The dock's crew could make out no sign of life as they strained their eyes through the glare of tropical brilliance. The high-lights of the schooner's reversed topsails and the luminous shadows of her mainsail stood out vividly against the hot copper sky. The multi-colored markings of the ocean and the sharp line of the horizon finished a very picture of pitiless heat.

The men stood beneath the awning, legs apart, arms held away from bodies, and stared from under dripping brows for some signs of recognition from the stranger.

"'Asn't she got up a single rag to show us she sees us?" puffed Galton, swiping his hand across his forehead and flinging drops on the iron deck, where they evaporated the moment they hit.

"Don't see none," replied the navvy who possessed the binoculars at that moment.

"'Ave they any boats?"

"One cleated down for'ard, one slung on the midship davits, and I think I make hout one on t'other side past the booby hatch."

"And not a soul on deck?"

"Not unless they're settin' on th' fur side o' th' superstructure."

"Wot would they want to be settin' in th' sun for?" demanded Galton brusquely.

"'Ow do I know? If they was Eth'opians, wouldn't they set in th' sun?"

"This is as clost as we'll ever git," surmised another voice. "The night breeze'll blow 'er back where she come from."

"Well, w'ere's that?" demanded Mulcher savagely.

"Why, Eth'opia, I reckon, if she's got a crew of Eth'opians settin' on t'other side of 'er superstructure."

"They ain't a man-jack aboard; and you know it," snarled Galton, "or 'e'd be poppin' 'is eyes hout at such a 'orrible big sight as we must be."

"Anyway, I'll bet she blows back w'ere she come from, to-night," persisted the advocate of this theory.

The men caviled on at each other endlessly, disputing, denying, upbraiding, and once in a while coming to blows.

In order to keep any sort of discipline, Leonard and Caradoc kept to themselves under a separate awning, for all sea-faring experience has shown that a separation of officers and men is necessary for the management of sailors.

However, Madden heard most of the arguments that went on under the men's canvas, and he became convinced that the sailor was right; the evening breeze would carry the schooner away from the dock. He measured the long distance through the sea lanes from dock to schooner with his eyes.

"Caradoc," he said to his friend, "if we ever reach that vessel now's our time."

"How do you hope to do it?"

For answer Madden turned to the men. "Mulcher, bring me a life buoy, will you?"

Mulcher arose and started on his errand.

Caradoc stared. "You don't intend to swim that distance—through this heat?"

"There's a boat over there, and provisions, perhaps."

"And the crew?"

"It is quite possible that they sleep through the day which is utterly becalmed and make some little headway at night with the slight evening and morning breezes—it would be a task for a sailing vessel to work herself out of the Sargasso."

"Why I never thought of that. I suppose it is possible."

Mulcher was returning with a buoy. The crew came forward behind the navvy, on the qui vive over this new undertaking.

"Faith, and hadn't ye betther sind one o' th' min, sir," suggested Hogan, "an if he drowns, sir, Oi would take it to be a sign that it's a dangerous swim."

"An' the sharks, Meester Madden," warned Deschaillon.

As Madden kicked off his clothes, he observed Caradoc stripping likewise. Then Farnol Greer came running down the deck with another buoy and a big clasp knife.

The American looked at these fellows. "Caradoc, you can't possibly hold out that distance; you're weak."

"I've done ten miles in—at home."

Greer said nothing, but rapidly undressed.

All three kept on their hats and undershirts as protection against sunburn. As Madden walked from the awning through the stinging sun rays, crimping up his naked feet from the blistering deck, Galton called to him.

"If we git a lot of grub, sir, couldn't it be hextra, and carn't we 'ave a spread to-night, sir?"

"Something like that," agreed Madden, tossing his buoy into the water. The two other swimmers followed example, then all three dived off the twelve foot pontoon toward their floats. They came up shaking the water from ears and eyes. Madden was immersed in tepid water. His men were cheering stolidly. The schooner looked very, very far away now that he was at the surface of the water. Between him and his goal streaked mazes of sargassum. It suddenly struck the American that he might have trouble getting through those barriers.

However, the three swimmers were progressing boldly.



CHAPTER VI

THE CUL DE SAC

Madden thrust head and shoulders into his float, a round canvas-covered hoop of cork, and set off at an easy stroke. Now that he was flat on the water, he could no longer see the lanes of seaweed, and he would be forced to depend entirely upon signals from the dock.

Alongside Madden came Greer, and after them Caradoc. Like all Americans, Leonard gradually increased his energy, and forged ahead at a rate considerably faster than that required for long distance swimming. Once or twice Caradoc warned the swimmers to go more slowly, and at each monition Madden slowed up a trifle, but within a few minutes he would again speed up unconsciously.

The three swimmers could form little idea of the rate they were making in the lifeless sea. At the end of half an hour, when Leonard looked back at Hogan on the wall for signals, the dock still loomed above him, a vast glare of red in the dazzling sunshine. It seemed impossible to get away from it; the featureless red flare followed him as a mountain peak seems to follow a traveler.

The sun beat oppressively on his head and blistered his shoulders through his net undershirt. The warm water soaked the energy out of limbs and arms. He changed from breast to over-arm stroke, then he shifted to the crawl and trudgen stroke.

"Perhaps we'd better rest awhile, sir," suggested Greer, who came puffing close behind.

"Beastly hot, this sun," Leonard ducked head and shoulders under water for relief. His hat floated off and he grudged the slight effort to retrieve it.

"How far are we?"

"Dock looks as close as ever—where's Smith?"

Greer nodded toward a small head and shoulders bobbing behind a little white buoy.

At that moment, they heard the Englishman's voice calling, "To the right!"

The boys turned and struck out ahead once more. They regretted having to leave the straight line. As far as they could see there was no algae in sight, the water was one glassy blue. And the mysterious schooner, with its lights and shadows exaggerated in the tropical glare, seemed to the tired swimmers to be as remote as ever.

As Madden pressed on and on, changing strokes after the fashion of tiring swimmers, the constant beat of the sun made his eyeballs ache; the ocean felt like a Turkish bath; the muscles in his shoulders, back and legs grew numb, with an occasional cramping twinge. And what irritated him as much as anything else was the fact that he was swimming toward the right quarter of the schooner, throwing away his energy.

Just then Caradoc gave a distant call, "To the left."

With deep relief, Madden rounded back toward his goal. He had swung about some unseen cape of algae. He looked back toward the dock. Hogan, a very tiny figure, held his flag straight up; that meant "dead ahead."

In relief Madden turned over on his back, laid his hat across his face, then with hands resting on chest, he began sculling along with knees and feet.

He did not know how long he swam in this fashion. Queer ideas drifted through the lad's mind. He recalled standing on the bridge of the dock as it went out of the Thames and wondering what would happen. He had never anticipated anything like this. It seemed that he had been swimming for days and weeks. He reminded himself of those little kicking toys that never get anywhere. He felt as if he were a June bug buzzing helplessly at the end of a string. He kicked, kicked, kicked under the broiling sun, in the hot water. The sweaty smell of his hat band disgusted his nostrils. The crown of his hat seemed to coop the heat over his face, sweat seeped into his closed eyelids and stung his eyes. He gave his head a little shake. The buoy slipped out and he bobbed under the tepid water head and ears.

This jerked him out of his dreamy state. He whirled over, struck to the surface, spat out brine, blinked his eyes. Somebody was shouting something in an urgent voice. The noise buzzed in his waterlogged ears.

"Hey, hello! What is it?" he cried, giving his head a shake and putting on his hat.

"School of sharks!" shouted Greer, coming toward his leader at a foamy speed.

"School of sharks!" echoed Madden with a sharp thrill. "Where? Which way?"

