"Everything splendid, boys!" said Dick. "Won't we have a time while we are gone, and won't we come back in triumph?"
The return! How little any of the party anticipated the kind of return that would end their adventure!
"There's the schooner!" shouted Dave. "I can read her name on the stern--RELENTLESS. Letters somewhat dim."
"She is anchored good," said Dab Richards. "Got her cable out."
"Anchor at the bottom of it, I suppose," conjectured Jimmy Davis.
"We will find out, boys, won't we? We will just hoist her a bit, as the sailors say, and see what she carries," said Dick, in a low tone.
"Nonsense!" said Dave. "Sylvester has our word for good behaviour."
"Oh, don't you worry!" said Dick, in a jesting tone. "Let's see! Shall we make our boat fast round there? Where shall it be?"
The best mooring was found for the boat, and then a ladder with hooks on one end was attached to the vessel's rail, and up sprang the boys eagerly.
The Relentless was an old fishing-schooner. She had been stripped of her canvas, and portions of her rigging had been removed. There were the masts, though, still to suggest those trips to distant fishing-grounds, when the winds had filled the canvas and sent the Relentless like an arrow shot from one curving billow to another. There was the galley, empty now of its stove, and showing to any investigator only a rusty pan in one corner; but the wind humming round its bit of rusty funnel told a story of many a savoury dish cooked for a hardy, hungry crew. And the little cabin, so still now, save when a hungry rat softly scampered across its floor, had been a good corner of retreat to many when heavy seas wet the deck on stormy nights and sent the spray flying up into the rigging.