A rapid search showed that the ship had nothing of value to offer. Her boats were gone; her compasses, charts, chronometers, and sextants all were gone. Some tools remained, but were so rusted as to be of little value. Howard soon led the way to her taffrail, whence he could clutch the shrouds of a full-rigged ship which had evidently been in a collision.
As he stepped on the deck of this craft, there was a scurry of feet, and a dozen huge rats bolted across the deck and disappeared under the poop.
“Confound the brutes,” he muttered. “I hate them! Wonder what they have been eating.”
The answer was not far to seek. Close beside the davits of the quarter-boat lay two skeletons; one with a smooth, round hole drilled through the fleshless skull, the other with a broken backbone. Howard looked at them and nodded.
“Probably the crew made a rush for the boats,” he suggested. “Somebody—one of the officers, I suppose—tried to stop them. He shot one, but the others ran over him and broke his back. Then came the rats. Well, it was a man’s death. If you can find a couple of bags, Jackson, we will commit the bones to the sea.”
From the ship the two men descended to a steamer, much down by the stern, with a gaping hole in her port counter, where something must have driven deep into her vitals. From this they climbed upon a small yacht, floating just awash. (“Held up by water-tight compartments,” explained Howard.) Thence they passed to another vessel, and to another, and another, each bearing mute record to the manner of its ruin.
But on none did the explorers find what they sought. The boats were invariably gone; the tools were always rusty; the compasses had all been snatched from the binnacle and from the cabin; the charts had mostly been torn from the racks and tables, often so roughly that the thumb-tacks that had held their corners were left in the board, each holding a triangular scrap of torn paper. In the few instances where any did remain, they were rotten with mildew, and charted regions far distant from the Sargasso Sea.
It was noon when Howard gave the word to return to the Queen. “Don’t be downcast, Jackson,” he consoled. “What we have found to-day is only what we had to expect. The boats would, of course, be taken, even if everything else was left. The compasses, and charts, and sextants, and so on, would naturally be taken next, for those who went in the boats would need them to shape their course. The tools and engines would have almost invariably been left exposed to the weather and would be badly rusted. It would have been by mere chance had we found what we wanted on the very first day. At least we have learned that there is plenty of food and water and clothing and coal to be had for the taking. To-morrow we will search in another direction. Now, let’s go home.”
But return was not so easy as the two men expected. As Howard had foretold, there was an important difference between climbing up and climbing down, and this difference was accentuated by the fact that in leaving the Queen they had chosen the easiest route. When they could have gone from one ship to any one of two or three others, they had naturally moved to the one that appeared the least difficult of access.
Taking the route in reverse, this small detail of choice often meant that they must return to the one that was the most difficult to board.