"Must be toward the dock, sir!" panted Greer driving up.

"Where's Caradoc?"

"Yonder." He pointed toward a distant twinkle in the water.

"We must get together—yell to him, warn him!"

The two lads began a strenuous chorus that further used up their exhausted strength. Caradoc responded by a wave of his hand. Then when he understood "sharks" he gathered speed in their direction.

By this time the dock seemed as far away as the schooner, and was in reality probably farther. On the wall of the dock, they could see Hogan's microscopic figure apparently having a fit, against the coppery sky. No doubt from his height he could make out the monsters. Perhaps Hogan could see the great fish shooting along with sinister, exertionless ease toward these clumsy adventurers—a school of trout striking at three awkward beetles.

"Hey, Caradoc! Caradoc!" screamed Madden. "Straight for the schooner!" The American stared around with tense nerves for the little swishes on the surface that betray the attack of a shark.

From something near middle distance, the Englishman raised a hand toward his comrades and motioned them forward.

"Go on! Go on!" he gasped in a tired voice. "I'll catch you!"

Indeed, there was little to be gained from waiting. Caradoc moved toward his friends with a long overhand stroke that gave him the queer appearance of some huge water bug striding along. Madden and Greer propelled themselves slowly toward the schooner, waiting for their friend to close up. They could not keep their eyes off the Englishman. Every moment they expected to see him jerked under, or they expected to see a huge shadowy form strike at themselves through the clear green water.

Once Madden looked at the dock. Hogan on the rim of the red flaring wall was flinging out all kinds of despairing gestures.

By this time Caradoc was in hailing distance.

"Did you say sharks?" he called out in a dull voice.

"Yes, sharks!"

"Where a way?"

"Don't know!"

At that moment a trickling thrill went through the American. A long dark motionless shadow lay in the water straight in front of him. He stopped swimming suddenly.

"Stop, Greer! Straight ahead!" he warned in a low tone, easing himself carefully up on his buoy for a better look.

By this time the swimmers were nearly together and all three stared ahead with painful intentness.

"That dark thing?" inquired Greer in an undertone,

"Yes, we ought to have a knife apiece."

"I never saw a shark lying still," panted Caradoc straining his eyes.

"Say, that's a little streak of seaweed," decided Farnol, beginning to move toward it.

Then all three perceived it was merely seaweed. The shark-like illusion disappeared completely the moment someone doubted it.

"Who cried out sharks anyway?" demanded Smith of Madden.

"Greer there warned me—he yelled 'school of sharks.'"

"Where did you see them?" inquired Caradoc of Farnol.

"You shouted school of sharks to me yourself," defended Greer.

"I! I!" puffed Caradoc, whose spurt had blown him badly. "I said nothing about sharks!"

"Well, what did you say?" demanded Greer.

Caradoc thought back fretfully. "I said we were running into a cul de sac."

"A cool de sock!" repeated Greer with irritation. "What did you want to say 'cool de sock' for?"

"I was calling to a gentleman," panted Smith with an edge of temper in his tone, "and here you've swung us clear off our bearings because you didn't know a common French phrase——"

"French! I'm no Frenchman! Why don't you talk English!"

The two tired, worried, overheated men were rapidly brewing a quarrel, when Madden interrupted.

"Look how close we are to that schooner! If somebody would raise another shark alarm, we'd land plump on her decks."

"Yes, but this Zulu here has run us straight into a loop of seaweed it'll take two hours' swimming to get out of—cul de sac, school of sharks! Why the two phrases scarcely resemble each other!"

Madden turned longing eyes toward the motionless schooner that was not more than three-quarters of a mile distant. "Say, it's too bad to turn around and swim away from that vessel!" he lamented wearily, "and this sun is fierce!"

"I say let's try going through!" encouraged Greer.

"It'll be—difficult," warned Caradoc.

"Won't swimming clear around the earth be difficult?" demanded Greer hotly.

"Proceed," agreed Caradoc tersely. "It's all one to me."

The boys adjusted their floats and once more began their weary labor, all three disgruntled at the false alarm. As they worked their way forward, clumps of seaweed, similar to the first they had seen, thickened in their path. After a long swim in and out, they reached a point where these floating masses coalesced into an island, or a continent, that swung far back toward the barge in the segment of a great semicircle. Fortunately there were still open channels in this main field, and one of them led toward the schooner. They struck out up this estuary, which presently became so narrow that they were forced to travel single file. Occasionally their kicking feet would strike slimy filaments in the water, but for a while the channel cheered the swimmers, for they could now see they were making progress toward the ship.

Ten minutes later, however, they reached the end, and an inexorable continent of slime lay between them and their goal. Madden paused in the last yard of clear water, hung to his buoy, his big biceps flattened on the canvas cover and slowly blistering in the sun.

"All right, boys, close up," he panted; "let's stay in helping distance of each other."

"Shall we try to take our buoys through, sir?" inquired Greer.

"We'll start with them."

"Don't try to use your legs in the weed," warned Caradoc. "Don't kick; you'll get tangled."

"We'll experiment and work through the best way we can. If it turns out too bad, we can turn back, that's one consolation."

Just then, under Madden's astonished eyes, a queer thing happened. The long open tongue of the sea which they had just entered, silently closed up. It seemed to close very slowly, and yet it was accomplished in an amazingly brief time. Some dull movement in the Sargasso current had blocked the adventurers with sinister precision. Madden felt the hot slimy mass close softly around him.

It was now as easy to go forward as to return.



CHAPTER VII

TRAPPED

There was something so sinister in this silent closing of all avenue of retreat that for a moment Madden was dismayed, then he struck out toward the schooner with a certain bold weariness.

As an experiment he threw his buoy ahead of him by a snap of wrist and forearm, then tried to swim to it. The long yielding growth slid under and around him, but it took all the dash out of his stroke. He pawed his way forward with his arms, legs stretched out idle. A thousand wet sticky fingers dragged their length over his body, retarding, clogging, holding him. It left him stranded like a bug in gelatine. His flesh crawled at this slimy swimming, he shrank from it, and it sapped his heart and strength.

The only stroke possible was the overarm, and his hands fell with a gummy plop instead of the heartsome splash of open water. By the time he reached his buoy and threw it again, he regretted miserably that he had not swum the clean water route if it were five miles farther.

By the time he had thrown his buoy twice, he could hardly advance it a yard beyond his reach; finally it simply slushed along the surface. The sun seemed much hotter in this congestion than in the open sea.

Behind him came his two men in a queer snakelike procession of plopping buoys and wriggling bodies. Ahead of them the seaweed stretched, apparently all the way to the schooner. As they worked their way through the scum of many seas, the noon sun broiled their backs into thin water blisters, and stewed saline odors out of the clammy life about them.

Once Madden's hand struck a yellowish line of algae and a score or two of little jelly-like insects writhed into the grass below. One of these things touched the swimmer's arm and gave the boy a stinging sensation. He knocked it off desperately and pushed on.

Presently his shoulder muscles ached and burned so keenly, he could no longer continue the overarm. Then he took the buoy in both hands, held it straight out, thrust it edge down into the oozy substance, used it as a kind of anchor and drew it to him. At first this technique seemed to advance him somewhat, but presently he appeared merely to disturb the viscous mass without going forward. He grew acutely discouraged; his back, shoulders, cramped, ached and burned. The brilliantly lighted schooner seemed to regress as he progressed. The sun was like an auger boring into the back of his head. His mind began to wander again, and a sudden fear came on him lest he should go insane out in this horrible slime.

A fiery burning on his right foot jerked him back out of his half delirium, and he knew that an insect of the same kind he had seen a few minutes before had stung him. He kicked it off convulsively, but the thrust of his foot brought a wash of new stings.

