He cannot explain what I found inexplicable, and, as I did, he walks aft to see if there is a screw.
On the flanks of the _Ebba_ a shoal of porpoises are sporting.
Swift as is the schooner's course they easily pass her, leaping and gambolling in their native element with surprising grace and agility.
Thomas Roch pays no attention to them, but leans over the stern.
Engineer Serko and Captain Spade, fearful lest he should fall overboard, hurry to him and drag him gently, but firmly, away.
I observe from long experience that Roch is a prey to violent excitement.

He turns about and gesticulates, uttering incoherent phrases the while.
It is plain to me that another fit is coming on, similar to the one he had in the pavilion of Healthful House on the night we were abducted.
He will have to be seized and carried down to his cabin, and I shall perhaps be summoned to attend to him.
Meanwhile Engineer Serko and Captain Spade do not lose sight of him for a moment.

They are evidently curious to see what he will do.
After walking towards the mainmast and assuring himself that the sails are not set, he goes up to it and flinging his arms around it, tries with all his might to shake it, as though seeking to pull it down.
Finding his efforts futile, he quits it and goes to the foremast, where the same performance is gone through.

He waxes more and more excited.

His vague utterances are followed by inarticulate cries.
Suddenly he rushes to the port stays and clings to them, and I begin to fear that he will leap into the rigging and climb to the cross-tree, where he might be precipitated into the sea by a lurch of the ship.
On a sign from Captain Spade, some sailors run up and try to make him relinquish his grasp of the stays, but are unable to do so.