By this time the captain had got the glass from his cabin, and had it focused on the slender blue-gray column of smoke that was rising close to the southeastern horizon.
“It’s a ship, almost burned out,” exclaimed the captain.
“By jove!” cried Jim. “We will see exactly what it is,” and he gave the order to Pete, who was at the wheel, to change the Sea Eagle’s course accordingly.
“I reckon nobody is alive aboard,” remarked the captain. “She looks pretty well burned out.”
No sooner had the ship’s course been changed, than every member of the crew was out on deck to see what was up, and all were intensely interested watching the column of smoke that now could be seen rising from a dark hull close to the water, marking one of those oft-repeated tragedies of the sea. Rapidly the gallant little Sea Eagle plowed the blue surface of the ocean in a straight course towards the burning ship.
Many were the conjectures as to how the destroyed ship came to be in her present hapless condition. Jo thought that she had probably caught afire and the crew had been compelled to abandon her, but the engineer shook his head at this theory.
“I don’t agree with you, Joseph. My idea is that she is a derelict that has been abandoned possibly years ago. Some ship has crossed her trail recently, and to get rid of her as an uncharted menace to ships in regular travel, has set fire to her, but without completing her destruction.”
“They are bad things to be lying around loose,” said Jim. “If we had been off our course a little, and it had been some hours later, we would have stood a jolly good chance of running plump into this ship, and if we had not gone down, we would have been badly stove up.”
“You would have gone down,” said the engineer briefly.
“I suppose there are a good many of these derelicts floating around the oceans,” remarked Juarez.