“No, I’m not,” asserted Bob, emphatically. “There! I caught a glimpse of it again. It’s some poor brute that they had no room for in the boats, and so they had to leave him behind.”
“Well, we’ll know in a few minutes whether you’re right,” said Joe, “for the boat’s slowing up now and probably they’ll send over a party to find out all about it. Gee, how I wish we could go with them!”
Captain Springer happened to be passing just then, and heard the remark.
“I guess that can be arranged,” he said. “You boys can pack yourselves in small in the stern of the boat I’m going to send over.”
“That will be fine!” Bob answered for them. “Thank you, oh, very much!”
The Meteor slowed up when she was a few hundred feet away from the helpless vessel, keeping up just enough steam to give her steerageway, and a boat, manned by Lieutenant Milton and a crew of six, and into which the Radio Boys also went in accordance with the captain’s permission, was let down into the water.
The sailors bent to the oars and the little boat sped swiftly across the dancing waters.
As they approached, the conviction grew upon them that the ship had no human occupants. A stillness as of death hung over it. No steam came from the engine pipes, no smoke from the funnels. Some of the rusty plates had parted, and there was a gaping hole near the bow, through which the water rushed when the vessel rolled to that side.
“Maybe it’s the Flying Dutchman,” cried Jimmy, with a little catch in his voice and, for the moment, half believing the old legend.
“Or a vessel on which they’ve had the plague,” was Herb’s cheerful suggestion.