When Ding-dong, shortly afterward, poked his head above the companionway for a breath of air, he found that the storm was rapidly abating. In fact in the cabin it had been apparent that the movements of the Nomad were becoming less and less erratic and violent. He told Nat of what had occurred below, and Nat, after a moment’s thought, replied:
“There’s something about all this that I can’t fathom, Ding-dong. In fact, things have been moving so swiftly since we left the Iroquois that I haven’t had time to think. Of two things I’m pretty sure, though, and one of them is that Dr. Sartorius came aboard us because he didn’t want Mr. Jenkins out of his sight; and the other is that he had a good reason for wanting to delay the Nomad’s reaching port when he tampered with the engines.”
“Y-y-y-y-you think he der-der-did it, then?” asked Ding-dong.
“Who else could have? I didn’t, you didn’t, and Joe didn’t. The injured man certainly didn’t; and, besides that, didn’t Joe see his Whiskers coming out of the engine room with a monkey wrench? What was he doing in there at all if he hadn’t been tinkering with the motor?”
“Ther-ther-that’s so,” assented the other. “It’s all like a Cher-cher-Chinese puzzle. What are you going to do about it, Nat?”
“If suspicions were legal evidence, I’d hand this fellow over to the authorities as soon as we landed; but I can’t do that very well. They would only laugh at us. Recollect, we’ve got nothing tangible to bring against the man——Hullo, Joe, what’s up now?”
Nat turned quickly as Joe came on deck. His face was troubled.
“The engines are acting awfully queerly again,” he said seriously; “I can’t make out what ails them. Everything appears to be all right, but still they’re not running as they ought.”
“Guess you’d better skip below and look at them, Ding-dong,” said Nat. “No offence meant, Joe, but Ding-dong is the mechanical crank of this outfit.”
Joe and Ding-dong were below some time, during which period the black squall about blew itself out, leaving only a heavy, blind swell to tell of its passing.