“Hark!” cried Raynor, as the two boys exchanged glances.
“I have it,” exclaimed Jack the next instant. “That’s only the tolling of the ship’s bell as the schooner rolls on the sea.”
“My, it gave me a jump though,” admitted Raynor. “Hullo, they are slowing down. Must be going to board her.”
“Evidently,” agreed Jack, as the Sea Gypsy’s propeller revolved more and more slowly.
Captain Sparhawk descended from the bridge. The ponderous form of Mr. Jukes followed him. The millionaire’s face bore a look of strange excitement.
“Of course that can’t be the schooner,” the boys heard him say to the captain, “but still I can’t pass it unsearched.”
“Lads, we are going to board that schooner and try to find out something about her,” he said. “Do you want to go along?”
These were the first words the boys had had with their employer in some days. Of course both jumped at the chance, and before many minutes passed, one of the yacht’s remaining boats was being sent over the sea at a fast clip toward the derelict. Close inspection showed the schooner’s condition not to be as good as it had seemed at a distance. Her paint was blistered and the oakum calking was spewing out of her sun-dried seams like Spanish moss on an aged tree. Her sails were mildewed and torn in many places and her ropes bleached and frayed. Mingling now with the incessant, melancholy tolling of the bell, came the monotonous creak of her booms and gaffs as they swung rhythmically to and fro.
No name appeared on her bow, although blurred tracings of white paint showed that one had once been inscribed there. But there was a yellow-painted figurehead; a stern, Roman-nosed bust of a man, apparently intended for an emperor or a warrior.