Five minutes later, in one of the Seneca's whale boats, the boys were skimming over the sea toward the melancholy old derelict. As they glided along, the bell kept up its monotonous booming with the regularity of a shore bell summoning worshippers to church.
As the whaleboat was pulled around the derelict's stern they could see a name painted on the square counter, surrounded with many a scroll and flourish in the antique manner. These flourishes had once been gilded and painted, but the gilt and color had long since worn off them.
"Good Hope of Portland, Me.," read out Rob. "What a contrast between her name and her fate!"
"Bom-boom," tolled the bell as if in answer to him.
"She must have been one of those old-time clippers that sailed round the Horn with Yankee notions for the Spice Islands and China, and came back with tea and other Oriental goods," opined Ensign Hargreaves.
"She was a fine ship in her day, sir," ventured the old quartermaster who pulled stroke oar.
"Aye, aye, Tarbox; in those days the American mercantile marine was a thing to be proud of," agreed the ensign. "To-day not one-tenth of the craft that used to fly the Stars and Stripes remain afloat. They have vanished and their keels sweep the sea no more."
By this time they had arrived below the derelict's port main chains. From these several bleached ropes hung down, but all proved too rotten to support the weight of a Boy Scout, let alone a man. But by good fortune a chain, rusty, but still strong seemingly, depended from the bows of the old craft. This withstood a test, and, led by Ensign Hargreaves, the boys clambered on deck. Quartermaster Tarbox and the four sailors who had manned the oars were left in the boat.
The boys' hearts beat a little faster as they stood on the forecastle of the abandoned Good Hope. Nor was this caused by the exertion of the climb altogether. There was something uncanny in standing upon that long-untrodden deck, while right below the break in the forecastle the bell kept up its doomsday-like tolling.
The ensign's first task was to make fast a lanyard to the clapper of the dismal thing, and thereafter their nerves felt steadier. With the dying out of the clamor of the bell, a death-like hush fell over the abandoned ship. Only the rippling complaint of the water as she rolled to and fro broke the stillness. The boys actually found themselves talking in whispers under the spell that hung above the decks of the ill-fated Good Hope.