asked Joe, regarding the man curiously. On his face was an odd blend of alarm and ferocity.
“Yes, – that is, no. I am very nervous. You must forgive me. I – there is bad weather outside?” he broke off abruptly.
“It’s blowing pretty hard,” Joe informed him, while he still noted the man’s odd manner.
“It will delay us in reaching shore?” demanded the other, sinking back into his chair and staring at the heavily breathing form of Mr. Jenkins.
“I’m afraid so. If the weather gets any worse we shall have to slow down. It’s too bad, for it is important that we get Mr. Jenkins to the hospital as quickly as possible. He needs immediate medical aid.”
Dr. Sartorius ignored this remark. Instead he fixed his queer eyes on Mr. Jenkins.
“How much shall we be delayed?” he asked eagerly the next minute.
“Impossible to say,” rejoined Joe; and then he added, with his accustomed frank bluntness, “You don’t speak as if you were in any particular hurry about landing.”
“It’s Jenkins yonder I’m thinking of,” was the reply in a semi-musing tone. “He may die if we are delayed, and you say that the storm is a severe one?”
“We’ll have to slow down, I guess,” rejoined Joe, and then, as the gong in the engine-room rang for reduced speed, he nodded his head. “There’s the slow-up signal now. It must be getting worse. I’ve got to get on deck.”
So saying, he rummaged two suits of oilskins out of a locker and hastened on deck. Spume and smoky spray were flying over the Nomad in clouds. The craft looked like an eggshell amidst the ranges of watery hills. Joe slipped into his oilskins and then took the wheel while Nat donned his foul-weather rig.
Presently Ding-dong, grimy from his engines, joined them.
“How is everything running below, Joe?” asked Nat, as the figure of the young engineer appeared.
“Fur-fur-fine as a h-h-h-hundred dollar war-watch,” sputtered Ding-dong; “ber-ber-but I’ve got her slowed down to ten knots. How about the sick man?”
“That can’t be helped,” declared Nat. “If I were to make any more speed in this sea, we’d all be bound for Davy Jones’ locker before many minutes had passed.”
“Hum! That is certainly a fact,” assented Joe, as a big green sea rose ahead of them like a watery hillock and the Nomad drove her flaring bow into it. The water crashed down about them and thundered on the deck.
“There’s a sample copy,” sputtered Joe, dashing the water from his eyes and giving a grin; but, despite his attempt to make light of the matter, he grew very sober immediately afterward. Stout craft as the Nomad was, she was being called upon to face about as bad a specimen of weather as the Motor Rangers had ever encountered. What made matters worse, they had a badly – perhaps mortally – injured man on their hands. Delay in reaching harbor might result fatally. They all began to look worried.
Ding-dong dared to spend no more time on deck away from his engines. If anything happened to the motor, things would be serious indeed. He dived below and oiled the laboring motor most assiduously. Every now and then the propeller of the storm-tossed Nomad would lift out of the water, and then the engine raced till Ding-dong feared it would actually rack itself to pieces. But there was no help for it; they must keep on now at whatever cost.
For an hour or more the wind continued to blow a screaming gale, and then it suddenly increased in fury to such a degree that Nat and Joe, who were taking turns relieving each other at the wheel, could feel it pressing and tearing against them like some solid thing. Their voices were blown back down their throats when they tried to talk. Their garments were blown out stiff as boiler iron.
“How much longer can we stand this – ” Joe was beginning, shouting the words into Nat’s ears, when suddenly there was a jarring quiver throughout the fabric of the motor craft and the familiar vibration of the engines ceased. Simultaneously the Nomad was lifted on the back of a giant comber and hurled into a valley of green water, from which it seemed impossible that she could ever climb again. But valiantly she made the ascent in safety, only to go reeling and wallowing down the other side in a condition of terrifying helplessness.
“Get below and see what’s happened,” bawled Nat at Joe.
The other hastened off on his errand, clinging with might and main to whatever projection offered. He had just reached the engine room when he saw something that made him utter a cry of astonishment.
Slipping from behind a door which communicated with the cabin beyond was Dr. Sartorius. In his hand he had a monkey wrench. As for Ding-dong Bell, he was nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER IV.
WHEN THE ENGINE FAILED
Joe Hartley’s mind, while not as active as Nat’s, worked quickly, and he sensed instantly a connection between the presence in the engine room of Sartorius and the stoppage of the motor. And this, although he could not imagine what possible purpose the man could have in such actions. Sartorius had tiptoed back into the cabin, where lay Mr. Jenkins, without casting a glance behind him. Joe crept forward with the same caution till he gained a point of vantage from which he could see into the lighted cabin.
Lounging back in a swivel chair with a magazine in his hand and a cigar in his mouth was the black-bearded doctor. On his face was a look of content and repose. Apparently he was utterly oblivious to the wild tossing of the Nomad in the rough sea, and had not Joe been certain that it was their more or less unwelcome guest whom he had seen sneak out of the engine room, he would have been inclined to doubt his own eyesight.
Ding-dong’s sudden reappearance chased these thoughts swiftly out of his mind.
“Where on earth have you been?” he demanded, staring open-mouthed at Ding-dong as if he had been a ghost.
“Wer-wer-what’s happened to the engines?” sputtered Ding-dong anxiously.
Joe drew him aside.
“I came down here the instant they stopped,” he said. “I caught our black-whiskered friend sneaking out of the engine room into the cabin with a monkey wrench in his hand. I’m sure he tampered with the engine.”
“Phew! That’s rer-er-right in line with what I went on deck to tell Nat about.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just this. Happening to pe-pe-peek into the c-c-c-cabin a while back, I sus-sus-saw Wer-Wer-Whiskers kneeling in front of one of Jer-Jer-Jenkins’ trunks. He couldn’t get it open, and then I saw him tip-toe over to Jer-Jenkins and start to go through his pockets. I ber-ber-beat it up on deck to tell Nat.”
“Then you must have been going up the port companionway while I was coming down the starboard, and that’s how we missed running into each other.”
“Ther-ther-that’s about it.”
“What did Nat say?”
“To ger-ger-get the engines going and not mind anything else just now.”
“That’s right; we’re in a bad fix. I’ll stay down here and help you go over the motor. I can be of more use down here than up on deck.”
While
