“I’ll take care, sir,” said Steve, in a tone full of confidence.
The captain turned and looked at him sharply.
“I’d rather you had said, ‘I’ll try to take care.’”
“Snubbed,” thought Steve. “Why, of course I shall take care. Does he think I shall shoot one of the men?”
He had other things to think of a few minutes later, for there before them, as they toiled on over the rocks and sand, with the breakers thundering away just to their right, lay the wreck, making them all hasten their pace, which gradually increased until it was a run, Steve at last leading, in spite of the weight of the heavy gun, and reaching the stranded vessel many yards in front of the doctor, who was next.
“I forgot all about the bears,” said the latter, giving a sharp look round with his gun ready.
But there was nothing in sight but a great gull floating gently along over the breaking waves, and looking down eagerly for anything edible cast up by the sea.
Then the rest came up, and they looked round the vessel, lying quite firmly wedged in the rocks, one of them having pierced its bottom, making a gap, through which the sand had made its way till it was half filled.
The bows were examined and then the stern, but everything bearing the vessel’s name and the port from which she sailed had been swept away, save two letters—two E’s on the starboard side, just below the stern cabin window.
“Do you think it is the Ice Blink, sir?” said Steve in an awe-stricken whisper; for in spite of the bright sunshine and dazzling blue of sea and sky, there was something so weird and grim about the loose, torn, shattered wreck that the boy felt as if it were impossible to speak aloud.