CHAPTER XIX.
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.