While the Nomad took sickening swings and plunges, at times rolling over on her beam ends, the two lads went over the motor painstakingly. It was no light task in that turmoil and fury of wind and wave. Every once in a while, when the little craft took an exceptionally bad plunge, they exchanged glances which plainly said:
“Are we going to get out of this alive?”
Once in a while Joe stole away to take a look at the doctor, whom he suspected of tampering with the motor. Each time he discovered no difference in the man’s strange repose. He might have been taking his ease on a Pullman drawing-room car instead of being on board a craft with which the elements were playing battledore and shuttlecock, for all the signs he showed of uneasiness. Joe did notice, though, that from time to time he cast glances from the magazine in which he appeared so much interested toward the lounge on which lay extended Mr. Jenkins’ senseless form.
It was on his return from one of these excursions that Joe was hailed by Ding-dong in an excited voice. Above the racket of the storm and the shouting of the voice of the wind there was not much danger of their being heard in the cabin.
“Lul-lul-look here, Joe; the pur-pur-precious rascal!”
The young engineer pointed to the carburetor of the two forward cylinders.
“What’s the matter with them?”
“The auk-auk-auk-auxiliary air valves have been tampered with, that’s what, and lul-lul-look on the stern cylinders; the spark plugs have been tightened on till the porcelain cracked. No wonder she went out of business.”
“Crackers! The fellow who did that was no greenhorn round an engine.”
“Well, I gug-guess not. Just watch me get busy. We’ll attend to his nu-nu-nibs later on.”