“She’s a ship’s boat, with three men, a jury rig, and barrels and boxes. She’s from a wreck, that’s sure.”
He came rolling down the narrow stairway, and together we stood at the quai du Commerce as the mysterious boat drew nearer. We saw that the oarsmen were rowing fairly strongly against the slight breeze, and our fears of the common concomitants of wrecks,—starvation and corpses—disappeared as we made out their faces through the glasses. They stood out bronzed and hearty. The boat came up along the embankment, one of the three steering, with as matter of fact an air as if they had returned from a trip within the lagoon. There was a heap of things in the boat, the sail, a tank, a barrel, cracker-boxes, blankets, and some clothing.
The men were bearded like the pard, and in tattered garments, their feet bare. The one at the helm was evidently an officer, for neither of the others made a move until he gave the order:
“Throw that line ashore!”
Goeltz seized it and made fast to a ring-bolt, and then only at another command did the two stand up. We seized their hands and pulled them up on the wall. They were as rugged as lions in the open, burned as brown as Moros, their hair and beards long and ragged, and their powerful, lean bodies showing through their rags.
“What ship are you from?” I inquired eagerly.
The steersman regarded me narrowly, his eyes squinting, and then said taciturnly, “Schooner El Dorado.” He said it almost angrily, as if he were forced to confess a crime. Then I saw the name on the boat, “El Dorado S. F.”
“Didn’t I tell you so?” asked Lying Bill, who was in the crowd now gathered. “George, didn’t I say the El Dorado would turn up?”
He glared at Goeltz for a sign of assent, but the retired salt sought kudos for himself.
“I saw her first,” he replied. “I was having a Doctor Funk when I looked toward the pass, and saw at once that it was a queer one.”