All of a sudden, his patience, endurance, pluck seemed to give out. This new torture made him as unreasonably frantic as a baby. He kicked furiously. He scraped the toe nails of one foot against the flesh of the other leg. As he did so the animalculae settled on the abraded skin, like streaks of melted steel. The boy doubled up, like a grub worm covered with ants, fighting, scraping, twisting, squirming. He writhed, beat, scratched, this great hundred and sixty pound animal fighting an enemy that would weigh about twenty to the gram.

He heard a shout from Caradoc, a question from Greer, then his insane struggles carried him under the surface of the clammy seaweed. The seaweed, infested with stinging insects, closed over his form like a wave of fire.

Only lack of breath stopped Leonard's mad struggles. Bursting lungs and the mere necessity to live at last made him disregard the attacks of these wasps of the Sargasso. He struck out for the surface again like a diver, reaching up arms, spreading legs with a stroke and a kick. But the gelatinous stuff simply quivered with his struggles and held him firm. He stuck like a fly in mucilage.

The sliminess of the element utterly destroyed the mechanics of swimming. A forward stroke in pure water displaces portions of the water and the return stroke sends the body forward. In this mass the forward stroke merely compressed the weed in front of the arm, and left a cavity through which the return stroke received no power.

Madden dared not open his eyes. In fiery blackness he kicked and struck in useless froglike movements. His heart was beating like a trip-hammer in his ears. Streaks of red fire played against the blackness of his eyelids. He knew that in a few more seconds his straining lungs would gulp in the stinging ooze, he knew his will could not prevent his drawing in some sort of breath.

He clung desperately to the control of his diaphragm, as a falling man clings to a ledge of rock. His great chest muscles gave convulsive jerks. His control was going, going.

Suddenly a human hand gripped his wrist. He was jerked upwards, perhaps a foot. A moment later he was gulping in great lungfuls of air.

He had been suffocating ten or twelve inches beneath that repulsive slime, as securely captured as if he had been a thousand feet deep.

It had taken Greer and Smith that length of time to wriggle a yard or two and fish him out.

"Steady! Steady!" said Caradoc in a lifeless voice. "Steady there, Madden! Hold him tightly, Greer!"

Greer made some sort of groaning reply, when Caradoc snarled, "Let 'em sting, you scullion! What if they do kill you! Is there any better way to die?"

Madden felt a great pushing and jostling at his body. He raked the seaweed from his face and opened his eyes. The Englishman was shoving fiercely at the American's shoulder, Greer, ahead, pulling at an elbow. The burning insects had swarmed on both his rescuers. Caradoc's sun-baked face had a yellowish, bloodless hue, his lean jaws clenched under his choppy white mustache. In the midst of his burning pain he held his legs rigid, pushed Leonard with one hand and pawed furiously through the viscid tangle with the other.

The constancy of his companions braced Madden like a dash of ice water. His own weakness had brought about this dangerous plight. The American caught up his buoy, and between great gasps of the blessed air, rapped out that he could go by himself, and began making his own way forward.

So the three worked themselves over the oozy bed of fire. The Englishman's arms shot into the slime with the regularity of pistons. He appeared to make no haste, yet he made remarkable speed. Only his distended nostrils, pain-tightened mouth, grim eyes, showed that he was in torture.

Even amid his own suffering Leonard felt a thrill of admiration for Smith's endurance and working power. He even found time to wonder dimly if Smith's people, that rich, cold, proud family, if they could see their remittance man now, would not stoop to claim him as a kinsman.

All at once the poignant and disgusting attack of the insects ceased. A flood of ecstatic relief swept over the adventurers. Without a word, all three quit squirming, caught their floats under their armpits and swung down in a limp luxurious rest.

Then they saw a marvelous thing had happened. The same slow swirl of the Sargasso current that had closed up their avenue on the west side, had opened another on the east. Their way toward the schooner lay unobstructed.

The clean delightful seawater soothed the pain of their stinging flesh.

"We'll be there in fifteen minutes," murmured Leonard weakly.

"When you're ready, say so," said Greer with a frown still lingering on his heavy face.

At that moment Madden heard a groan from Caradoc.

"What's the matter?" aspirated the American.

"Nothing—weak—don't bother." He closed his eyes, blew out his breath like a sick man. His face was bloodlessly sallow, and Madden could see his grip slipping on the canvas buoy.

"You're all in!" gasped Madden in exhausted staccato, "I knew you oughtn't to—aren't you about to faint again?"

The Englishman shook his head slightly. "Don't worry," he murmured, then his eyes closed, his hands slipped loose.

With brusque directness, Madden caught the shock of tawny hair, jammed Caradoc's chin against the buoy and held him tight with little exertion for himself. Smith swung out as awkwardly as a turkey on a chopping block. The water was level with his lips, but his nose did not go under.

"Petered at last," grunted Madden, staring at the corpselike face in dull speculation. "How in the world are we going to get him out of here?"

"I guess we can tow him out, sir," growled Greer with dull indifference. "Mighty puny chap—always flopping over when he's in a tight place."

"Come here, stick his arms through our buoys, put his own under his head!"

The plan was quickly carried out and Smith's unconscious form was placed beyond immediate danger.

The two youths took up their long swim once more. As they moved down the opening, they could see what slow progress they were making. Presently Madden explained in a low whispering tone:

"His heart's bad... can't stand much... poisoned with alcohol."

Another pause filled with slow weary swimming, then Greer said:

"Said I was no gentleman... didn't know a French word... I keep sober."

Madden made no defense to this reflection on the unconscious Englishman, but after a while he said:

"We ought to overlook lots in him, Greer—unfortunate fellow... there's good in him, Greer... bad too."

"I've got no call to please you," growled the sailor with astonishing frankness.

"Then why did you come with us?" inquired Madden amazed.

"Wanted to see the schooner."

"And what have I done to you?"

"Called me a thief!" the sailor elevated his dull tone. "After I telegraphed ye about th' men... fought for ye... called me a thief!"

"Was that you tapping on the dock?"

Greer nodded resentfully. "And ye insulted me for it."

"I'm sorry... I was almost wild that night. I'll apologize... before the crew."

"I don't care nothing about that dull English crew." This strange fellow's tone carried in it an illiterate man's undying resentment.

"Since you feel that way," panted Madden at last, "I think I ought to tell you—he took the medicine chest," Leonard nodded at the finely carved motionless face that lay on the float before them.

"Him!" gasped Greer.

Leonard nodded. "He wanted the alcohol in it."

"And you call him a gentleman?"

Leonard nodded again. "Somehow I still call him a gentleman. He's hurt, sick, bruised, but he's a gentleman."

"Well I don't!"

At that moment, the buoy under Caradoc's head bumped into a wooden wall and upset their swimming arrangements.

They were under the overhang of the mysterious schooner.



CHAPTER VIII

THE MYSTERY SHIP

Waves from the exhausted swimmers sent bright streaks of watershine wavering up the green hull over Madden's head. Utter silence pervaded the vessel. There was no creaking of spar or block. Hot tar stood in her seams in the beating sunshine.

The boys kicked wearily through the tepid water to the schooner's prow, where Greer succeeded in catching the bobstays and climbing aboard. A little later he lowered a rope to Madden with a double bight in it. The Yankee made the Englishman fast in the loops, climbed on deck himself and helped haul the unconscious fellow aboard.

The two boys lugged the senseless man wearily across deck into the shade of the superstructure, then in default of any better restorative, Leonard began slapping the bottom of the Englishman's feet to revive him. Presently Caradoc groaned, drew up his legs.

"He's coming around all right," said Greer, then he looked about him. "What do you make out of this anyway, Mr. Madden?"

