"Gord 'a' mercy, what nyme do ye put to a ship like that?"
And after that no one spoke for a long minute, and we stood there, moveless black shadows, huddled together for the sake of the blessed elbow touch that means so incalculably much, looking off over our port quarter.
For the ship that we saw there—oh, she was not a half-mile distant—was unlike any ship known to present day construction.
She was short, and high-pooped, and her stern, which was turned a little toward us, we could see, was set with curious windows, not unlike a house. And on either side of this stern were two great iron cressets such as once were used to burn signal-fires in. She had three masts with mighty yards swung 'thwart-ship, but bare of all sails save a few rotting streamers. Here and there about her a tangled mass of rigging drooped and sagged.
And there she lay, in the red eye of the setting moon, in that solitary ocean, shadowy, antique, forlorn, a thing the most abandoned, the most sinister I ever remember to have seen.
Then Strokher began to explain volubly and with many repetitions.
"A derelict, of course. I was asleep; yes, I was asleep. Gross neglect of duty. I say I was asleep—on watch. And we worked up to her. When I woke, why—you see, when I woke, there she was," he gave a weak little laugh, "and—and now, why, there she is, you see. I turned around and saw her sudden like—when I woke up, that is."
He laughed again, and as he laughed the engines far below our feet gave a sudden hiccough. Something crashed and struck the ship's sides till we lurched as we stood. There was a shriek of steam, a shout—and then silence.
The noise of the machinery ceased; the Glarus slid through the still water, moving only by her own decreasing momentum.
Hardenberg sang, "Stand by!" and called down the tube to the engine-room.