“Is it a wreck like this?” she inquired eagerly.
“It must be,” said Brandon, after a careful examination.
“Bring poor papa’s long glass up from his stateroom,” cried Milly. “You can see it then more plainly.”
The boy hurried to obey this suggestion and quickly brought the instrument from the dead captain’s cabin.
By the aid of the glass the shipwrecked boy and girl could quite plainly view the second wreck, for wreck it was. There was no room for doubt of that.
“It’s the hull of a vessel like this,” Brandon declared, “though it’s not sunken at the stern, and it rides the waves easier.
“There isn’t a sign of a spar upon it—it’s swept as clean as this,” he continued. “There must have been many vessels treated that way in the storm. Derelicts will be plentiful enough.”
He stopped with a startled exclamation, and stared at his companion in perplexity.
“What is it, Brandon?” Milly asked, noting his change of manner.
“I was thinking,” he said slowly, “that if the Silver Swan—my father’s old brig, you know—kept afloat through this last hurricane, she would likely be in just such shape as yonder hulk.”