THE STRANGE END OF THE _MINNIE B_
At Gaskin's announcement, bedlam broke loose among the diners. They
leaped to their feet and rushed headlong from the messroom.
"Get th' buckets!" "Man th' boat!" "We'll niver get there in toime!"
"_Allons! Allons_!" "W'y didn't we put a guard on 'er!" "Hurry!
Hurry! Hurry!" "Yes, 'urry! 'urry!"
Out into the darkness to the forward pontoon rushed the howling mob.
Some gave inarticulate cries, others bewailed their lost riches to the
vast empty night.
A strange sight met their eyes. The spars and sails of the _Minnie
B_ stood out against the black heavens in a flickering brilliance
that danced up through the rigging, but presently all saw it was a mere
light shining from beneath.
"Th' fire's in th' hold!" cried Galton hoarsely. "Did you men drop a
match?"
"'Ow could they drop a match, wearin' nothin' but undershirts?" flared
back another navvy.
"We could do no good in a small boat!" cried Galton.
'She's afire from stem to stern!"
"But smoke--w'ere's th' smoke?"
Then, quite surprisingly, the light wavered out, leaving the schooner in
stony blackness. A vague blur of complementary color swam in Madden's
eyes. A gasp went up from the watchers.
"Bhoys," faltered Hogan in an awed tone, "th' banshees ar-re dancin'
to-night!"
"Banshees!" sneered Mulcher. "Th' deck's caved in--it'll break out
again!"
"Th' engines must be ruint complately."
"Wot do ye make of it, Mister Madden?" asked Galton, bewildered.
"Look--there it is again!"
Sure enough the mysterious light flamed up once more as suddenly as it
disappeared. It flickered and wavered over hull and spars.
"It might possibly be a phosphorescent display," hazarded Leonard,
completely mystified.
"Tropical seas grow very luminous when disturbed... a school of
dolphins or sharks on the other side the schooner might----"
"This must be a reg'lar fire!" cried Mulcher. "Nothin' but a furnace in
th' hold----"
"W'y don't hit smoke?"
"'Ow do I know?"
"Hit ain't a fire!"
"W'ot is hit?"
"Phosphescence, didn't you 'ear Mister Madden say!"
"Will hit sink 'er?"
Deschaillon gave a sharp laugh. "What _sauvages_!"
By this time it became clear to everyone that it was not a fire. As the
weird illumination continued its fantastic gambols, little points of
light began moving about the deck.
Just then Caradoc's grave voice hazarded: "That must be an extraordinary
display of St. Elmo's fire. I should say a storm was brewing."
"Would St. Elmo's fire 'urt th' vessel, sir?" asked a cockney.
"Not at all," replied the Englishman.
As Leonard stared a queer thought came into his head. He looked around
at his companions. In the faint radiance from the mysterious schooner,
he could make out their faces, pale blurs all fixed on the strange
spectacle. He picked out the heavy form of Farnol Greer and moved over
to his friend. Under the cover of excited talking and exclamations, he
asked in a low tone.
"There was somebody on that schooner this morning, Farnol?"
"Just what I was thinking, sir."
"He could have hidden from us. You thought he must be crazy--a crazy man
would probably have secreted himself."
"I had it in mind, sir, the very thing."
"Now could he possibly make a light like this?"
Greer remained silent. The queer fellow never said anything when he had
nothing to say.
"I'd like to go over and see," went on Leonard. "I want one man to row
with me. We want to go light and fast."
"That's me, sir."
Greer moved instantly to the rope ladder where the dinghy was tied.
Madden followed him. Caradoc was still explaining the theory of St.
Elmo's fire to the listening men. Madden broke in on it.
"Fellows," he called, "Greer and I are going to row over there. We'll
let you know what we find."
Amid warning protests the two climbed down the ladder for the small
boat.
"I wouldn't do it, sir." "Leckricity's liable to strike you, sir."
"There's a storm comin', sir, and you won't get back, like th' mate
did." "You can see just as well from 'ere."
But the two clambered into the half-seen dinghy and pushed off. The
moment they dipped oars into water, the mystery was partially explained.
Every stroke they made created bright phosphorescent rings in the
lifeless sea. Their blades drove through the water in a flame. The
navvies cried out at this phenomenon. A sufficient disturbance of the
sea beyond the schooner would almost explain the strange light dancing
through the rigging. But what made that disturbance?
