THE RAT SHIP.
Strong of wing and sound of engine, the Golden Eagle sped on through
the clear, warm air, the rushing sensation of her flight sending the
wind in a cooling stream against the faces of the occupants of her
chassis. From time to time, Ben scanned the vast flats of ocean below
them with the glasses, but for some time nothing appeared in the field
of the binoculars to warrant them in changing their course. Seen from
above, the mucilaginous character imparted to the Sargasso Sea by the
vast acreage of flowing seaweed, inextricably entangled, was clearly
perceptible, even though from the deck of a ship the shallow layer of
water that overlies the seaweed imparts the blue hue of open water to
it and makes its treacherous character.
"It is like traveling over a water desert," declared Harry.
Far on the horizon were piled castellated cloud masses, seemingly
immoveable and changing in tint as the day lengthened. On all the vast
stretch beneath them was not a sign of life. It was an ocean solitude
indeed.
Suddenly Ben who had the glasses in hand gave a shout.
"I make out something!" he exclaimed.
"Where?" cried Harry.
"About two points to the starboard--change your course a bit, Frank,
and we'll be bearing directly up for it."
Frank gave the wheel a slight twist and the Golden Eagle obediently
swerved off to the right.
"What was it you saw?" asked Frank.
"A ship, though whether it is the one we are after is doubtful," was
Ben's reply. "I reckon there are enough ships drifting about in this
tangle to stock up a dockyard."
It was not long before all doubt on this point was resolved. The
object Ben had sighted was indeed a ship.
As the Golden Eagle soared nearer they perceived that the vessel was a
small steamer--a craft of perhaps 2,000 tons, painted black with a
yellow funnel. Except that no smoke curled upward from her stack and
there was not a sign of life about her, she looked as if she might
have just set out on a voyage. From her mainmast a flag hung, wrapped
about the spar in the breathless atmosphere.
"I'm going to drop," announced Frank.
Instantly the Golden Eagle's steady, forward motion ceased and she
began to descend with a rapidity that would have taken the breath away
from less experienced aviators than her occupants.
It was like going down in a rapidly falling elevator.
She struck the water with a gentle gliding impact that hardly did more
than ripple the surface, and a cheer broke from the boys as they
perceived how perfectly the new pontoons worked.
"As easy as lighting on a feather-bed," was the way Harry put it.
The spot where they had settled was some little distance from the
steamer, so, at a pace which would not raise the aeroplane from the
water, Frank steered her toward the derelict.
Viewed even in the cheerful sunlight she was a melancholy object.
Although at a distance it was not perceptible that she was an
abandoned craft, a near view showed that it must have been some time,
perhaps even a period of years, since she had been trapped in the
Sargasso.
As she rose and fell in the gentle, heaving swell, the boys could see
that long green weeds grew on her sides where the water laved them and
her paint was blistered and flaked off in great patches, showing the
rusty red of her iron plates beneath.
In the presence of this mystery of the ocean the boys grew silent as
Frank maneuvered the Golden Eagle alongside and stopped the clattering
motor.
The silence was profound.
Except for the occasional creak of a block as the derelict slowly
swung to and fro it was as still as noonday in the desert. Even the
usually light-hearted Harry was awe-stricken in the presence of the
silent derelict.
Ben was the first to break the stillness.
"I'm going aboard," he announced, singling out with his eye a dangling
rope which depended from a davit.
"Look, boys," he went on; "perhaps the poor fellows got away. See, the
boats are gone."
"Let's hope they did," replied Frank, making fast the Golden Eagle to
another of the dangling "falls," and preparing to follow Ben's example
and clamber aboard.
Soon the boys stood on the main deck of the abandoned steamer, whose
name they now saw was Durham Castle.
"She was a Britisher," declared Ben.
As he spoke there was a mighty noise like that of rushing water from
the forecastle and the boys started back in affright. And well they
might, for on the heels of the noise came a perfect torrent of rats.
Gray rats, brown rats, young rats, old rats, thin rats, fat rats. They
dashed directly at the boys, seeming mad with terror, or rendered
ferocious from thirst or other causes.
