"Don't crawl in there again, little fireman," said one of the men with whom Mr. Bobbsey had been talking, and who knew the pet name of Flossie's brother. "This pipe wasn't big enough to let you fall through, but some of the ventilator pipes might be, and then you'd fall all the way through to the boiler room. Don't hide in any more pipes on the steamer."

"I won't," Freddie promised, for he had been frightened when he found that he was stuck in the pipe and couldn't get out. "Come on, Flossie; it's your turn to hide now," he said.

"I don't want to play hide-and-go-seek any more," the little girl said.

"I'd rather play with my doll."

"If I had my fire engine I'd play fireman," Freddie said, for he did not care much about a doll.

"How would you like to go down to the engine room with me, and see where you might have fallen if the ventilator pipe hadn't been too small to let you through?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.

"I'd like it," Freddie said. "I like engines."

So his father took him away down into the hold, or lower part of the boat, and showed him where the firemen put coal on the fire. There Freddie saw ventilator pipes, like the one he had hid in, reaching from the boiler room up to the deck, so the firemen could breathe cool, fresh air. And there were also pipes like it in the engine room.

Freddie watched the shining wheels go spinning round and he heard the hiss of steam as it turned the big propeller at the back of the ship, and pushed the vessel through the waters of the deep blue sea.

"Now we'll go up on deck," said Mr. Bobbsey, when Freddie had seen all he cared to in the engine room. "It's cooler there."

Freddie and his father found several women talking to Mrs. Bobbsey, who was telling them what had happened to her little boy, and Bert and Nan were also listening.

"I wonder what Freddie will do next?" said Bert to his older sister.

"First he catches a lady's hat for a fish, and then he nearly gets lost down a big pipe."

"I hope he doesn't fall overboard," returned Nan.

"So do I," agreed Bert. "And when we get on a smaller ship, if we go on a voyage with Cousin Jasper, we'll have to look after Flossie and Freddie, or they will surely fall into the water."

"Are we really, truly going on a voyage with Cousin Jasper, do you think?" Nan asked.

"Well, I heard father and mother talking about it, and they seemed to think maybe we'd take a trip on the ocean," went on Bert.

"I hope we do!" exclaimed Nan. "I just love the water!"

"So do I!" her brother said. "When I get big I'm going to have a ship of my own."

"Will you take me for a sail?" asked Nan.

"Course I will!" Bert quickly promised.

The excitement caused by Freddie's hiding in the ventilator pipe soon pa.s.sed, and then the Bobbsey family and the other pa.s.sengers on the ship enjoyed the fine sail. The weather was clear and the sea was not rough, so nearly every one was out on deck.

"I wonder if we'll see any shipwrecks," remarked Bert a little later, as the four Bobbsey twins were sitting in a shady place not far from Mrs.

Bobbsey, who was reading her book. She had told the children to keep within her sight.

"A shipwreck would be nice to see if n.o.body got drowned," observed Nan.

"And maybe we could rescue some of the people!"

"When there's a shipwreck," said Freddie, who seemed to have been thinking about it, "they have to get in the little boats, like this one," and he pointed to a lifeboat not far away.

"That's an awful little boat to go on the big ocean in," said Flossie.

"It's safe, though," Bert said. "It's got things in it to make it float, even if it's half full of water. It can't sink any more than our raft could sink."

"Our raft nearly did sink," said Flossie.

"No, it only got stuck on a mud bank," answered Bert. "I was the one that sank down in my bare feet," and he laughed as he remembered that time.

"Well, anyhow, we had fun," said Freddie.

"Oh, look!" suddenly cried Nan. "There's a small boat now--out there on the ocean. Maybe there's been a shipwreck, Bert!"

Bert and the other Bobbsey twins looked at the object to which Nan pointed. Not far from the steamer was a small boat with three or four men in it, and they seemed to be in some sort of trouble. They were beating the water with oars and poles, and something near the boat was lashing about, making the waves turn into foam.

"That isn't a shipwreck!" cried Bert. "That's a fisherman's boat!"

"And something is after it!" said Nan. "Oh, Bert! maybe a whale is trying to sink the fisherman's boat!"

By this time Mrs. Bobbsey and a number of other pa.s.sengers were crowding to the rail, looking at the small boat. The men in it did, indeed, seem to be fighting off something in the water that was trying to damage their boat.

"It's a big shark!" cried one of the steamship sailors. "The fishermen have caught a big shark and they're trying to kill it before it sinks their boat. Say, it's a great, big shark! Look at it lash the water into foam! Those men may be hurt!"

"A shark! A shark!" cried the pa.s.sengers, and from all over the ship they came running to where they could see what was happening to the small boat.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FIGHT IN THE BOAT

When the Bobbsey twins first saw the small boat, and the fishermen in it trying to beat off the shark that was trying to get at them, the steamer was quite a little distance off. The big vessel, though, was headed toward the fishing boat and soon came close enough for the pa.s.sengers to see plainly what was going on. That is, they could not see the shark very plainly, for it was mostly under water, but they could see a long, black shape, with big fins and a large tail, and the tail was lashing up and down, making foam on the waves.

"Hi!" cried Freddie in great excitement. "That's better'n a shipwreck, isn't it?"

"Almost as _bad_, I should say," remarked Mr. Bobbsey, who, with his wife and other pa.s.sengers, stood near the rail with the children watching the ocean fight.

"The captain ought to stop the ship and go to the rescue of those fishermen," said the man who had told Freddie not to get in the ventilator pipe again. "I guess the shark is bigger than those men thought when they tried to kill it."

"Is that what they are trying to do?" asked Bert.

"It looks so," replied his father. "Sometimes the fishermen catch a shark in their nets, and they kill it then, as sharks tear the nets, or eat up the fish in them. But I guess this is a larger shark than usual."

"And is it going to sink the boat?" Nan wanted to know.

"That I can't say," Mr. Bobbsey replied. "Perhaps the fishermen caught the shark on a big hook and line, and want to get it into the boat to bring it to sh.o.r.e. Or maybe the shark is tangled in their net and is trying to get loose. Perhaps it thinks the boat is a big whale, or other fish, and it wants to fight."

"Whatever it is, those fishermen are having a hard time," said another pa.s.senger; and this seemed to be so, for, just as soon as the steamer came close enough to the small boat, some of the men in it waved their hands and shouted. All they said could not be heard, because of the noise made by the steamer, but a man near Mrs. Bobbsey said he heard the fisherman cry: