"
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Tom, who rather liked the man.
"No nonsense about it. Why should a minister take a trip like this
when he isn't sick, and when he isn't going to establish a mission
in South America? There's something queer about it, for, by his own
words he just took this voyage as a whim."
"Oh, you're too fussy," declared Tom; and for the time the subject
was dropped.
They ran into a storm when about ten days out, and for a while they
had a rough time of it, and then the weather cleared again.
It was one evening, after the formal dinner, when Tom and Ned were
strolling about on deck, before turning in, that, the quiet of the
ship was broken by what is always an alarming cry at sea.
"Fire! Fire!" shouted a man, pointing to a thin wisp of smoke
curling up from the deck amidships.
"Keep quiet!" yelled one of the stewards. "It is nothing!"
"It's a fire, I tell you!" insisted the man, and several others took
up the cry.
A panic was imminent, and the captain came running from his
quarters.
"What is it?" he asked.
An officer hurried to his side, and said something but in such a low
voice that Tom, who was standing close beside the two, scarcely
heard it.
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