The Sunken Wreck
The surface of the water was almost like a mirror as they chugged out
of the river in the _Corsair_, Jack at the wheel and Hal industriously
slopping oil over the engine. But once around the end of the island
they began to meet cat’s-paws. Jack guided the launch in between the
two black rocks which shoved their heads, draped with seaweed, a few
feet above the surface. The anchor was dropped and the line payed
out for nearly sixty feet before a hold was found. By that time the
launch was just to the north of the channel between the two ledges. The
surface was ripply, but Bee, who was given the first chance, reported
that he could see quite a ways down. He lay sprawled out on the stern
deck, with Jack and Hal holding his legs and his face a few inches
above the water.
“See any timbers?” asked Jack.
“No, I don’t think so. I’m not sure. Now and then――Hi, yes, I do,
fellows! There’s a long curving thing down there. I thought at first
it was a rock, but it can’t be.”
“Get up and let someone else have a look,” said Hal.
“Just a minute,” replied Bee in a smothered voice. “There’s something
further down――Gee, if the water would only keep still a minute!”
Finally he consented to being pulled back on deck and Hal took his
place. Hal couldn’t see a thing, he declared, and scoffed at Bee when
he was pulled back. But Jack verified Bee’s story. He got them to lower
him until he could put his face under the water. At intervals he lifted
his head for a breath and then put it under again. When he finally told
them to pull him back he was drenched to his shoulders.
“Bee was right, though,” he said. “You can see three or four ribs and
something square that might be a deck-house; only I don’t see why
a deck-house wouldn’t have floated away. The ribs are covered with
barnacles and mussels and seaweed. It looks as though the boat had gone
clean over the ledge and broken her back. Probably she was trying to
round the island and thought she had lots of room. I wonder who she
was.”
“Has she been there a long time?” asked Bee awedly.
“Years and years. My father used to tell about seeing her when I was
just a tiny tot. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been there fifty
years or even more!”
“Why couldn’t I see anything?” grumbled Hal. “I’m coming back here some
day when it’s calmer.”
“You won’t ever find it much calmer,” said Jack. “And, anyway, there’s
a sort of current between the rocks here that keeps the surface
blurred. Better have another look now, Hal.”
So Hal tried again, with Jack telling him where to look and what to
look for, and had better luck. “She must have been a big old ship,” he
said as he wiped the water from his face. “Why, those rib things seem
to go down for twenty or thirty feet!”
“Wish I were a diver,” said Bee. “I’d go down and see what’s there.
Maybe I’d find a treasure chest or a skeleton or something.”
“What I like about you, Bee,” Jack laughed, “is that you aren’t at all
hard to please. Most anything suits you. If you can’t find a lot of
gold and jewels you’ll take a skeleton and be satisfied. Say we go for
a little trip up the shore, fellows?”
Bee, still fascinated by his glimpses of the sunken ship, readily
agreed, to the surprise of the others, and Jack pulled up the anchor
and headed the _Corsair’s_ nose straight up the coast. Bee demanded the
wheel presently and Jack relinquished it to him, and he and Hal settled
themselves comfortably on the seats abaft the engine and proceeded to
enjoy the cruise. There was enough air stirring to mitigate the heat
of the sun and the radiation from the engine and it was very pleasant
there in the launch. Hal, keeping one ear open, so to speak, for sounds
of trouble from the engine, closed his eyes and relapsed into condition
of half-slumber in which he was vaguely conscious of the rhythmic rise
and fall of the boat, the steady jar and click of the engine and the
_pop, pop, pop_ of the exhaust. Also he was vaguely conscious of some
disturbing factor which eventually resolved itself into a monotonous
chant from the bow. It was Bee, again pouring out his soul to the
ocean.
“O Sea! O Sea! O Sea!
O beautiful, beautiful Sea!
You’re calm enough just now, all right,
You’re blue and tum-ti-tum――ti bright,
But you can’t fool me, O Sea, O Sea;
You can be just as mean as mean can be
And toss little boats all over the shop,
And no one knows when you’re going to stop.
O cruel Sea! O cruel Sea!
Don’t you ever go and get fresh with me.
I think you’re fine when you don’t act funny,
But I hate you, Sea, when I’m sick in my tummy――――”
“That’s a punk rhyme,” laughed Jack.
“Hello! I thought you were asleep,” replied Bee, looking around.
“That’s my ‘Ode to the Sea.’ There are seventeen other verses, but I
haven’t composed them yet. Some ode, isn’t it? Is old Hal asleep?”
“Not quite, I guess. He’s trying to make himself think he is.”
“How can anyone sleep when you’re making a disturbance like that?”
growled Hal. “If he starts again, Jack, heave him overboard, will you?”
“Aye, aye, sir! I’ll keel-haul him if you say so.”
“No, string him to the yard-arm,” murmured Hal.
“Someone’s stolen the yard-arm,” said Bee. “I shall now compose an ‘Ode
to the _Coarse Hair_.’”
“Oh, brave _Coarse Hair_! O, gallant craft
As graceful as a lumber raft!
How blithely doth thou skim along!
