"There's a man in her, a-lyin' with his head over the side," shouted a seaman. "I can see him moving his arm."
"That is so," assented Captain Jeremy, after a prolonged examination through his glass. "A survivor of some wreck, I expect. Anyway, he'll be as dead as a marline-spike before we get alongside, if he remain like that, with the sun pouring on him."
"He's dead, right enough," said 'Enery, after a while. "'Tis the tossing of the boat that makes him move."
'Enery was right. Hanging over the gunwale, with one arm trailing in the water, was the corpse of a man. We could not see his face, but the nape of the neck was blackened from exposure to the sun. The arm moved sluggishly with every roll of the little craft, giving the corpse the appearance of being alive.
"Poor fellow! Starved to death, I take it," said Touchstone softly. "I've seen that sort of thing before to-day. Shall we run alongside, sir?"
"Aye," replied Captain Jeremy. "We might just as well, in case we can do anything."
Silence fell upon the crew as the Golden Hope crept slowly towards the floating monument of an ocean tragedy, till all at once the master gunner shouted:
"By Jove, that's one of our chests!"
We were now near enough to see over the gunwale as the boat rolled in the oily swell. Lashed amidships, 'twixt two of the thwarts, was one of the boxes we had made, ostensibly for the storing of the Madre treasure. Then, like lightning, the truth flashed across my mind: I was gazing at the corpse of Ned Slater.
The chest told a silent tale. The villain must have begun loading the boat directly the Neptune struck the reef; then, seeing that the ship was doomed, he sprang into the little craft, basely deserting his companions in crime. By some means the boat had escaped being swamped, and, offering little resistance to the wind, had been carried by the current in a northerly direction. When the gale died away, Slater must have prised open the lid of the chest to bloat over its contents, only to find a load of stones within. Either through the fury of his baffled hopes, or through the stern necessity of lightening the little craft, he had hurled the valueless cargo overboard, for the chest was empty. Helpless, and blown far from land, the villain had died a horrible death from slow starvation.