Their little beady black eyes gleamed wickedly and their sharp yellow
teeth were exposed.
The boys ran and Ben leaped into the main shrouds by which they had
been standing, but the forerunners of this avalanche of crazed
creatures was upon them. The rodents with squeaks and cries swarmed
after the human beings as if they meant to devour them by sheer force
of numbers.
"Shoot--shoot," shouted Ben, as he dashed from his waist a big brown
rat that left the imprint of its teeth in his hand as he struck at it.
Frenziedly the boys emptied their magazine revolvers at the mass of
swarming creatures and they fell dead in heaps at their feet. But
still the onrush came and the lads shuddered with repulsion as they
felt the tiny claws of the rodents fixed in their trousers as the
creatures tried to swarm up them.
They seemed to have a leader. An immense gray fellow almost as big as
a rabbit. A sudden idea came into Frank's head, he did not know at the
time whether he had been told it, or read of it somewhere, but it
seemed to him if he could kill that old gray leader the rest might
take fright.
Hastily he fired, almost blowing the creature's head off, so close was
it to him.
As the others saw their leader killed they hesitated, and Ben and
Harry took advantage of the pause to empty a fresh magazine full of
bullets into the closely packed mass.
It was the turning point.
With shrill squeaks and cries the rats turned and dashed for the other
rail. As they reached it they swarmed over it madly, unheeding of the
water beneath. In whole battalions they plunged into the sea, most of
them sinking immediately; but some of them swimming about in circles
with piteous cries. The sea was discolored with their swarming heads
for some distance about the ship.
Suddenly there shot up from the seaweed a long fleshy arm covered with
what seemed to be huge excrescences. It curved like a serpent and
swept deftly within its grasp dozens of the struggling rodents. Other
arms appeared waving and seizing on the rats as they swam desperately
about.
The boys knew that the arms were the tendons of giant devil-fish that
had scented from afar the feast of rats.
They shuddered as they thought of the fate of human beings who should
be cast adrift in such waters. In a short time not a rat remained on
the water and the arms too subsided and sank.
White and shaky from the creepiness of the scene they had just
witnessed the boys turned to Ben. The old mariner was mopping the
sweat off his brow with a huge, red bandanna handkerchief.
"Wall, boys, if that's one of the sights of the Sargasso," he said,
"I'd prefer Africa or even the Everglades--oof."
"How could such myriads of rats exist aboard a ship?" asked Frank.
"Easy enough, boy. This ship was a sugar ship bound from New Orleans
to England with raw sugar for refining I take it.--See the remains of
the sugar bags scattered about where the rats dragged 'em?"
The boys nodded.
"Well, rats swarm aboard such ships if they are not kept down, and I
suppose that when this craft drifted in here to the Sargasso, and her
crew deserted her, that the rats just naturally multiplied till they
ate the holds clean of sugar and gnawed into the water tanks. Then we
come along and they figures on making a meal out of us. They're queer
things are ship rats, look how they ran when their leader was killed,"
went on the old sailor. "No sailor would go to sea on a ship that
hasn't got any aboard though."
"Why is that?" asked Frank.
"Well, it's the old saying, 'rats leave a sinking ship,' you know,"
rejoined Ben.
"Let's explore the ship," said Frank, "that is, if there are no more
rats about. Thank goodness, there is no chance of our meeting any
devil-fish aboard here."
"No, that's one good thing," put in Harry. "Ugh!--did you ever see
such horrid looking things as those waving arms?"
Peeping down into the deserted engine-room, where the machinery was
rusting and rotting from long neglect, the boys made their way aft to
what had evidently been the quarters of the vessel's captain.
"Ah, here's his log-book!" exclaimed Ben, opening a volume which lay
on a desk attached to a bulkhead, "but first let's look into the
staterooms."
There were four of these, opening off from the main cabin and in each
there were evident signs of a hasty departure. Clothes, books and
nautical instruments lay scattered about in confusion. The boys did
not come across anything though to show them the fate of the crew of
the ill-fated vessel.
