“No,” said the captain decidedly; and in an instant the sight of the torn timbers seemed less terrible, and the pictures Steve was calling up of his uncle and crew lying somewhere about buried in the sand faded away.
As the captain gave vent to that decisive utterance he climbed on board, and stood up on the stones and sand which filled the angle between the bulwarks and the sloping deck.
“What do you say she is, Johannes?” cried the captain to the sturdy Norseman, who stood leaning on the shaft of his great spear.
“Whaler, sir, and been here for three or four years,” replied the man.
“Yes, I thought it was not a last season’s wreck. E—E,” he said thoughtfully; “where can she be from?”
“Dundee!” cried Steve quickly.
“Good. Of course, a Dundee whaler,” said Captain Marsham. “That brings to an end all idea of the Ice Blink coming to grief here. But let’s see; we may find traces of the poor fellows who were wrecked;” and after a look at the remains of the broken masts, the huge cavern-like hollow ripped in the deck, where tons upon tons of sand were lying as it had been tossed in during storms, he led the way aft to the cabin; but there was little to see there. The windows had been battered in by the stones and pieces of rock hurled at them by the waves; but two of the dead-lights, which had been evidently closed during the storm in which the vessel was wrecked, were still held in their places. As for the cabin itself, the contents had been torn and beaten away through a huge gap on one side of the rudder, which reached upward to the deck, and nothing remained of locker or berth that could give any trace of the crew. From here they went forward to the forecastle, the hatch of which gaped widely open; and as they stood below it at the bottom of the sloping deck, Steve felt a strange sensation of shrinking, and as if he would prefer to leave any secrets which the cabin might hide in peace. Captain Marsham felt, too, something of the kind, and he said a few words in a low voice to the doctor.
“Yes,” replied the latter, “perhaps so, poor fellows; but we ought to see.”
That was enough to suggest to Steve the possibility of the remains of the crew being below, just as they had died of cold, perhaps of starvation. The desire to leave the deck increased, but he tried to brace himself together, and listened as the doctor said:
“Shall I go?”