Leonard glanced around and did see a remarkable derelict. The schooner was as newly painted and trig as if fresh from the ways. Her deck was holystoned to man-o'-war cleanliness; every sheet, hawser, stay, tackle, pin, spike, was in place. Three small boats, her full complement, hung in davits. On the bow of these boats, on their oars and buoys, was painted the name of the schooner, "Minnie B."

From the port side of the vessel there stretched a long cable patently leading to a sea anchor. All sails were brailed except mains'l and tops'l, which were reefed and set against each other to hold her steady in case of a blow. The funnel was freshly painted black with a red band at the top. Judging from her appearance, the desertion of the Minnie B had been carefully planned. Yet why desert a new vessel? By what means did the crew leave the schooner, since all her small boats remained?

What was their motive in anchoring the Minnie B in the middle of the Sargasso?

There appeared to be no easy answer to these questions.

"I don't understand this," said Greer, in answer to Madden's unspoken perplexity. "Where did the crew go, sir, and how did they go?"

"They might have deserted her for her insurance," suggested Madden tentatively.

"Then why didn't they scuttle her—besides, a new vessel like this is worth more than her insurance."

"Maybe it was her cargo. Perhaps they faked it, rated it away above its value."

"Why she has no cargo, sir. She's riding light as a skiff; I noticed that as I climbed up."

"Then what is your idea?" inquired the American.

Greer glanced around with a trace of uneasiness. "The crew went by the board, sir, I'm thinking."

"Overboard—all washed overboard! Why there isn't one chance in a million of such a thing hap—"

"I didn't say 'washed overboard,' sir," corrected Greer heavily. "I think they got throwed overboard, one by one, sir."

"One by one!" Madden stared at the solemn faced fellow.

Farnol nodded stolidly. "Just so, sir."

"You mean—?"

"The plague, sir."

"O-oh!" The American stared around the deck with new eyes. Greer's explanation struck home with a certain convincingness. The mere thought of disease-laden surroundings filled him with alarm. Could they have unwittingly wandered into a deserted pest-ship? A focus of death in these rotting seas? The very air he breathed, the wood he touched, might inoculate him with malignant germs. Then he began reasoning on it.

"Even if it were the plague, there ought to be someone left aboard, Greer, a last corpse." The American sniffed the hot, breathless, tar-scented air.

"He could well have gone crazy, sir, in this heat and followed his mates overboard—but we can look and see."

At this moment, Caradoc stirred and pulled himself to a sitting posture on the burning deck.

"You—you pulled me aboard?" he murmured weakly, looking about with the face of a corpse.

"How do you feel—anything I can do?"

"If I had a dr—" he broke off, drew a long breath. "Nobody aboard?"

"If you're all right, Greer and I will take a turn below and see what we can find," suggested Madden.

Caradoc nodded apathetically and stared seaward toward the cable sagging into the dead ocean.

The two boys moved gingerly up to the hatchway that led down to the forecastle. If disease had smitten the Minnie B they hoped to get some clew from the taint of the sailors' quarters. Greer stuck a nose down the ladder first. Beyond the usual close ship smells there seemed to be nothing wrong. Then they climbed down.

Here again they found order. The bunks against the bulkheads and the curve of the prow were clean with neatly rolled blankets. The lockers were open and empty. The two searchers climbed out and walked aft to the lazaret. They were rapidly getting over their fright of the plague. Again Greer entered first, and this time Madden heard a loud snort of disgust.

Half expecting some sinister sight, Madden ran down the three steps and entered the storeroom. But what had roused the sailor's dislike was that the lazaret contained no provisions. It was as empty as the forecastle; not a chest, not a canister, not even a spice box remained. Here again the lockers were open and empty. From one of the keyholes hung a bunch of keys. The steward had deserted his ring, knowing it could never be of service to him again.

The little metal bunch hung straight down without the slightest oscillation. Such lack of motion and life amid the close stewing heat of the lazaret threw a glamor of unreality over the whole affair. The schooner might well have been warped to a dock in some port of the dead. The very newness of everything accentuated its amazing loneliness.

"Doesn't seem real, does it?" said Greer in a low tone, drawing a long breath in the heat. "I keep listening."

Madden shook himself. "It seems as if someone ought to be aboard." He broke away from the spell: "I wish they had left us some provisions—we need 'em."

The hot heavy silence fell immediately after the remark, like a curtain that was heavy to lift.

"Let's look through the hold and see if there isn't someone here!" suggested Greer uneasily.

With a feeling that they were likely to encounter some being, human or spectral, at every turn, they went below. The farther they went the more inexplicable became the Minnie B's desertion. Her engines were in perfect order, her furnace so new that the grate bars were still unsealed from heat; the maker's name-plate was still bright on the boilers; her hull was quite dry, with less than six inches of water in her bilge. She had no cargo, except four or five tons of raw metal ingots used as ballast. The coal in her bunkers was nearly exhausted. Indeed she was riding so light that heavy weather would upset her like a chip. It seemed as if the crew had looted the Minnie B in a thorough and extraordinary manner, and then had simply vanished. Every now and then in their search the two would find themselves standing motionless, open-mouthed, listening intently to the brooding silence.

More puzzled than ever by these explorations, the two adventurers climbed into the chart room. Here, also, everything was intact, and in order. In a desk they found the ship's log and clearance papers. The captain's and the mate's licenses hung in frames against the wall. Near these was tacked the picture of a sunny-haired little girl and underneath it was written the name "Minnie." So the schooner was the little smiling-faced girl's namesake, this tragedy-haunted abandoned vessel. A Mercator's projection lay thumb-tacked on a table, and the last position of the schooner was indicated by a pin sticking in the map.

Madden moved over to it eagerly, hoping this pin would give him some inkling as to where the disaster, if there had been one, occurred. He noted the latitude and longitude indicated by the marker, then turned excitedly to Greer.

"Look here!" he cried, "this pin marks our position at this moment. We are right here!" he touched the point on the map.

"How do you know it does?"

"I calculated the dock's position this morning."

"Well, what of that? She will probably lie here till she rots in this stagnant sea."

"That's the point: This is not a stagnant sea. There is a current of about six miles a day in the Sargasso, very slow, but it will change a ship's reckoning."

Greer remained unimpressed. "What do you make of that?"

"Make of that! Why, man, the person who took this reckoning, took it this morning! That's the only way he could have got it. There was somebody on this schooner this morning when we sighted her."

"This morning! This morning! Where in Davy Jones' locker——"

Madden was leaning over the chart scrutinizing it with careful eyes. At last he raised up in complete bewilderment.

"Farnol," he said in a queer tone, "the crew meant to come here! Meant to sail through the Sargasso—clear away from all trade routes—incomprehensible but—just look!"

Both boys bent above the chart, and Madden silently pointed out a row of pin holes that marked the daily reckonings of the Minnie B. She had sailed from Portland, Maine, had swung up the northern route past Newfoundland Banks as if going to England. On this portion of her voyage her average run was a little less than two hundred knots a day. On the fifth day out, the Minnie B inexplicably deserted the normal trade course, turned from "E. NE." and sailed directly "S. SW." At the same time her speed was accelerated to a trifle over three hundred knots a day. Her last reckoning left the pin sticking in the exact longitude and latitude which Leonard had worked out for the dock that morning.

"They got in a hurry when they did turn south," said Greer vacuously.

"They certainly burned coal from there to here."

"But what could have put her in such a rush, sir?"

"She must have sailed somewhere after a cargo, and later received a cancellation of the order. With that cancellation there must have come a new commission with a time limit, from some of the South American ports, I should judge by her course, say Caracas, or Paramaribo."

"But she has no wireless, sir. She couldn't have changed her destination."

