SEEN IN THE GLASS
Instantly there was a commotion all through the _Silver Star_. The
captain’s alarming words had frightened the sailors as well as the
passengers. As for Tom, he stood in fascinated wonder on the bridge,
watching the approaching waterspout.
And that it was approaching, and rapidly too, could not be doubted. It
was sweeping onward with a whirling motion, straight for the ship, and
there was a low, moaning and humming sound to the wind that had created
it, which did not add to the pleasure of the spectacle.
“Is there any danger?” asked Tom.
“There is if it hits us,” was the captain’s grim answer. “But I’m not
going to let that happen, if I can help it. I’ll go ahead full speed
and try to get out of the way. It’s only in a sailing ship, where it’s
hard to change the course against a perverse wind, that there is really
any great danger, though I have heard of steamers being hit.”
“Oh, Captain Steerit!” cried a woman passenger from the deck below.
“Will we be wrecked?”
“Not if I can help it,” was his answer. “There is comparatively no
danger. I’ll pass the spout to one side.”
“Then I’m going to try for a picture!” exclaimed Tom. “Will it last
long enough for me to get my camera?” he asked, pausing on his way down.
“It will if you hurry,” answered the commander. “And I may be able to
give you a chance to get a rare view.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m going to try to break that spout with a cannon shot. I’ve
read of such things being done, but I never tried it. I’ve got a gun on
board, for saluting some of the owners at the islands where I trade,
and I’ll have my gunner try a shot at it.”
“Great!” cried Tom. “If I can get a view of the spout, as the cannon
ball hits it, that will be a rare one.”
He hurried below for his camera, while the captain gave his order about
the cannon, and the crew ran the gun out on the bow.
When Tom came up from his stateroom he saw that the spout was much
nearer. But the course of the _Silver Star_ had been so changed that
she was in comparatively no danger of being struck, unless the
waterspout suddenly shifted.
“All ready now with that gun!” cried the captain.
“All ready! Aye, aye, sir!” came the answer.
Tom was taking several views of the waterspout as it was whirling
along, and some of the other passengers, grown bolder as they saw that
there was no danger, were doing the same.
“Ready to snap her, Tom?” asked the commander.
“Yes, sir,” answered our hero.
“Then here she goes! Fire!”
There was a puff of white smoke, a dull flame, and a report that seemed
to jar the whole ship. Tom had a glimpse of something black bounding
over the waves. It was the round shot from the old-fashioned cannon,
and had no great speed, as cannon balls go.
“Get ready, Tom!” called the captain.
Tom focused his camera on the whirling waterspout, and waited the right
moment to push the shutter lever.
It came.
Surely aimed had been the cannon, for the ball cut right through the
center of the twin-joined funnel-shaped masses of water. The one that
had risen from the sea slumped down into the waves again, carrying with
it the mass of water that had been drawn from the heavily charged
cloud, and Tom got a wonderful picture of the destruction of the spout.
“There, I guess that won’t trouble us any more, even if it had been
headed directly for us!” called the captain, while he signalled for
full speed ahead, since he had slowed down the vessel to enable Tom to
take the snapshot.
“It was great!” exclaimed our hero, as he went up on the bridge to
thank his friend the commander. “Do waterspouts do much damage?”
“They do when they’re big enough, and when they hit a small vessel.
Even a big steamer might suffer from having thousands of tons of water
dropped on her decks at once. I don’t want to encounter a waterspout.
They are quite rare I believe. At least I’ve seen very few, and the
farther off they are the better I like ’em. Did you get a good picture?”
“I hope so. But I can’t develop it here.”
“Oh, yes you can. I used to be quite an amateur photographer myself,
and I had a dark room fitted up on board. I guess there are all the
chemicals and other things you need, including the ruby light. Go ahead
and develop your film, and see what sort of a view you have.”
“That’s great!” exclaimed Tom. “If they’re any good I’ll make some for
you.”
“All right. I’ll be glad to have ’em.”
Tom went below, noting as he did so that the sea was still foaming
and agitated where the waterspout had subsided into the waves.
The passengers were crowded about the gun that had been fired,
congratulating the gunner, and talking about the waterspout and its
sudden destruction.
To get to the dark room, fitted up in a small stateroom, Tom had to go
past the room of the “mysterious” passenger.
“Queer he wouldn’t even come up on deck to see the waterspout,” mused
our hero. “He must have some strange object in remaining below. Well,
I’m not going to think anything more about him.”
As Tom got in front of the stateroom he noticed that the door was
partly opened, and, almost instinctively, and with no intention of
prying, he looked in as he passed.
What he saw startled him. There was an electric light aglow in the
apartment, for the clouds had made the day gloomy, and Tom caught the
reflection in a looking glass on the wall. And what he saw in the glass
was the face of a man with a beard and moustache. It was a face that
Tom knew well, but it was not the face of the passenger who had so
hurriedly boarded the ship, and who had kept to his berth ever since.
“A beard and moustache!” gasped Tom. “I wonder if they’re false? And
yet they might have grown naturally. But no, they couldn’t have, in
this short time. They’re false. And I know who that man is now! I
didn’t know him smooth shaven, but I do with his beard.”
He had a good glimpse, by means of the mirror, of the face of the
mysterious man. The passenger appeared to be contemplating his
countenance in the glass.
“He here!” gasped Tom, as he hurried on to the dark room. “That man on
board! I must tell Captain Steerit!”