They therefore examined the log-book and found that, as Ben had
surmised, the derelict had started on her last voyage from New Orleans
to Liverpool laden with raw sugar. Her captain was Elias Goodall, and
her first mate James Hooper. The day of her entrance into the fatal
Sargasso was set down as June 21st, 1898. Previous to this date there
had been several entries referring to a break-down in the engine-room,
which caused the steamer to be driven miles off her course by heavy
gales. It was undoubtedly in this way that she drifted into the fatal
seaweed.
"Have got the engine going again," read the entry, "but the sky for
days has been overcast and have had no chance to make observations.
Know we must be miles off our course, however."
Below was the next record of the ship's fate.
"Chief Engineer Maxwell just informed me that something seems the
matter with propeller.--Later--Found the propeller matted with huge
growths of seaweed. Cleared it with some difficulty by shifting some
cargo forward and then revolving wheel till, blade by blade, we
cleared it with axes from the small boats."
June 22nd.--"Seaweed seems to be getting thicker. With difficulty we
progress at all. Mate Hooper just suggested terrifying possibility.--Are
we in the Sargasso?"
June 25.--"Since the last entry in the log, have learned that our
fears were only too well grounded. We are indeed in the Sargasso and
there seems to be no escape. Engine stopped working long ago. The
propeller so matted with seaweed that we could make no progress. What
will become of us?"
June 26.--"Have tried to keep true state of affairs from the crew, but
they learned of facts in some way, and made a demand to take to the
boats. I told them that our duty was to stick by the ship till all
possibility of aid was exhausted. They seemed ugly; but for the
present at least there is no sign of mutiny. If only we had wireless
we might signal our plight."
June 28.--"The worst has happened. In attempting to drive the crew
back from the boats, Chief Engineer Maxwell was instantly killed with
a handspike, poor Hooper so badly wounded and beaten that he died
half-an-hour ago and I myself wounded in the left arm. The crew have
taken to the boats and two loads are now about half a mile from the
vessel. The men are shouting. Something terrible must have happened--"
June 29.--"I have not been able to nerve myself until to-day to record
the frightful interruption that occurred while I was penning the last
lines. I was interrupted by a fearful shriek and hastening on deck saw
a sight that will not be blotted from my memory till I go to my death.
The boats seemed to be in the grasp of what appeared at first glance
gigantic snakes. The men, unfortunate fellows, were trying to beat the
creatures off and pull back to the ship. Their vain cries for aid were
pitiful. I got the glasses, the better to see what was happening. My
horror at what I saw then was so great that I can hardly set it down.
The creatures I had seen were not snakes at all but the arms of huge
octopi. They enwrapped the boats in every direction. Even as I gazed
one boat-load was drawn beneath the surface. In a few minutes more all
was over."
July 4.--"On this day, at home, all are celebrating and rejoicing, and
here am I encircled with horrors, and adrift, as it seems, on a doomed
ship. There is one boat left. I mean to lower it and try to reach the
land or at least the open sea where I may fall in with a vessel. The
rats are swarming everywhere. They have attacked the cargo in the
forward hold and the noise of their fighting and struggling is
terrible. Last night they killed my poor cat. I found her clean-picked
bones on the fore-deck this morning. I can stay no longer on this
horror ship.--God be with me."
Goodall,
Captain.
Here the pathetic record ended abruptly and of the fate of the
unfortunate captain the boys had of course no inkling. They, however,
took the log-book with them for delivery in the future to the vessel's
owners, and ten minutes later were back on board the Golden Eagle.
"It feels good to be off that 'horror ship' as her captain called
her," exclaimed Frank, as he started up the engine.
"I should say so," was Harry's reply, in a sobered tone, "and I
suppose scores of other ships have met the same fate."
"Undoubtedly," said Ben, "every year vessels sail from the United
States and foreign ports that are never heard of again. No accounts of
storms are received during their voyages, yet they never reach port;
undoubtedly many of them wind up in the graveyard of the Sargasso."
"I'm glad we have a good stout air-ship to carry us," exclaimed Frank,
as the Golden Eagle soared into the air and soon left the derelict far
behind.