"That would be fairly easy to explain. There are so many fast liners with wireless between New York and Liverpool, it would be a simple matter to get a message signaled to a sailing vessel in the trade route."

"But I can't see why she sailed through the Sargasso?"

"If the time factor had been urgent enough, she might have tried to shorten her journey by coming this way instead of following the usual course by Cuba and through the Caribbean."

"That doesn't tell what happened to the men."

Madden shook his head and wiped the sweat from his face on his undershirt sleeve. "Let's read the log. That ought to clear up things a bit."

Both lads hurried over to the desk, drew out the greasy, well-thumbed book. In their excitement, they forgot rank and tried to read together.

"Let me read it aloud," compromised Madden.

Dripping with sweat, they leaned on the hot desk and went carefully over the log of the Minnie B.

The record was simple. The Minnie B, of Leeds, England, sailed from Portland, Maine, for Liverpool on July thirtieth with a cargo of lake copper in bulk bound for Liverpool. For the first five days, her log was written in two heavy unscholarly hands, which alternated with each other, and were evidently those of the mate and the captain. These two handwritings were quite distinct from each other and contained the usual notes of prevailing winds, state of weather, speed, distance indicated by patent log, dead reckonings, vessels sighted and such like.

From the sixth to the twentieth day, the log of the Minnie B was written in a sharp, pointed, scholarly hand, and this record was confined to the mere relation of distances and reckonings. Then on the twenty-first day of August there appeared the following entry:

"46 degrees 57' W. Long. 27 degrees 24' 11" N. Lat. No wind. Sargasso Sea. Current 9.463 kilometers per 24 hrs. W. SW. Cast sea anchor. Five hundred tons ingots reshipped."

At this statement, Leonard turned and stared at Greer.

"Reshipped! Reshipped! Holy cats, Farnol! Reshipped from here—right here!" He jabbed a finger downward to indicate the spot in the dead Sargasso Sea occupied by the Minnie B.

Greer shook his head dully. "But this is all the wildest—" he made a helpless motion. "You oughtn't to think about it, sir, or you'll be going overboard, too. Reshipped!... This heat will get anybody in time.... The man who wrote that went and jumped overboard the next minute no doubt. Reshipped..... It ain't good for us to read it, sir."

"But something's gone with her cargo, Greer!" declared Madden vehemently. "Something's gone with it. I don't care how crazy the crew became they surely wouldn't have dumped a hold full of copper into the sea. This log says 'reshipped' and blessed if I don't believe—"

At this moment the boys seemed to hear the sound in the deathly silent vessel for which their ears had been all the time straining. Madden broke off abruptly and both stood listening with palpitating hearts. It was repeated. A repressed half groan, inarticulate, as if some human being were in distress. It was in the main cabin below them.

Hardly daring to guess at what they would see, the adventurers crept silently out of the chart room, down a short hot passageway to a door. Leonard caught a breath, then opened it without noise.

In the brilliant westering light that flooded the main cabin through the port holes, Madden saw a dining table, disordered as from a recent feast. On the floor around it were fragments of smashed glasses and bloody stains. A cut glass decanter, half full of wine, sat on the table, and in a corner of the cabin shrank the figure of a man.



CHAPTER IX

A MODERN COLUMBUS

Hardly knowing what to expect the two advanced into the cabin, when the figure turned and looked at them with pallid countenance.

"It's Caradoc!" cried Madden in great astonishment and relief. "Scots, Smith, you gave us a jolt! We thought—what's the matter, old chap? Heat again?"

The Englishman's long face was strained. "Would you—take that decanter away, please!" he begged unsteadily.

Instantly Leonard understood the temptation into which Caradoc had unwittingly wandered. A strong odor of wine pervaded the cabin, and Smith's knock-out had given his nerves a great craving for a stimulant.

Without a word, Leonard walked to the table, took the wine bottle by its neck and heaved it through the open port. The three men in their half costumes stood listening intently until it chucked into the sea below. All three seemed to feel relief at the sound.

"That's all right, Caradoc," said Madden with a note of comfort in his voice, "all right, old chap. It won't be like this always."

"I was unstrung—rotten heat," grumbled the Englishman in acute self-disgust. "I thought I was getting over all—" he shifted the topic suddenly: "What do you make out of all this?"

"Completest mystery I ever ran into—the crew deserted for some reason——"

"And they had a feast and a celebration before they went. What cause of rejoicing they discovered in this place is more than I can fancy."

An inspection showed Smith was correct. What the boys had taken for bloodstains in their first excitement were splashes of wine. The table was still laden with dishes and eatables. Broken glass around the table showed that the diners had followed the old custom of breaking their goblets after toasts.

"They were having a last square meal before taking to their boats," speculated Leonard.

"But the boats are still here, sir," objected Greer.

"There seems to be no explanation," gloomed Caradoc.

"If we gathered this up and took it to the men, they would thank us heartily," suggested Greer.

"That's a fact," agreed Madden, setting to work at once. "Here, pile these plates on trays and we'll load 'em in the small boat."

The three adventurers set to work busily, carrying the provisions, which were still fresh and wholesome, to the port dinghy which lay toward the dock.

As they worked they speculated further on what could have brought about such an extraordinary situation. Their guesses ranged from water spouts to savages. Presently Caradoc cut in with:

"It's not so much how the Minnie B got here, as it is how we are going to handle her."

"We'll man her and sail home," said Greer.

"We'll have to ballast her first," declared Leonard. "She won't run this way."

"We have enough coal on the dock for that, sir."

"In a flat sea like this," suggested Caradoc, "we can warp the schooner to the front of the barge and load the coal directly in her hold."

By this time the dinghy was loaded and the three swung her out of the davits into the sea below. Then they threw down a rope ladder and climbed below. Greer went back to the stern, picked up an oar and began to scull.

The sun sank as the little boat worked her way through the lanes of seaweed, and the great dock threw long purple shadows across the highly colored ocean. Caradoc looked at the great structure intently. The setting sun rimmed its great shape in brilliant red, but the bulk of it lay in deep wine-like shadow. The boys gazed at it musingly.

"A fine structure to desert, isn't it?" said Caradoc in a low tone.

"Just what I was thinking," sympathized Madden. "I suppose we could send a tug back and find her?"

"Doubtful, in this fantastic place."

"The current is fairly well charted; still, it may take us some time to reach port——" Both men fell into a musing silence as Greer nibbled the boat forward with the single oar.

"The thing's worth over a million pounds," appraised Caradoc.

Suddenly Madden straightened with an idea. "How about hitching that schooner to the dock and towing her?"

"What an American idea!" Caradoc lifted his voice slightly.

"Would we—make any—headway, sir, with the schooner's—light machinery?" asked Greer, his sentence punctuated by shoves at his oar.

"We would have to try and see. Besides, we would have to do little else than help the current we are in. The Atlantic eddy sweeps through the Caribbean close to the South American coast. If we could control our direction slightly, we would perhaps make La Guayra or the Port of Spain."

"With a seven or eight mile current that would take us months—years.... What is the distance to La Guayra?" this from Smith.

"Something around fifteen hundred miles. But that isn't the point. It isn't how long it takes us, it's can we do it. Had you thought of the salvage end of this thing?"

"Salvage, no. We'll get salvage on the schooner—a bagatelle."

Madden shook his head, "No, I believe we ought to get salvage on the whole dock."

"Salvage on the dock!" Caradoc opened his eyes. "We'd be jolly well near millionaires. No, that's impossible. A crew can't salve their own vessel."

"Yes, but we are not the crew of the dock," insisted Madden, "at least not the navigating crew. The men of the Vulcan were that. We are nothing but painters——"

"Oh, that's a quibble—nothing but a quibble!" objected Caradoc.

