"Yes, Fred."
Down the fore ladder they went.
It was a horrible sight their eyes alighted on. For a few moments the semi-darkness dazed them; but soon every detail became distinct enough. Both corpses lay on their backs, their skeleton legs still encompassed by the iron staples that bound them to a long strong bar of steel. Only by their clothes, and by a ring on the finger of one, could they have been distinguished. The old place was alive with gigantic cockroaches, and loathsome centipedes crept about the skulls of the skeletons, and disappeared to hide in their eye sockets, while rats, tame from starvation, crawled here and there on the deck. It was evident enough that the wretched men had been guilty of some crime that had necessitated their being put in irons, and that they had been entirely forgotten during the hurry and scurry of lowering the boats and leaving the ship. And so—awful fate!—they must have slowly starved and died. Probably been partly eaten alive by the rats, with which Frank said the ship had always abounded.
The young men were glad indeed when they found themselves once more on deck under the blue sky, and breathing the sweet pure air of heaven.
"I shan't be sorry," said Frank, "when we get on shore out of this awful charnel-house of a ship. I hope there is nothing dreadful to see in the saloon."
Thither they now bent their steps, and descended the slimy ladder.
There was everywhere below the same evidence of hurried desertion. The store-room door was open, boxes and small casks had been partially hauled out, and left where they stood. The compass that usually hangs under the skylight had been taken down, but left on the table beside the chronometer. In the captain's stateroom the bedclothes in the bunk were in disorder, and on a table near stood propped up a half-empty bottle of rum.
The ship's log lay on the saloon floor, and a glance at it showed that the last entry had been made on the very day our castaways had left the San Salvador for the mirage island.
"I'm glad," said Frank, "there are no more corpses here."
"So am I; but now, Frank, it is a duty we owe ourselves to save all we can out of this derelict vessel, that Providence has guided to the shores of our island."