As the boat advanced more wreckage was encountered, and once they passed a small raft filled with household goods. On top of the goods lay the half burnt bodies of several people. Then they passed the bodies of several cows and of a horse, and the wreckage became thicker and thicker. The sights made them shudder and grow sick at heart.
Night found them still on the sea, some distance west of St. Pierre, for they had missed their reckoning by over a mile, Sven Orlaff being but a common sailor and understanding little more of steering than themselves. A horrible smell reached them, coming from the distant shore.
When day dawned, it found them somewhat rested and eager to get closer to land, although they determined not to go ashore until they felt it would be safe to do so. Each of the boys was thinking of his father. Was it possible that St. Pierre had been overcome and were their parents dead?
As last they made out the distant city, and the harbor dotted here and there with the burnt shipping. Directly in the roadstead rested the wrecked and burnt hulk of a big steamship, the Roraima, of the Quebec line. The Roraima had been caught with twenty-one passengers and a crew of forty-seven on board, and of that number less than a third were saved and many of these were horribly crippled for life.
“Another ship! A man-of-war!” cried Frank, and he was right. Close at hand was the big warship, the Suchet, sent north once more from Fort de France to investigate the happenings of St. Pierre. The captain of the warship had just taken on board the survivors from the Roraima, and now a hail was sent to our friends and they too were assisted to the deck.
CHAPTER XXX
LOOKING FOR THE MISSING ONES
“Oh, Mark, the city is laid in ashes! Nobody escaped!”
It was Frank who uttered the words, after a French naval officer, who could speak English, had explained the situation.
“But some people must have gotten away,” insisted Mark, unwilling to believe the awful facts. “Remember how we found our boat, and how we saw those other boats further up the coast. They must have had warning enough.”
“But the fiery blast came so quickly,” went on the younger youth. “Those from the Roraima say it came in one gigantic swoop that swept everything before it. If that is so, and our fathers were in the city——”