"Well, anyway, I think there is a rule that if a crew rescue their own craft under circumstances of extreme peril, they come in as salvors. I'll look it up in Malone's books when we get back."

At that moment their ears caught a cheering from the dock, which came to them as a small sound almost lost over the immense flat sea. Greer paused in his work to wave a hand, which was extremely sociable for him. The men bunched on the forward pontoon, waved and shouted at the little boat. As the noise grew louder, questions shaped themselves in the uproar.

"W'ot did ye make of 'er?" "Was there anywan aboard?" "W'ot ship is she?" "Can we git a berth hoff this bloomin' dock?"

Madden held up his hands for silence and shouted a reply.

"We have a meal for you—a dinner!"

A great shouting and cheering broke out at this. It is strange how much more pressing is the small need of a dinner than the large need of a rescue. The mystery of the schooner was overlooked in a sight of the plates and victuals.

"Oh, look, there it is—bread and meat!" "And, say, ain't that fish?" "And that goose or something!"

Eager hands reached down as Madden and Caradoc handed up the platters. "To the mess room, to the mess room!" directed Leonard.

"Sure, sure, we wouldn't touch a mouthful for hanything!" cried Mulcher earnestly.

"Misther Madden, you're a wonder!" extolled Hogan.

Then the three men climbed up and were received clamorously. Even the silent Greer found himself beset with a temporary bunch of admirers. All began talking of the Minnie B, asking questions. Caradoc unbent his dignity and explained what he had observed.

Leonard went straight to the officer's cabin, eager to satisfy his curiosity about salvage. A whole fortune shimmered before his vision if law allowed the crew to salve the dock. He turned into the hot cabin, struck a light and ran his eyes over the mate's shelf of books. He soon found what he was hunting, "Abbot's Law of Merchant's Ships and Seamen."

Leonard sat down at his desk, placed the light close by and began a sweating search for the legal rule applicable to salvage. It was Madden's intention to attempt to get the dock to port no matter what the law said, but he knew his best chance of getting the crew to cooperate was through possible prize money.

Like all legal works, Abbott gave shading decisions on both sides of the topic. As the lad read on he discovered many questions were involved.

What constitutes the crew of a vessel? Can a towed vessel have a navigating crew? Could a lawful crew be composed of ordinary laborers, or would it be necessary for them to be able seamen?

All these points and many others were involved, but Leonard plodded patiently through the legal labyrinth, and finally decided that he and his crew were eligible for prize money. He then fell to estimating the probable amount the crew would receive. The dock was easily worth a million pounds, or say five million dollars. It would lack one or two hundred thousand totting up a full five million, but Leonard's imagination was in no mood to balk at a paltry two hundred thousand more or less. Say five million! The share of the salvors would amount to—say fifty per cent, two and a half million. Distribute this among twelve men. There he was, two hundred and eight thousand, three hundred and thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents. Or say two hundred thousand dollars.

Madden drew a long breath and opened his eyes at his own figures. Was it possible? He doubted it! He believed it!

He stared out of his open port onto the fantastic sea, amazed that a great fortune should drift in to him from such a place. What would he do? How should he live? He could go anywhere, do anything. There came to him suddenly the precepts of his old teacher in economics at college: "A fortune is a great moral responsibility. A rich man is a trustee of society." Did he have the brains to wield this money and make it mean something to the world? The thought of wealth always comes with a question. A man's answer to that question determines whether he is a man or a thing.

Before Leonard could reach any sort of decision, Gaskin rang his gong for dinner. The boy arose and walked buoyantly towards the mess hall. He was hungry, too. Ever since he had cut rations, he had been eating the same fare as the men.

The tropical night was falling as the men joyously entered to a full-fledged, satisfying, if secondhand, meal. They came in laughing, joking boisterously, wondering about the schooner.

When the men had strung around the long table, Mike Hogan arose and the men became quiet as if at some preconcerted signal. The Irishman gave a slightly embarrassed bob toward Leonard and began in an extra rich brogue:

"Misther Madden, sir——"

Leonard glanced up in surprise. "What's worrying you, Mike?"

"Th' bhoys, sir, have been thinkin' as how we would loike to ixpress our appreciation av what ye've done for us, sir, in a little spache, something loike a little spache av wilcome, sir, an' asked me to do it, if ye don't moind."

"Go ahead," nodded Madden, "but don't expect much of a response from me. I'm no speaker and——"

"Go on, Mike!" "Go to it, Mike!" "Take a sip of water, Mike, like a reg'lar one, and cut loose."

With this encouragement, the Celt moistened his dry lips, thrust out his chest, and after a momentary fumble, stuck three fingers in his shirt front.

"It's me pr-roud privilege, ladies and gintilmin, to wilcome to our midst, a gintilmin bearin' in wan hand a distinguished ancistry, a spirit av enterprise and a hear-rt av courage, while wid his other, he snatches a dinner for his starvin' min out o' th' middle av th' Sargasso Sea. Oi rayfer to our distinguished commander, Captain Leonard Madden of America."

A burst of applause followed this period. Hogan beamed, bowed deeply to left and right; his voice went up an octave and he proceeded:

"Ladies an' gintilmin, me mind runs back through th' pages av histh'ry, lookin' for a name fit to be compared with him but I don't find none. There is Columbus and Peary and Stanley and Amundsen, all av thim gr-reat min, but whin you come to compare thim with our hero, phwat have they done?

"Look at Columbus. What is his claim to glory? Did Columbus iver swim out into th' stinkin' Sargasso and come back with a good dinner for his star-r-vin' min? Histh'ry does not say so. He discovered America, Columbus did. What is America? A whole continint. Anybody that was sailin' by would have noticed it. But, gintilmin, a dinner is a very small thing and they are har-rd to discover, as ivry wan of you lads very will know. Columbus wint out in thray ships, our gallant captain wint out in his undhershirt and a straw hat. I say thray cheers for our gallant captain!"

The cheers were given with a hearty good will and the orator sat down smiling broadly and moistening his dry lips with his tongue. Then the diners desired a response.

It struck Madden to propose salving the dock while the crowd was mellow. He arose when the noise subsided somewhat.

"I thank you fellows very much for the kind opinion you entertain of me, and now I want to lay a proposition before you."

"Hear! Hear the captain!" called two or three cockneys in hoarse good humor.

"I want to say that to-morrow we are going to man the schooner and sail for home."

The men were in a bubbling mood, and cheered this with cries of "Good! Good!"

"What I wish you to decide is, whether we shall tow the dock, or sail with the schooner alone?"

"With the schooner alone, sor!" "Schooner alone!" "We 'ave enough of th' dock!" came an instant chorus.

Leonard held up a hand, "One moment. I want you to have a voice in this decision. An attempt to tow the dock will be highly adventurous, no doubt dangerous. You were not hired for any such service, and I wish to leave it to a vote."

"Good, very good, sor! Let's 'ave th' question!"

"Just one moment. You must consider the salvage involved in this matter. If we save the schooner, we will receive as prize money about one-half her value. If we save the dock, we will receive about half her value. The dock is worth a million pounds, about five million dollars. So each man would receive for his portion, in event we salved the dock about... two hundred thousand dollars... a fortune."

A profound silence fell over the diners. They hunched forward, staring fixedly out of sunburned, gross, dissipated faces. Longshores-men, the scum of London, who had worked all their lives for half a pound a week, gaped at the idea of two hundred thousand dollars.

Somebody repeated the sum hoarsely. Suddenly they raised an uproar.

"We'll take 'er, sir!" "We'll tow th' dock, sor!" "We weel tow zee dock to zee moon for zat!" "Sphend our loives and die rich min!"

The strong imagination of wealth ran around the table like wine. Deschaillon responded first.

