“It must have been an iceberg,” declared another officer. “That would account for everything—even the silence.”
“It wasn’t an iceberg!” declared Ned. “I saw the camouflage paint. And look! You can see where some of it is scraped off on the broken end of our rail.”
He pointed to a jagged timber. It was true. Amid the splinters were flecks of blue and white paint.
“He’s right!” assented the first officer. “Besides, if it was an iceberg there’d be chunks of it on our decks now. And there isn’t a cubic inch. It was another ship!”
“But what kind?” cried several. “Why doesn’t she signal us and see if she can help?”
The officer had an answer ready for that question. He had not sailed the seven seas without knowing something of the mysteries of the vast places.
“A derelict,” he said.
“A derelict!” came the chorus. Then they understood.
Then came a barrage of questions, chief among them being:
“How could an abandoned derelict back away?”