"There is some mystery of the sea there," decided Captain Akers. "In my opinion that ship has been abandoned for some good reason."
"But she is sailing along as if some hand were guiding her course," said Nat.
"That is true; but the helm may have been lashed before her crew skipped out. If that is the case with this slant of wind, she would naturally be sailing along as if all was well."
"Shall we board her and see what is the matter?" asked Nat eagerly.
"That will be a difficult and perhaps a dangerous task," was the response. "That schooner is going at quite a speed and if we ran alongside with the 'Nomad' she might run us down."
"Phew! Then we would be in a fix," exclaimed Joe. "I guess we'd better give her a wide berth."
"Look!" cried Cal suddenly, as the schooner, without diminishing her speed in the least, drew closer. "Look, what's the matter with her flag? It don't look natural, somehow."
The attention of all thus directed to the ensign, which hung at the vessel's peak, they could now see that it was upside down—a signal of distress the wide seas over.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Captain Akers. "That puts a different complexion on the matter altogether. I begin to think that it may be our duty as Christian beings to board that craft. Perhaps her crew are suffering from some malady or affliction that has crippled them and they may be lying helpless below at this very moment."
This was not an attractive picture, and Nat could not repress a feeling of depression as the schooner drew closer and they could take in her details. She was a black vessel of some hundred feet or more in length, with tapering spars and well-cut sails, and evidently possessed plenty of speed. Under her bowsprit they could now make out a gilded figure-head—the image of a woman apparently holding a trident aloft.