“Now, if I have a weakness, it is in connection with this ship. She is a good boat, and I am proud of her; proud of her size, proud of her appearance, proud of her speed—yes, especially proud of her speed; I don’t like to be overhauled and passed by anything. So I sent word to the chief engineer to stir up his people in the stoke-holds. But, in spite of all that we could do, the craft astern steadily crept up to us until she was hull up; and then, notwithstanding the fact that she was differently painted, and was different in one or two minor respects as to rig, from the craft that had been so friendly with us at Melbourne, I couldn’t help suspecting that she was the same. And when I began to ask myself why—if she really was the same craft—she had turned up in my wake instead of pursuing her voyage to the spot to which she was bound, I at once thought of the gold in my strong—room; and, although I couldn’t help acknowledging to myself that my suspicion was ridiculous, the idea seized hold of me that she had turned pirate, and was after that gold. Mumford, my chief officer, laughed in my face when I whispered this notion into his ear; but he changed his tune when they opened fire upon us, I can tell you. Well—but there, you know the rest of the yarn just as well as I can tell it you, for by that time you must have been heaving up over the horizon. But there was not an eye aboard of us that saw you until the other fellow opened fire on you; and then we couldn’t see very much except your ensign. But that was enough for me; for, to tell you the truth, I thought you were a British man-o’-war of some sort, though what, I couldn’t, for the life of me, tell; for I could see neither masts nor funnels. And now, gentlemen, I want to ask you to be kind enough, before you leave us, to sign—as witnesses to its truth—the entry that I shall be obliged to make in my official log; for the story is such a confoundedly queer one that, unless it is well vouched for by independent persons, I very much doubt whether my owners, or anybody else, for that matter, will believe it.”
Sir Reginald, of course, readily undertook to do this; and while the skipper was drafting and making the entry the visitors chatted with the passengers, who insisted upon keeping them for afternoon tea. The visit, therefore, did not end until nearly six o’clock that evening, at which hour the two ships parted company with mutual threefold dips of their ensigns; and the Flying Fish was once more brought round with her head to the eastward.
Four days later, the ship being then within some three hundred miles of the western end of the Straits of Sunda, the weather being stark calm, with an absolutely cloudless sky, the craft at the time going about ten knots, and steering herself, as the party stepped out on deck after lunch and glanced around them, they became aware that during the period of their absence from the deck they had raised the canvas of a large full-rigged ship above the horizon. The stranger was then bearing about two points on the starboard bow. As this was the first craft that had been seen since they had dipped their ensign to the Baroda, she excited enough interest to cause everybody to make an instant rush for their binoculars; and within five minutes eight pairs of those very useful instruments had been focussed upon her. She was then hull-down, and to the non-professional eye there was nothing at all unusual in her appearance; she was simply a becalmed ship under topsails and topgallantsails, with her courses clewed up but not furled. A cloud of minute spots—which could only be birds—hovering round her, bore no significance to any one save Mildmay; and even he was not sure that he knew quite what it meant. For it is by no means unusual for whole flocks of gulls to hover in the wake of a ship at sea—especially if there happens to be land within a reasonable distance—for the sake of the fragments of waste food that daily go over a ship’s side after every meal. But whereas, under ordinary circumstances, a hundred gulls constitute a very respectable flock, there appeared to be at least ten times this number hovering about the stranger; and it was this unusual circumstance that prompted Mildmay to suggest to Sir Reginald that they should edge a little nearer to her, with the object of seeking an explanation of the phenomenon. The baronet raising no objection, Mildmay stepped into the pilot-house, and, adjusting the helm, brought the ship straight over the bows of the Flying Fish, and at the same time raised the speed of the latter to eighteen knots.
Under these conditions it was not long ere the stranger was near enough to admit of details being made out with the aid of the excellent glasses of the party; and it then became apparent to all that the canvas set was so old and thin and weather-perished, that it had become semi-transparent, the brilliant light of the afternoon showing through it so strongly that the masts and some of the rigging behind could be traced through the attenuated fabric. The next thing about the craft that attracted attention was the fact that some of the running and standing rigging had parted and was hanging loose, swaying gently to the almost imperceptible heave of the ship on the glass-smooth sea. And finally, when they had arrived within a mile of her, they saw that her paint was so bleached and blistered by the sun that it was difficult to say what its original colour had been, while much of it had peeled off altogether, exposing the bare wood which, in its turn, had turned blue-grey from long exposure to the weather. Not a soul was to be seen on board her, no sign of life about her save the great cloud of birds that swept hither and thither round her. Her boats still hung at her davits, therefore it was to be assumed that her crew had not abandoned her; yet what had become of them? The answer was supplied a little later, for as the Flying Fish, with stopped engines, slowly drifted to within about a quarter of a mile of her, the party of curious gazers suddenly caught a whiff of horrible odour that told the whole story. She was a ship with a dead crew!
The professor promptly dashed into the pilot-house, and backed the ship off to a distance at which she would be safe from infection; and then the men of the party held a consultation as to what should be done in the matter of this ghastly tragedy upon which they had stumbled. Here was another case wherein it was desirable, for obvious reasons, that the name, nationality, and other particulars of the ship should be ascertained; and this, of course, could only be done by boarding her. It is true that her name and nationality might perhaps be determined by the simple expedient of running round her and reading the inscription upon her stern; and this was tried, but with no very satisfactory result, the only letters decipherable being “insch—en—otter—m.”
It was at once apparent that Sir Reginald was distinctly averse from the idea of boarding the ship; and this was not to be wondered at, for who was to say of what disease the unfortunate crew had died? It might be plague, cholera, or something equally malignant; and if so, what guarantee was there that the boarding-party would not bring the infection of it back to the Flying Fish? Even when Mildmay suggested the possibility that life might still be lingering in some poor wretch aboard the stranger, he still hesitated, questioning the prudence of exposing eight healthy persons—or eleven, if they included Ida’s nurse, George, and the chef below—to serious risks of infection upon so remote a probability, as that there might possibly be a survivor of the tragedy still existing. Yet, the idea having been mooted, he could not bring himself to say the word that would leave the floating charnel-house unexplored. He therefore appealed to von Schalckenberg to say whether there were any means, either by the use of disinfectants or otherwise, whereby an examination of the ship might be rendered possible; and upon the latter answering in the affirmative, it was ultimately arranged that Mildmay should go alone on board her, and learn what he could, but that he was to bring nothing away from the ship. “The skipper” accordingly, following the professor’s instructions, went below and changed into the oldest and most worthless garments that he could find; after which he joined the worthy German in the latter’s own cabin, and there imbibed a certain draught, and otherwise underwent elaborate preparations for his projected expedition, that were guaranteed to render him personally immune.
Meanwhile, Sir Reginald and Lethbridge got out, lowered, and brought to the gangway, one of the boats, into which Mildmay presently stepped, and pushed off for the strange ship.
He was absent a full hour, or more, and he had scarcely reached the empty deck of the Flying Fish upon his return, when those who had been watching his movements from the dining-saloon ports saw thin wreaths of blue smoke go soaring upward between the masts from the two ends of the stranger. Mildmay had carefully set her on fire.