"Voila! One meellion francs! I weel buy a pond near Paris and raise bull frogs. I weel buy a decoration and be a knight. I weel——"

"I'll start an undertaker shop!" glowed Galton, "and my old mother shall have a bit of ground to raise flowers."

"Glory be!" chanted Hogan, "Oi'll wear a tall hat, a long-tailed coat and carry a silver-headed cane, and thin Susie Maloney and Bridget O'Malley and Peggy O'Brien will be sorry they iver tossed up their saucy noses at th' love o' an honest lad!"

"I'll own a kennel of bulldogs," growled Mulcher, "and 'ave a fight hev'ry day."

All this was given in chorus and much of it lost. Those who didn't speak aloud their heart's desires thought them. Fortune had shown her golden form to these crude men for a fleeting instant, and dreams, long hidden in their hearts, suddenly leaped to life. They were poor dreams, selfish dreams, foolish dreams, but for the moment they poised, like liberated fairies, for a flight to the land where dreams come true.

"We sail in the morning," explained Madden, "for a South American port. Is there anyone in this crew who knows anything about running a marine engine?"

The men fell silent and looked inquiringly at each other. Fortune was beginning to show herself elusive, even in the Sargasso, save to those who know.

"I b'lieve not," said Mulcher.

"We could raise steam, sir," suggested Galton, "and then pull all the levers and twist th' w'eels, sir and see w'ot'd 'appen."

"W'ot 'ud 'appen!" cried two or three voices. "W'y, we'd hall be blowed galley west, 'at's w'ot'd 'appen!"

"Sure Misther Madden can figger it out!" suggested Hogan cheerfully.

"We might leave th' dock and run 'er 'ome by sail," suggested Galton.

"No! No! Take th' dock!" "We'll run'er by steam!" "Steam's th' word!" A storm of determination cried down any such suggestion.

"D'ye mean a dozin str-rong min can't run one little engine!" shouted Hogan; "r-rich min, too! It's a shame, lads, we haven't a dhrop o' something to dhrink the health av th' ixpedition."

"Yes, Mister Madden, a drop o' something!" urged another voice.

At that moment, Gaskin entered the door with suppressed excitement showing through his usually imperturbable manner.

"Hi—Hi beg pardon, Mister Madden. Hi, don't want to interrupt, but—" he rubbed his hands with a little bob—"but would you 'ave th' goodness to step outside for a look, sir. Hi think th' Minnie B is on fire."

And the fairy dreams, evoked by a wave of Fortune's wand, crept silently back into the hearts of their owners.



CHAPTER X

THE STRANGE END OF THE MINNIE B

At Gaskin's announcement, bedlam broke loose among the diners. They leaped to their feet and rushed headlong from the messroom.

"Get th' buckets!" "Man th' boat!" "We'll niver get there in toime!" "Allons! Allons!" "W'y didn't we put a guard on 'er!" "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" "Yes, 'urry! 'urry!"

Out into the darkness to the forward pontoon rushed the howling mob. Some gave inarticulate cries, others bewailed their lost riches to the vast empty night.

A strange sight met their eyes. The spars and sails of the Minnie B stood out against the black heavens in a flickering brilliance that danced up through the rigging, but presently all saw it was a mere light shining from beneath.

"Th' fire's in th' hold!" cried Galton hoarsely. "Did you men drop a match?"

"'Ow could they drop a match, wearin' nothin' but undershirts?" flared back another navvy.

"We could do no good in a small boat!" cried Galton.

'She's afire from stem to stern!"

"But smoke—w'ere's th' smoke?"

Then, quite surprisingly, the light wavered out, leaving the schooner in stony blackness. A vague blur of complementary color swam in Madden's eyes. A gasp went up from the watchers.

"Bhoys," faltered Hogan in an awed tone, "th' banshees ar-re dancin' to-night!"

"Banshees!" sneered Mulcher. "Th' deck's caved in—it'll break out again!"

"Th' engines must be ruint complately."

"Wot do ye make of it, Mister Madden?" asked Galton, bewildered. "Look—there it is again!"

Sure enough the mysterious light flamed up once more as suddenly as it disappeared. It flickered and wavered over hull and spars.

"It might possibly be a phosphorescent display," hazarded Leonard, completely mystified.

"Tropical seas grow very luminous when disturbed... a school of dolphins or sharks on the other side the schooner might——"

"This must be a reg'lar fire!" cried Mulcher. "Nothin' but a furnace in th' hold——"

"W'y don't hit smoke?"

"'Ow do I know?"

"Hit ain't a fire!"

"W'ot is hit?"

"Phosphescence, didn't you 'ear Mister Madden say!"

"Will hit sink 'er?"

Deschaillon gave a sharp laugh. "What sauvages!"

By this time it became clear to everyone that it was not a fire. As the weird illumination continued its fantastic gambols, little points of light began moving about the deck.

Just then Caradoc's grave voice hazarded: "That must be an extraordinary display of St. Elmo's fire. I should say a storm was brewing."

"Would St. Elmo's fire 'urt th' vessel, sir?" asked a cockney.

"Not at all," replied the Englishman.

As Leonard stared a queer thought came into his head. He looked around at his companions. In the faint radiance from the mysterious schooner, he could make out their faces, pale blurs all fixed on the strange spectacle. He picked out the heavy form of Farnol Greer and moved over to his friend. Under the cover of excited talking and exclamations, he asked in a low tone.

"There was somebody on that schooner this morning, Farnol?"

"Just what I was thinking, sir."

"He could have hidden from us. You thought he must be crazy—a crazy man would probably have secreted himself."

"I had it in mind, sir, the very thing."

"Now could he possibly make a light like this?"

Greer remained silent. The queer fellow never said anything when he had nothing to say.

"I'd like to go over and see," went on Leonard. "I want one man to row with me. We want to go light and fast."

"That's me, sir."

Greer moved instantly to the rope ladder where the dinghy was tied. Madden followed him. Caradoc was still explaining the theory of St. Elmo's fire to the listening men. Madden broke in on it.

"Fellows," he called, "Greer and I are going to row over there. We'll let you know what we find."

Amid warning protests the two climbed down the ladder for the small boat.

"I wouldn't do it, sir." "Leckricity's liable to strike you, sir." "There's a storm comin', sir, and you won't get back, like th' mate did." "You can see just as well from 'ere."

But the two clambered into the half-seen dinghy and pushed off. The moment they dipped oars into water, the mystery was partially explained. Every stroke they made created bright phosphorescent rings in the lifeless sea. Their blades drove through the water in a flame. The navvies cried out at this phenomenon. A sufficient disturbance of the sea beyond the schooner would almost explain the strange light dancing through the rigging. But what made that disturbance?

Reflections of the shining spars made a wavering path over the weed-strewn water, and up this path the dinghy moved amid its own flashing fires. It formed a queer spectacle, a glowworm creeping up on a bonfire.

The fact that the two boys had just traversed the Sargasso lanes a few hours before aided them greatly now in finding their way to the schooner. Presently they were skirting the drift of seaweed where Madden had come so near losing his life. As they rowed, the flashing of the water about their oars only half convinced Madden that a similar cause underlay the bizarre illumination on the schooner. The American's mind clung to the idea that there was somebody on board the Minnie B, a madman, possibly, who in some unknown way produced this amazing light.

He groped for some theory to account for a maniac on a deserted schooner in these desolate seas. No doubt if a solitary man were left in these terrible painted seas he would go insane. Madden regretted that he had not searched the Minnie B more thoroughly when he had the opportunity.

Similar thoughts evidenly played in Greer's mind, for presently he puffed out, between oar strokes: "Did you bring along a pistol, sir?"

"No, but there are two of us."