How――how like――how like――――”
“Oh, shut up!” yelled Hal. “For the love of mud, Jack, throw something
at him!”
“Ah! Ingratitude! I shall now chant an ‘Ode on Ingratitude.’”
“You do and I’ll come up there and kill you,” said Hal earnestly.
“Where are we, Jack?”
“About four miles from the island and a mile or so off Tuckersville.
That’s Brig Reef off there. I guess we’d better swing around, Bee, and
head her back. Want me to take her?”
“I do not. I am quite capable of swinging her around. In fact,
shipmates, I think I’m getting to be something of a navigator.
Hereafter I shall sign my name ‘Beaman Mansfield, A. B.,’ meaning able
seaman.”
“You’d better sign it ‘B. A.,’ meaning blooming ass,” replied Hal.
“_Here! What are you doing?_ Trying to upset us?”
“No, sir, I was swinging her around. She――er――swung a trifle abruptly,
so to speak.”
“She certainly did,” grumbled Hal. “That wave went all the way down my
back. Ugh!”
“I’m sorry, old Hal, but the _Coarse Hair_ is inclined to be a bit
kittenish today. She’s feeling her oats――I mean her gasoline.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Hal. “I wonder――”
“What?” asked Jack as the other paused.
“How much she’s got.”
“How much what? Gasoline?”
“Yes. She didn’t have very much yesterday. I――I guess I’d better look
and see.”
He made for the bow, but Bee was already unscrewing the cap in the
deck. “Find the stick underneath there, Hal.”
Hal got the measuring stick out of the locker and Bee dropped one end
of it through the opening. It produced a very empty sound as it struck
the bottom of the tank and when Bee pulled it out only a quarter of an
inch was wet. The boys looked at each other in dismay. Then Bee laughed.
“Aren’t we a nice little bunch of launchers?” he asked. “How far will
that take us, Jack?”
Jack shook his head. “Hard to tell. It may take us all the way back and
it may not. Haven’t any more aboard, have you?”
“Gasoline? Not a bit,” replied Hal.
“Couldn’t use oil, could we?” Bee questioned. “We’ve got quite a supply
of that, unless Hal’s slopped it all on the engine.”
“Well, we’ll keep her going,” said Jack. “After the gas gives out we’ll
use the oars. Luckily it’s nice and smooth.”
“And I just love to row,” murmured Bee. “It――it’s so poetic. ‘Merrily
we row along, row along, row along!’ Say, how would it do to imitate
the Irishman who was painting the fence? You know he hurried to get
through before the paint gave out. Maybe if we put her at full speed we
can get home before the gasoline’s all gone!”
“She’s sputtering now,” said Hal sadly. They listened. Yes, she was
already “missing.”
“She’ll go a long time yet, though,” said Jack. “Probably we won’t have
to row more than a couple of miles.”
“Oh, I’m so disappointed,” said Bee. “I hoped we’d have the pleasure of
rowing all the way! ‘Gasoline! Gasoline! First you put it in the tank;
then you turn――’”
“Oh, cut out the funny-business!” begged Hal. “It’s a wonder you
wouldn’t have reminded me that the tank was low.”
“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t have reminded me to remind you,” replied
Bee imperturbably. “Anyhow, why be tragic? Rather let us eat, drink
and be merry, for presently we row! And speaking of drinking, fellows,
a nice cold glass of lemonade wouldn’t go badly. Or even a chocolate
ice-cream soda.”
Hal had walked disgustedly back to the engine and now, with oil-can in
hand, was anxiously watching its dying efforts. Whenever the carbureter
gasped he slathered oil right and left. The _Corsair’s_ speed
diminished little by little until finally Jack was called on to decide
whether she was actually progressing at all. She was still pushing
forward, however, and Nobody’s Island looked very near, although Jack
dashed Bee’s elation by declaring that distances across water were
deceptive and that a good mile and a half still separated them from
home.
“We can make it before supper time, though,” he added.
“Before supper time!” ejaculated Hal. “What time is it now, then?”
“Ten minutes to four. Rowing a launch is mighty slow work, and we’ll
have the tide against us, too. What locker are the oars in?”
“Over here. I’ll get them.” Hal pulled up the lid after some exertion.
“No, they must be on the other side. Look here, I thought we put――yank
that lid off, Jack!”
“No oars here,” said Jack quietly as he looked in.
“And no boat-hook! And no――no nothing! Somebody’s swiped them! Bee, do
you hear? Somebody’s stolen the oars and the boat-hook and that new
rope and――”
“Yes, and the compass and the lanterns, and the fog-horn,” replied Bee,
who had hurriedly peered into a forward locker. “That’s a fine note!”
“I’ll bet you anything it was that glass-eyed pirate!” exclaimed Hal
wildly. “Honest Bill Glass! I hope――I hope he drowns!”
“You’re sure you had them when we came to the island?” asked Jack
thoughtfully.
“Positive! It’s a wonder he left the anchor, the old scoundrel!”
“Maybe he’s coming back for that tonight,” suggested Bee.
“If he does I’ll be waiting for him,” answered Hal grimly. “What shall
we do, Jack?”
And, as though echoing the question, at that moment the engine came to
a final stop.