Soon the boys stood on the main deck of the abandoned steamer, whose name they now saw was Durham Castle.
"She was a Britisher," declared Ben.
As he spoke there was a mighty noise like that of rushing water from the forecastle and the boys started back in affright. And well they might, for on the heels of the noise came a perfect torrent of rats. Gray rats, brown rats, young rats, old rats, thin rats, fat rats. They dashed directly at the boys, seeming mad with terror, or rendered ferocious from thirst or other causes.
Their little beady black eyes gleamed wickedly and their sharp yellow teeth were exposed.
The boys ran and Ben leaped into the main shrouds by which they had been standing, but the forerunners of this avalanche of crazed creatures was upon them. The rodents with squeaks and cries swarmed after the human beings as if they meant to devour them by sheer force of numbers.
"Shoot—shoot," shouted Ben, as he dashed from his waist a big brown rat that left the imprint of its teeth in his hand as he struck at it.
Frenziedly the boys emptied their magazine revolvers at the mass of swarming creatures and they fell dead in heaps at their feet. But still the onrush came and the lads shuddered with repulsion as they felt the tiny claws of the rodents fixed in their trousers as the creatures tried to swarm up them.
They seemed to have a leader. An immense gray fellow almost as big as a rabbit. A sudden idea came into Frank's head, he did not know at the time whether he had been told it, or read of it somewhere, but it seemed to him if he could kill that old gray leader the rest might take fright.
Hastily he fired, almost blowing the creature's head off, so close was it to him.
As the others saw their leader killed they hesitated, and Ben and Harry took advantage of the pause to empty a fresh magazine full of bullets into the closely packed mass.