Of course, we could see from the ship all that went on as the cutter sheered up to the derelict craft. The bowman was standing up with his boathook ready to hook on when he got near enough, and Mr Osborne, the ‘first luff,’ standing up likewise astern to inspect the better the boat and its motionless occupants, he himself having gone away in the cutter, seeing how anxious the commodore seemed in the matter, instead of sending a young midshipman as usual.
Something strange must have happened, for, as our boat touched the other, we could hear a startled cry from Mr Osborne, followed by a sort of suppressed groan from the cutter’s crew.
This reached the commodore’s ear. “Cutter, ahoy!” he hailed. “Any one alive?”
“No, sir,” came back the reply from Mr Osborne, in a sad tone. “All are dead—and a fearful death too!”
“Why,” called out the commodore eagerly, as curious as all of us were, “what’s the matter?”
“Struck by lightning, I think, sir,” answered Mr Osborne, who held his handkerchief to his face and spoke in a stifled voice, after bending down and looking over into the sternsheets of the derelict. “Can’t say exactly, sir. They’re in an awful state!”
“Ho, bad job!” muttered the commodore aft, on the poop, as if talking to himself; and then in a louder key he sang out, “You’d better bring the boat alongside and let the doctor see them!”
Thereupon the bowman hitching the cutter’s painter to the stem of the other boat which projected above the gunwale, and letting out the slack of the rope so as the boat should not come too close, Mr Osborne giving some order to that effect, they took her in tow, and in a few strokes were alongside the ship again.
When they came up, there was no reason for any one to ask why the first lieutenant had held his handkerchief to his face.
The stench was abominable!