"He wanted the ship brought back just on his account."
CHAPTER XVI
TOM MAKES A DISCOVERY
Tom slept fitfully in his upper berth, thinking much of home and the troop and the people back in Bridgeboro. He realized now, as he had not before, the seriousness of the step he had taken. It came home to him in the quiet of the long night and tinged his thoughts with homesickness.
Once, twice, in his restlessness, he clambered down and looked out through the brass-bound port-hole across the deserted deck and out upon the waste of ocean. Not a single reminder was there of the old familiar life, not a friendly light in the vast, watery darkness.
He began to regard what he had done as a kind of wilful escapade, and though not exactly sorry for the action, he felt strange and lonesome, and his thoughts turned wistfully to the troop meeting which he knew was now over. He thought of Pee-wee, with his trusty belt-axe, going scout-pace up Main Street on his journey homeward; of Roy leaving Mr. Ellsworth where the street up Blakeley's Hill began; of the office and Margaret Ellison, and of his accustomed tasks.
No, he was not exactly sorry, but he—he wished that the vessel had not started quite so soon, and so suddenly. He had never dreamed that the momentous and perilous step of crossing the ocean was begun with so little ceremony.
This train of thought suggested the passenger who had wished to go ashore, and as Tom lay in his berth, wakeful but pleasantly lulled by the slow, steady vibration of the great ship, he wondered who the man was and why he couldn't sail without his belated luggage. He recalled how the man had said aparatus once and how, after that, he had said belongings. Then he recalled young Archer's laugh at his suspicion, and he decided that it was only his own imagination that had given rise to it. He thought rather wistfully how Roy had often called him Sherlock Nobody Holmes.