“A capful of wind, Miss Laura.”
The steamer soon heeled over slowly to the breeze; then her stern, making a ripple on the water, came round, and she lay broadside on, showing the high poops, lofty bridge, and deep, well-like quarter-deck of the ocean tramp. The strange figure hanging over the swell of her bows swung to the lazy motion of the ship, his feet nearly touching the heave of the sea made by the list.
Out of that swell there rose the gleaming belly of the great fish, the next moment the ropes hung limp against the ship!
A murmur of horror rose from the Swift, and Miss Anstrade caught Frank convulsively by the arm. “O Sancta Sanctissima!” she cried, “what a fearful thing is the sea!”
Yet it could not have been more peaceful, as it came with a soft caressing ripple against the grey sides of the catcher, its glossy surface belying the evidence of that ghastly tragedy, whose eddying ripples it had hastily smoothed away.
And the derelict, lazily dipping, pointed her tall narrow bows once more at the Swift, and seemed to the sailor-men to appeal to them in her helplessness; so they pitied her as if she had been a living thing.
“What is the matter with her?” asked Miss Anstrade, her face still white.
“She has been abandoned, evidently; but I must find out why, for she appears to be seaworthy. Her rigging is uninjured; she cannot be making water, and if her steam-gear were damaged she could trust to her sails.”
The Swift was now within a few lengths of the derelict, and passing under her stern, turned to examine her port side.
There, at last, was some evidence of violence, for one of her iron plates had been ripped open, the port side of the bridge had been completely swept away, and there were two jagged holes in her forward bulwark, the jagged ends projecting out, while fragments of a boat hung from her davits.