moon, and such a calm sea! And yet, I understand, Mr.
Fairfield,” she said to Tom, “that there is a gentleman on board who
hasn’t yet been out of his stateroom--who takes all his meals there.”
“Yes,” replied Tom. Nearly all the passengers were out on deck that
evening, enjoying the calm, peaceful night, and looking at the
phosphorescent sea, silvered by the moon. “I don’t know why he stays
below unless it is that he is very ill.”
“Perhaps no one has invited him out,” suggested Mrs. Pendleton, who was
quite impulsive. “Let’s go, you and I, Mr. Fairfield.”
“Oh, no, mamma!” exclaimed her daughter. “Perhaps he has good reasons
for being quiet. It is none of our affair.”
“But we ought to make it our affair to see that he enjoys the best part
of the trip,” insisted her mother. “I’m going to get him out.”
“No, you must not!” her daughter insisted. “Oh, mamma, you do the
strangest things!” and she laughed. “I have to be watching her all the
while,” she added with a laugh, to the others. “She has no regard for
conventionality.”
“There’s no sense in it,” insisted the elder lady. “But I’ll not go if
you don’t want me to. There, a big fish just jumped up!” she exclaimed,
as there came a splash in the water.
They all crowded to the rail to look, Jackie Case, who had not yet gone
to bed, being the most eager.
“Where’s the big fish?” he cried. There was quite a swell on, and the
boat rolled from side to side at times with a dangerous pitch, but not
annoying to those used to it. It was just on one of the occasions when
the ship slid along, tilting her rail, with the passengers up against
it toward the waves, that little Jackie tried to climb up to the
highest point of vantage.
“I don’t see the fish!” he cried, and he leaned over still farther. In
another instant he had overbalanced, and, with a cry of terror, he had
slipped across the rail.
“There he goes!” cried Mrs. Pendleton. “Jackie has fallen!”
His father came rushing up with a cry of anguish. But Tom had been near
enough to make a grab for the little chap, and he hung fast. Now a
voice rang out:
“Man overboard!”
“Man overboard!” repeated the lookout. “Lower the boat!”
There was a clanging of bells in the engine room, as the propeller was
reversed.
“Hold tight, Jackie!” cried Tom, as he tried to get the little fellow
back over the rail. “I’ll help you. Hold tight!”
But the little boy was too frightened to aid himself and he let go.
But now our hero had a better hold and he clung on desperately, until
others came to his assistance, and then both were helped to a place of
safety. Tom had gotten pretty wet, but this he did not mind.
“Oh, Jackie! Jackie, my boy!” cried Mr. Case, hugging the little form
to him, and then, still clasping his son, the man held out his hand to
Tom.
“I--I can’t thank you now,” he said brokenly, “but I may be able
to--sometime.”
The accident broke up the pleasant little party on deck, and Tom
hurried below to change to dry garments. As he passed the stateroom of
the mysterious man our hero saw that one of the stewards was speaking
through the partly-opened door to Mr. Trendell.
“It’s all over now,” the steward was saying. “A little boy almost fell
overboard, and Tom Fairfield went after him.”
“Was either recovered? Was Tom Fairfield drowned?” asked the voice of
the man in the stateroom.
“No, sir. They were both saved. Thank you!” This last obviously in
response to a tip handed out. The door was closed and Tom passed on.
“Queer,” he mused, as he reached his stateroom, “very queer that he
should want to know if I was drowned.”
Neither our hero nor little Jackie was any the worse off the next
morning for the accident. Tom’s heroism was the talk of the ship.
“I think the big fish, whatever it was, that caused all the trouble,
must have brought the change of weather,” said Mrs. Pendleton to Tom
that afternoon. “It isn’t as nice as it was.”
“Oh, we can’t always have good weather,” spoke Tom. The day was one of
lowering clouds, and as our hero, a little later, went up to the pilot
house, he saw Captain Steerit again studying the barometer.
“Anything wrong?” inquired Tom.
“She’s falling again,” was the answer. “I don’t like it. I think we’re
in for a storm.”
The wind began to rise about an hour after that, and the clouds
appeared lower than ever, some of them seeming fairly to touch the
distant waves. The rigging hummed and twanged like the strings of a
harp. Sailors were hurrying about, making everything snug below and
aloft.
“Ha! What’s that?” suddenly asked the captain, as the lookout in the
bows cried out a warning. The man repeated what he had said, but Tom
could not catch it.
“Look, look, Tom my lad, if you want to see a strange sight!” said the
commander, taking hold of Tom’s arm, and directing his gaze off to the
left. “Did you ever see the like before?”
Our hero looked and saw, rising from the ocean, a dark mass of water,
twisted into the shape of a funnel, with the upper end whipping about
and twisting like a snake. At the same moment, from a black and
threatening cloud above, a similar funnel-shaped mass seemed to drop,
only the point of it was toward the point in the cone of water.
Suddenly the two met, forming a black pillar, and there was a loud
roaring sound.
“What is it?” cried Tom, but, even as he asked he knew what the captain
would say.
“Waterspout! A waterspout, and a big one, too!”
The attention of everyone on board had been called to the strange and
threatening phenomenon by this time, and they all watched it anxiously.
“A waterspout,” murmured Tom. “I’ve often heard about them, but I never
saw one before. What will it do?”
“Break when the whirlwind that caused it dies out,” was the answer,
“but----” The captain suddenly ceased speaking. Then he cried:
“It’s headed right this way! The waterspout is coming toward us!”