'One of two things, clearly,' answered Blundell. 'Either they have carried all the stores they left the yacht with aboard the wreck, or the ship that picked them up emptied her before sending her adrift.'
'Would they let a valuable boat like that go?'
The mate shrugged his shoulders. There are some questions concerning the sea which even a sailor cannot answer.
'Do you see that her long painter is trailing overboard?' exclaimed Captain Parry. 'Does it not look as if the knot had unhitched and let her slip away?'
'But from what, sir? That trailing length of rope might as easily mean that she was let slip from a ship, as that she slipped of her own accord from a wreck.'
This talk, uttered swiftly, occupied a minute, whilst they overhung the rail, looking into the boat alongside.
'We must have her out of that,' said the mate, 'and restore her.'
The man who was hanging to her by the boathook, turning up a face as dark as a new bronze coin, exclaimed:
'There's something white right aft, jammed away down under them stern-sheets.'