"Just the same trick he played every time I saw him," cried Nat. "What on earth can it all mean? Do you think that there is a lunatic on board this craft, captain?"
"I don't know what to think, my boy," rejoined the captain seriously. "Some things are beyond human comprehension, and this is one of them. If we have to spend the night on the craft, I'm thinking we had better keep a strict watch, however."
"So do I," agreed Nat. "This has gone past any joking stage. It's up to us to find out who this rascal is, and what he means by playing such pranks."
"And what those screams meant, too," said the captain.
"Yes," chimed in Joe quaveringly. "The recollection of them makes me feel bad. They were the most blood-curdling cries I ever heard."
"They were that, my boy," agreed the captain, "but I am now convinced that they did not come from anybody else's throat but the ill-favored wind-pipe of this fellow who is putting up all these pranks."
"But we've looked all over the ship, in every place in which he could hide," protested Nat, "and not found a trace of him. How do you account for that?"
"Great Scott!" groaned the captain. "I don't pretend to account for it or anything else on this extraordinary ship—I just give it up."
With this, Joe, with Nat for company, went back to his cooking. Dinner was prepared and eaten without any recurrence of the events that had so puzzled and mystified them. Darkness fell with the fog still hanging thick and dank; but they made it all snug in the cabin by lighting the hanging lamp, which cast a cheerful glow.
They wondered what was transpiring on board the "Nomad" at that hour and many guesses were made as to whether or no they had been caught in the Pacific Drift. From this the talk shifted to tales of the South Pacific Islands, amid which the captain had cruised when young. He had many interesting tales to tell of them and of the manners and customs of their natives.