“Great! Fine!” complimented Mr. Blake. “If there were more of us here we could charge admission and make a fund for the sailors. Now, Mrs. Ford, another of your piano solos.”
Thus the evening went on in gaiety until even the gayest were ready for their staterooms.
“Maybe I’ll get a chance to speak to the captain now,” thought Tom, wishing to get the unpleasant matter off his mind before he went to bed, if possible. But Captain Steerit was still busy, and when he did have a moment’s leisure, after the main cabin had been put to rights following the concert, he was summoned to the bridge by an unexpected call.
“I wonder if anything can be wrong?” asked Mr. Blake of Tom.
“Wrong? How? What do you mean?”
“Well, I mean that the wind has been rising rapidly in the last hour, and the barometer is falling. I heard one of the crew say so.”
“That means a storm,” suggested Tom.
“I guess so. Notice how we’re pitching and rolling.”
“That’s right,” agreed our hero, for, now that his attention was not occupied with the music and songs he could observe that the ship was heeling over at a sharper angle. And, too, she seemed to be climbing up some mountain of water, only to slip down into the hollow on the other side of it.
“It is a little rough,” spoke Tom, “but I don’t believe it will amount to much. Let’s go up and look around.”