“What’s up now?” asked Albert, ascending the ladder to the upper deck.
“A wreck of some kind, dead ahead.”
Taking the glass, he saw nothing at first, but finally made out an object that looked like a pole sticking out of the water.
“That stick is the mast of a vessel,” replied the captain, in answer to Shaw’s inquiry, “and at least half of it is carried away. The hull must be awash too, or we could see it plainly now, for she can’t be over six miles off. If the craft was in her natural condition, I’d have sighted her long ago—at twelve miles certainly. A little more and we’d have run right away from her.”
“Does she look like a brig, sir?” asked Speers.
“Can’t make out her rig yet. The chap we’re after is hereabouts somewhere if I’ve calculated right,” said the captain, taking another survey of the object ahead.
The tug was rapidly closing up the gap between herself and the wreck, and the faces of those on board presented an interesting study. Captain James was anxious to know whether the wreck they were approaching was the brig he was in search of. The usual excitement caused by the sight of an abandoned vessel did not affect him; it was simply a matter of business. So also with Speers, though perhaps to a less extent. The majority of the crew contemplated the stranger with feelings akin to indifference. Many of them did not know the name of the vessel they were in search of,—neither did they care. But Albert was looking at a genuine wreck for the first time, and his heart beat faster as the ocean waif grew more and more distinct, with her shattered masts, disordered rigging and general appearance of desolation.
“Neptune!” cried Captain James, as he made out the gilded letters on the port bow. He had already formed the opinion that she was the craft of which he was in search, as enough of her spars were left to show that she had been square-rigged on her foremast, and brigs are now comparatively scarce.
When the tug was within a few rods of the Neptune, her boat was launched, and the mate, Albert, and two of the crew entered, when it was rowed around to the brig’s bows in search of a favorable place for boarding. A large rope, probably the starboard fore-brace, was entangled in the standing rigging in such a manner that fifteen or twenty feet of it trailed in the water alongside the wreck. The mate picked up the rope’s end, and drew the boat so close to the brig that, taking advantage of the next roll she gave towards him, he seized a lanyard and was soon on board. Albert and Joe Miller followed. The other man, known as “Sharkey,” remained in the boat to see that she did not get stove against the side of the wreck.
Speers took a cursory glance around, and then hailed the tug. “All ready, sir,” he cried. A rope had been fastened to one end of the tug’s big hawser, and the other end of this rope Captain James now hove, so that it landed on the brig’s forecastle deck. The mate and Joe Miller hauled it in, and secured the hawser to the brig’s bows. This important task having been accomplished, the boarding party proceeded to take a thorough survey of the wreck.