“Make out any one on board, Mr Herrick?” said a sharp voice behind me, and I started round, to find that my companions had gone forward, and the first lieutenant was behind me with his spyglass under his arm and his face very eager and stern.
“No, sir; not a soul.”
“Nor signals?”
“None.”
“No more can I,” my lad. “Your eyes are younger and sharper than mine. Look again. Do the bulwarks seem shattered?”
I took a long look.
“No, sir,” I said. “Everything seems quite right except the fore-topmast, which has snapped off, and is hanging in a tangle down to the deck.”
“But the fire?”
“That only looks, sir, as if they’d got a stove in the forecastle, and had just lit the fire with plenty of smoky coal.”
“Hah! That’s all I can make out. We’ve come to something at last, Mr Herrick.”