Reflections of the shining spars made a wavering path over the
weed-strewn water, and up this path the dinghy moved amid its own
flashing fires. It formed a queer spectacle, a glowworm creeping up on a
bonfire.
The fact that the two boys had just traversed the Sargasso lanes a few
hours before aided them greatly now in finding their way to the
schooner. Presently they were skirting the drift of seaweed where Madden
had come so near losing his life. As they rowed, the flashing of the
water about their oars only half convinced Madden that a similar cause
underlay the bizarre illumination on the schooner. The American's mind
clung to the idea that there was somebody on board the _Minnie B_,
a madman, possibly, who in some unknown way produced this amazing light.
He groped for some theory to account for a maniac on a deserted schooner
in these desolate seas. No doubt if a solitary man were left in these
terrible painted seas he would go insane. Madden regretted that he had
not searched the _Minnie B_ more thoroughly when he had the
opportunity.
Similar thoughts evidenly played in Greer's mind, for presently he
puffed out, between oar strokes: "Did you bring along a pistol, sir?"
"No, but there are two of us."
"They say they are tremendously stout, sir."
"We can use our oars; they'd made good clubs."
"I'm with you, sir."
By this time they had entered a long S-shaped rift that Madden recalled
led straight to the schooner. By glancing over his shoulder, the
American saw its two curving strokes drawn in pale light against the
dark field of seaweed. As they drew nearer, wild notions of what they
might encounter played through Madden's mind. What would be the outcome
of this fantastic adventure?
The dinghy was moving down the middle of the long "S" when a dull noise
from the schooner caused both oarsmen to look around. Such an
extraordinary sight met their eyes that they ceased rowing completely,
and stood up in the boat to stare at their goal.
The _Minnie B_ no longer lay at rest. Some strange and mighty
convulsion was taking place in the schooner. The lights still played
about the vessel, but her whole prow rose slowly out of the sea, while
she settled heavily by the stern. The most unexpected thing in the world
was happening.
The _Minnie B_ was foundering!
In the ghastly light, her masts and rigging swung in a slow drunken
reel. Presently she settled back to normal with a heavy crushing sound
as the water in her hold rushed forward. She seemed some mighty
leviathan weltering in agony. She lay on even keel for four or five
minutes while a hissing and spewing of air compressed in her hull told
she was slowly settling.
In the ghostly light the foundering vessel gave a strange impression of
clinging desperately to her life. She seemed striving to remain upright.
Her hissing and sucking might have been a living gasp for breath. Very
slowly she rolled over, and came the noise of many waters cascading down
over her upflung keel. Her masts crashed, yards broke, rigging popped in
the wildest confusion as they dashed into the sea. Great phosphorescent
waves dashed through the prone rigging and over the hull in liquid fire.
A sea of quicksilver leaped up to lick her down. With great bubbling and
sucking and groaning, the _Minnie B_ fought for her last gasp of
life. For several minutes she lay thus, on her side, every detail
clearly delineated as liquid fire roared down her open hatches. At last,
as she filled with water, the schooner straightened with a mighty
effort, a last stand between sea and sky, then sank slowly out of sight
in a scene of wild and ill-starred beauty. Her mainpeak disappeared in a
shining maelstrom. The convulsed water flashed and hissed, and the
circling waves here torches into the dead seaweed and moved the black
fields to a whispered sighing.
Toward the south the waves moved with great velocity and brilliance.
Indeed something seemed to be rushing away from the wreck, clad in long
winding sheets of flame. It might have been a continuation of the waves
in that direction, or it might have been some dolphin or shark flying
from the roaring vessel.
In ghastly mystification, the two watchers stared at the last weird
gleams that marked the foundered schooner. The waves reached the dinghy,
raised it and dropped it with a slow gurgling, then died away in firefly
glimmers. The sea presented once more a dim gray surface. To Madden's
mind there came, with a sharp sense of pathos, the picture of the little
sunny-haired girl he had seen in the chart room.
"Sunk," murmured Greer in a strange tone, "sunk--when she was as dry as
a chip."
"Heeled over," shivered Madden, "heeled over in a dead calm--God have
mercy on us!"