Ned reached up and loosened an attachment at the top of the conning-tower. Instantly, raised by strong springs, the searchlight, which differed in pattern from the ordinary kind, sprang out above the lookout place.
Then the Dreadnought Boy pressed a button. There was a sharp click and a dazzling, white pencil of radiance swept the dark ocean on which the Lockyer was rolling. Peering through the lenses, and shading his eyes with one hand while he worked a small wheel with the other, Ned swept the ray about till it suddenly fell on an object about two hundred yards away from them.
“There, sir, there she is,” he exclaimed.
The officers peered through the glass ports of the conning-tower. They saw the brilliantly illuminated outlines of a large, water-logged craft, almost level with the water. From her decks three forlorn stumps of masts stood up as if in mute appeal. She was as sorry a looking derelict as one would wish to see. The winds and the waves had had their way with her and left only this battered hulk to drift about the ocean—a menace to navigation of the most dangerous kind.
“How long has she been adrift, Barnes, do you think?” asked Captain McGill, turning to an officer who stood beside him.
“Hard to say,” rejoined the other; “perhaps for years. We collided with a junk once off the Pacific Coast. It had drifted clear across from China, and from papers found on her, it must have taken her fifteen years to do it.”
“I guess we have all had our experience with derelicts,” was the rejoinder; “they are the most dangerous things a seaman has to encounter.”
“Especially when they are awash, like this hulk,” was Captain Barnes’s reply.
Lieutenant Parry and Mr. Lockyer returned at this point to report that an attempt would be made to caulk the leak temporarily till permanent repairs could be made. For the present, the pump would take care of the leakage.