At least there were figures leaning against her rail.
The castaway lost no time in lowering the one boat that had not been smashed and sliding down the "falls" into her. Then he sculled, not without difficulty, through tangled weed to the side of the strange vessel. But a strange sight met his eyes as he drew nearer. His neighbor in the vast entangling expanse was a high-sided craft with great ports, of which one or two had fallen away, revealing the grinning muzzles of great guns. Her sails hung in torn fragments from her square yards, and on her lofty poop the gilding had faded from three big battle-lanterns and the carved scroll work surrounded her name, El Buena Ventura. (The Fortunate Venture.)
But the men leaning over the side?
Alas for poor Bluewater Bill's hopes of human companionship.
It was many long years since they had been men, and it was a dozen or more grinning skeletons in time-tattered garments that gazed over the galleon's faded side at the lone castaway in his cockle-shell. How they had died, the sailor, even after he had clambered on board, could make no guess; but there they stood, a ghastly row of dead sailors, held upright, as they had died, between the big gun-carriages of the lost galleon's deck carronades.
Whatever Bluewater Bill's failings might have been, he was no faint heart, and despite the shock of the gruesome discovery he continued his investigation of the silent ship. Apparently some attempt had been made when first the Buena Ventura was caught in the deadly embrace of the Sargasso to convey her treasure to the boats, for, at the head of the main companion-way, Bluewater Bill found a chest of antique pattern, the lid of which he ripped open without much opposition from the moldering lock.
He staggered back at the sight that greeted him as the lid fell open. Within the chest were gold pieces, jeweled candlesticks and other costly articles. A score of other chests examined by the castaway, in what had evidently been the officers' cabin, yielded like discoveries.
The galleon was a veritable treasure ship.
The castaway was examining a marine candlestick that fairly blazed with its setting of precious stones when he dropped it with a crash.
A hoarse cry from outside the cabin had caused his scalp to tighten and his heart to start pounding like a trip-hammer.