"You shifted the course," said he, rising on one elbow and peering at Dick and Carl as they dropped off the iron ladder. "What was up?"
"Somet'ing mit a shiny headt vent past us," replied Carl, dropping down on a stool and beginning to draw off his shoes.
"Something with a shiny head?" queried the nonplused ensign.
"Yah, so. It vas a funny pitzness."
"What was it, Dick?"
"I'm by," answered Dick, shaking his head. "I've seen a good many queer things afloat, but that was the queerest. It was too dark to see much, though. Mayhap if we'd had a little more light, we could have made a closer examination and the mystery would have been explained."
Thereupon he went into details, telling Glennie all that he and Carl knew.
"Can you make anything out of it, Glennie?" Dick finished.
"I'm over my head, like the rest of you," answered the ensign. "Probably Matt hit it off pretty well when he said it was a bit of water-logged drift, floating between two waves, with spikes cutting the water and throwing off gleams of phosphorescence. This part of the Pacific is full of cross-currents. And it's a mighty dangerous stretch of water, too, I'm telling you. Matt is certainly anxious to reach Lota, or he'd never persist in pushing through waters like these in such a fog."
"He's worrying again over those Sons of the Rising Sun."