"Look at that dog!" said Dick; "I begin to think there must be somebody on board."
"If so," answered the captain, "he must have died of hunger; the water of course has flooded the store-room."
"No," said Dick; "that dog wouldn't look like that if there were nobody there alive."
[Illustration: The dog began to swim slowly and with manifest weakness towards the boat.]
Taking the boat as close as was prudent to the wreck, the captain and Dick called and whistled repeatedly to the dog, which after a while let itself slip into the sea, and began to swim slowly and with manifest weakness towards the boat. As soon as it was lifted in, the animal, instead of devouring the piece of bread that was offered him, made its way to a bucket containing a few drops of fresh water, and began eagerly to lap them up.
"The poor wretch is dying of thirst!" said Dick.
It soon appeared that the dog was very far from being engrossed with its own interests. The boat was being pushed back a few yards in order to allow the captain to ascertain the most convenient place to get alongside the "Waldeck," when the creature seized Dick by the jacket, and set up a howl that was almost human in its piteousness. It was evidently in a state of alarm that the boat was not going to return to the wreck. The dog's meaning could not be misunderstood. The boat was accordingly brought against the larboard side of the vessel, and while the two sailors lashed her securely to the "Waldeck's" cat-head, Captain Hull and Dick, with the dog persistently accompanying them, clambered, after some difficulty, to the open hatchway between the stumps of the masts, and made their way into the hold. It was half full of water, but perfectly destitute of cargo, its sole contents being the ballast sand which had slipped to larboard, and now served to keep the vessel on her side.
One glance was sufficient to convince the captain that there was no salvage to be effected.
"There is nothing here; nobody here," he said.
"So I see," said the apprentice, who had made his way to the extreme fore-part of the hold.