AN OCEAN DERELICT.
"What's that object off on the starboard bow, sir?"
It was a week after the events narrated in the preceding chapters, and
the _Seneca_, a converted gun-boat fitted with torpedo tubes for the
destruction of derelicts, was plowing her way southward through an azure
sea under a cloudless sky.
Rob Blake asked the question. In full Boy Scout Leader's uniform, and
wearing the different badges to which he was entitled, the young chief
of the Eagles stood on the _Seneca's_ bridge with Ensign Hargreaves and
Lieutenant Murray, who were in command of the destroyer.
"Jove, lad, you have sharp eyes!" exclaimed Lieutenant Murray. "Even the
lookout has not yet spied it. Let's see what it may be. Possibly it's
our 'meat'--food for our torpedoes."
"In that case the boys are in for a bit of excitement," said Ensign
Hargreaves.
"You think it is a derelict!" exclaimed Rob. "Oh, boys!" he called down
to the shady deck below, where the other lads lay reading or writing
letters or studying the Scout Manual, "we've sighted a derelict."
"An ocean hobo, eh?" hailed back Merritt.
"Hold on! Hold on! Not so fast!" laughed Lieutenant Murray.
He took his powerful naval binoculars from their case and carefully
focussed them on the dot which Rob's sharp eyes had espied at so great a
distance.
"You are right, Master Rob," he exclaimed the next instant; "it _is_ a
derelict, and a big one, too."
"And you are going to blow it up?" asked Rob, his voice quivering with
excitement.
"That's our business, lad."
"Hooray! Boys, stand by for the fireworks!" shouted the delighted Rob.
The Boy Scouts, who had pretty well the run of the ship and were favored
alike by officers and men, came swarming upon the bridge. Lieutenant
Murray was adjusting the range finders and directing the quartermaster
at the wheel to change his course so as to bear down on the drifting
hulk. As they drew closer to the dismantled derelict they saw that, as
Lieutenant Murray had declared, she had been a large vessel. Stumps of
three masts rose from her decks above the broken bulwarks. Ends of
bleached and frayed-out shrouds hung from her fore, main, and mizzen
chains. From the look of her, she had been a considerable time adrift.
As she rolled slowly on the gentle swell they could see that her
underbody was green with seaweed and slime, the accumulation of years.
Amidships stood a small deck house, and at the bow a broken bowsprit
pointed heavenward as if invoking mercy on her forlorn condition.
"Why, she might have been drifting about since the time of Noah, to
judge by her looks," exclaimed Merritt, gazing at the odd sight.
"I have heard of derelicts that have followed the ocean currents for
fifty years and more," declared the Lieutenant. "This craft looks as if
she might date back that far. Certainly she has been a long time adrift.
Sailors sometimes become panic-stricken and leave their ships when there
is no real necessity for so doing. A case in point is that of Captain
Larsen of the _Two Sisters_, which sailed from Bath, Maine, for a West
Indian port. She was abandoned in a hurry after a hurricane, and the
captain and crew took to the boats. After drifting for weeks--they had
had time to provision the boats well--they arrived in Kingston, Jamaica,
and the first sight that greeted the captain's eyes was the hulk of the
_Two Sisters_. She had drifted close to the island and had been towed
in, arriving ahead of the crew that had forsaken her!"
"Hark!" cried Merritt, while they were still commenting on the
Lieutenant's story, "what was that?"
"Sounded like a bell tolling," exclaimed Rob.
"It is a bell!" cried Merritt.
Sure enough, borne over the gently heaving water, there came to their
ears the melancholy ding-dong of a deep-toned bell. Coming as it did
from the abandoned sea-riven hulk it cast a gloom over them.
"Who can be ringing it?" cried Tubby, in what was for him, an
awe-stricken voice.
"No mystery about it, I guess," said Lieutenant Murray; "it is the
ship's bell, and as the craft rolls it is ringing a requiem for the
dead."
"Ugh! It gives me the shudders!" exclaimed Hiram.
"It's not a cheerful sound certainly," agreed Rob.
"Bom-boom; bom-boom," chimed the bell, waxing now faint, now loud, as
the wind rose and fell.
"I'd like to go aboard that boat and explore her," declared Merritt.
"That's an opportunity you shall have," said the Lieutenant. "It is our
rule to explore all such derelicts for a hint as to the fate of their
crew before we consign them to the deep."
Orders were given to check the speed of the _Seneca_ and to prepare to
lower a boat.
"Are we to go?" chorused the Scouts eagerly.
"Of course. Mr. Hargreaves will accompany you."
"Aren't you going?" asked Rob.
"No. It's an old story with me. While we are waiting for you, I will
work out our position, which must go in with my report of the derelict's
destruction."
Five minutes later, in one of the _Seneca's_ whale boats, the boys were
skimming over the sea toward the melancholy old derelict. As they glided
along, the bell kept up its monotonous booming with the regularity of a
shore bell summoning worshippers to church.
As the whaleboat was pulled around the derelict's stern they could see a
name painted on the square counter, surrounded with many a scroll and
flourish in the antique manner. These flourishes had once been gilded
and painted, but the gilt and color had long since worn off them.
"_Good Hope of Portland, Me._," read out Rob. "What a contrast between
her name and her fate!"
"Bom-boom," tolled the bell as if in answer to him.
"She must have been one of those old-time clippers that sailed round the
Horn with Yankee notions for the Spice Islands and China, and came back
with tea and other Oriental goods," opined Ensign Hargreaves.
"She was a fine ship in her day, sir," ventured the old quartermaster
who pulled stroke oar.
"Aye, aye, Tarbox; in those days the American mercantile marine was a
thing to be proud of," agreed the ensign. "To-day not one-tenth of the
craft that used to fly the Stars and Stripes remain afloat. They have
vanished and their keels sweep the sea no more."
By this time they had arrived below the derelict's port main chains.
From these several bleached ropes hung down, but all proved too rotten
to support the weight of a Boy Scout, let alone a man. But by good
fortune a chain, rusty, but still strong seemingly, depended from the
bows of the old craft. This withstood a test, and, led by Ensign
Hargreaves, the boys clambered on deck. Quartermaster Tarbox and the
four sailors who had manned the oars were left in the boat.
The boys' hearts beat a little faster as they stood on the forecastle of
the abandoned _Good Hope_. Nor was this caused by the exertion of the
climb altogether. There was something uncanny in standing upon that
long-untrodden deck, while right below the break in the forecastle the
bell kept up its doomsday-like tolling.
The ensign's first task was to make fast a lanyard to the clapper of the
dismal thing, and thereafter their nerves felt steadier. With the dying
out of the clamor of the bell, a death-like hush fell over the abandoned
ship. Only the rippling complaint of the water as she rolled to and fro
broke the stillness. The boys actually found themselves talking in
whispers under the spell that hung above the decks of the ill-fated
_Good Hope_.
"Let us explore that deck house first," said Ensign Hargreaves, and,
followed by the boys, he started for the small structure which stood
just aft of the wreck of the foremast.
Little dreaming of the surprise that awaited them within, the boys
followed, on tip-toe with curiosity and excitement.