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!”
[CHAPTER V]
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.”