CHAPTER VI
THE CRUNCHING NOISE ADDED TO THE HORROR OF THE SITUATION
That ship of the dead was a sad and fearful sight.
So high too was her hull, that it was feared at first that to board her would be impossible. But one of the sailors, making a knot on the end of a strong piece of rope, threw it up over the bulwarks, and after many unsuccessful attempts, succeeded in making it stick to something. Then he shinned up and made the end perfectly secure to an iron, but rusty, belaying pin. Antonio and Barclay both swarmed up hand over hand, till they caught the seaman’s hand and alighted safely on the deck.
As our heroes were drawing near to the derelict in the boat, and as she gently swung to and fro to the scud of the seas, they were surprised to see the whole of the hull, nearly as high up as the bulwarks, covered with grey gulf weed and bivalve shells. The seaweed had been originally brown, but was now incrusted with a species of marine lichen, and the deck itself was slimy and green, so that it was difficult indeed to walk upon it, and both Antonio and Barclay looked about them in a kind of bewildered way. But they soon recovered, and commenced to explore. They first cast their eyes aloft. The lower masts were still standing, and solid strong timber they looked; the lower rigging also, but yard-arms there were none; the jibboom and even a portion of the bowsprit were gone, and the bulwarks forward were sadly rent and torn.
Just behind the windlass were two bundles of what appeared at first to be seaweed covered with lichen. A boathook was procured, and the bundles were stirred up.
They dropped in pieces, rattling down on the deck in separate bones, for skeletons indeed they were.
This was a sickening and horrible discovery. Near them lay what seemed the skeleton of a dog.
But more horrors were to come, for diving cautiously now down the fore-hold, they found three more skeletons near the galley and cooking-range. They too were green and slimy, and the odour that pervaded these ’tween decks was so fœtid and horrible, that our heroes were glad to find themselves on deck once more.
So slippery was the ladder, that it was difficult indeed to ascend it.
Slowly now, and with hearts that were inexpressibly sad, they made their way aft and down below to the cabin or saloon. They had first taken the precaution to burst open the skylight and wait for a time. It was well they did so, for the emanating odour was sickening in the extreme.