“Not another ocean waif, like the boy, eh?” asked the skipper in a chaffing sort of way, while he waited for the seaman to give some further information, as to what he had seen, as he thought would be the case presently without his putting the question to him.
“Nary a one,” was Tom’s answer, as he looked down on the face of Sailor Bill, which was upturned to his without a vestige of animation in it, although the boy’s attention had been attracted by the sound of his voice; “couldn’t find another like you, I guess.”
“What sort o’ sail?” hailed the captain again, as he did not hear the response to his question, the seaman having spoken in a low tone as to himself.
“A water-logged hull of some vessel or other, I reckon, boss!”
This time Tom’s answer was heard plainly enough below.
“Where away?” rejoined the skipper aloud, adding under his voice to the mate, “Guess I woke him!”
“Right ahead—about three miles off, more or less.”
“See anybody on board?”
“Nary a soul! The hull’s low down in the water and the decks awash.”
“Well, we’ll soon come up to her at our rate of going,” shouted out the captain in the same pitch of voice, which might have been heard a mile away at the least; for, although there was a strong breeze the wind did not make much noise, and the Atlantic waves were only frisking about in play without any great commotion. “Mind you pilot us right: it would spoil the Susan Jane’s figure-head, I reckon, to run aboard a water-logged hull!”