"They say they are tremendously stout, sir."

"We can use our oars; they'd made good clubs."

"I'm with you, sir."

By this time they had entered a long S-shaped rift that Madden recalled led straight to the schooner. By glancing over his shoulder, the American saw its two curving strokes drawn in pale light against the dark field of seaweed. As they drew nearer, wild notions of what they might encounter played through Madden's mind. What would be the outcome of this fantastic adventure?

The dinghy was moving down the middle of the long "S" when a dull noise from the schooner caused both oarsmen to look around. Such an extraordinary sight met their eyes that they ceased rowing completely, and stood up in the boat to stare at their goal.

The Minnie B no longer lay at rest. Some strange and mighty convulsion was taking place in the schooner. The lights still played about the vessel, but her whole prow rose slowly out of the sea, while she settled heavily by the stern. The most unexpected thing in the world was happening.

The Minnie B was foundering!

In the ghastly light, her masts and rigging swung in a slow drunken reel. Presently she settled back to normal with a heavy crushing sound as the water in her hold rushed forward. She seemed some mighty leviathan weltering in agony. She lay on even keel for four or five minutes while a hissing and spewing of air compressed in her hull told she was slowly settling.

In the ghostly light the foundering vessel gave a strange impression of clinging desperately to her life. She seemed striving to remain upright. Her hissing and sucking might have been a living gasp for breath. Very slowly she rolled over, and came the noise of many waters cascading down over her upflung keel. Her masts crashed, yards broke, rigging popped in the wildest confusion as they dashed into the sea. Great phosphorescent waves dashed through the prone rigging and over the hull in liquid fire. A sea of quicksilver leaped up to lick her down. With great bubbling and sucking and groaning, the Minnie B fought for her last gasp of life. For several minutes she lay thus, on her side, every detail clearly delineated as liquid fire roared down her open hatches. At last, as she filled with water, the schooner straightened with a mighty effort, a last stand between sea and sky, then sank slowly out of sight in a scene of wild and ill-starred beauty. Her mainpeak disappeared in a shining maelstrom. The convulsed water flashed and hissed, and the circling waves here torches into the dead seaweed and moved the black fields to a whispered sighing.

Toward the south the waves moved with great velocity and brilliance. Indeed something seemed to be rushing away from the wreck, clad in long winding sheets of flame. It might have been a continuation of the waves in that direction, or it might have been some dolphin or shark flying from the roaring vessel.

In ghastly mystification, the two watchers stared at the last weird gleams that marked the foundered schooner. The waves reached the dinghy, raised it and dropped it with a slow gurgling, then died away in firefly glimmers. The sea presented once more a dim gray surface. To Madden's mind there came, with a sharp sense of pathos, the picture of the little sunny-haired girl he had seen in the chart room.

"Sunk," murmured Greer in a strange tone, "sunk—when she was as dry as a chip."

"Heeled over," shivered Madden, "heeled over in a dead calm—God have mercy on us!"



CHAPTER XI

CARADOC SHOWS HIS METTLE

Heat, that grew more terrific as the dock drifted southward; hunger, that gnawed like rats at the empty stomachs of the crew; withering heat, aching hunger, growing despair—that was life on the floating dock.

Of all the crew only Gaskin remained in good condition. It would have required more than a hero to cook food and go hungry, but the crew made no such allowances. They berated the dignified Gaskin, they eyed each other's scant portions jealously. Their quarrels over food at last forced Madden to weigh each man's allowance to the fraction of an ounce.

The nerves of the crew frayed out in the heat. By night they slept amid tantalizing dreams of food; by day they sprawled in dreary silences under awnings which held heat like sweat boxes. The high metal walls of the dock caught the sun's rays and threw out a furnace heat. The men endured it in net undershirts clinging to dripping bodies; their eyes ached against the glare, their stomachs rebelled, their brains sickened with monotony and despair.

The men developed little personal traits that exasperated their mates unreasonably. Mulcher had a way of breathing aloud through his coarse lips that chafed Hogan's temper. For hours at a time the Irishman would stare at those flabby spewing lips, filled with a desire to maul them. Yet before this isolation, he had never observed that Mulcher breathed aloud.

The only occupation the men had now was to stare at, listen to and criticise each other. All painting had ceased, for work consumes energy, and energy consumes food.

Caradoc Smith found peculiar and private grievance in the fact that Greer often whistled to himself in a windy undertone. The tune Farnol chose for these unfortunate performances was an American ragtime, that repeated the same strain over and over.

Caradoc strove not to listen to this dry whistling. Sometimes he left his awning and climbed up the walls through the sapping sun's rays to escape it, but his ears caught the faintly aspirated air at remarkable distances.

One day he said to Madden: "I don't see how you stand that Greer fellow's eternal whistling," and Leonard answered:

"Does Greer whistle?"

"Whistle! He whistles everlastingly, abominably—one of those confounded American rags. He's at it now—what is that thing?"

Madden had to listen very carefully before he caught the faint blowing between Farnol's lips. Presently he identified it.

"That's 'Winona, Sweet Indian Maid.'"

This reply seemed to arouse an irrational anger in the Briton.

"'Winona, Sweet Indian Maid'—sweet Indian Maid!" he snorted. "Did an Indian write such a nightmare? Is it a war song? Do they murder each other by it, or with it?"

Madden grinned with fagged appreciation, thinking the remark meant for humor, but Caradoc grimly chewed his blond mustache.

It was noon, three days later when Caradoc's endurance broke down.

"Greer!" he snapped with all his pent-up irritation in his voice, "will you never stop mouthing that beastly tune?"

The stolid fellow looked around in the blankest surprise. "Tune?"

"No, groaning, wheezing! You spew it out all day long! What do you think you are? A tree frog, a locust, a katydid? Doesn't your mouth get tired? Does that hideous tinkle go through your hollow head all day long?"

The Englishman's long face was a dusky red. He had not intended to be insulting when he first spoke, but all the sarcastic and abusive epithets that he had thought during the long super-heated days of nerve-racked listening, now rushed out like steam from a boiler.

Farnol stared straight at the nervous fellow. "Are you insane?" he asked in wondering contempt,

"A wonder I'm not—with that diabolical wheezy spewing boring in my brain—you never stop a minute—over and over——"

"Have you run out of stolen whiskey again?" interrupted Greer with cool malice.

The whole crew came to hushed attention.

Caradoc seemed to collect himself with a great effort. The blood ebbed from his face, leaving it the color of clay.

"Stolen?" he asked in a contained voice. "Yes, isn't there another medicine case for you to steal?"

"Greer!" cried Madden reproachfully. The American knew it was hunger, heat and nerves that were nagging these two miserable men to quarrel.

"I believe he said I was no gentleman," pronounced Greer sarcastically, "because I didn't know a little French. I say he's a thief."

Caradoc was drawing long breaths through dilated nostrils. "Mr. Greer," he said with cold evenness, "it is impossible to obtain swords or pistols on this dock. We will have to fight with our hands. Choose a second!"

Greer nodded shortly. Both men got to their feet and both glanced at Madden.

The American shook his head. "I can't serve for either of you. I'm in command here. I'm impartial."

"Will you oblige me, Mr. Deschaillon?" asked Smith with a set face.

The Gaul arose, saluted, military fashion, with a clicking of heels. "Eet ees an honor, M'sieu!"

Greer stared around dourly. "Hogan?"

The Irishman leaped to his feet joyfully. "Oi'm wid ye, Misther Greer, and we'll bate th' long face off th' spalpeen, though I hate to hit Frinchy Dashalong, who is a good frind o' mine."

All the men were up now circling about the principals.

"You don't have to do no fightin', 'Ogan," explained Galton, "you simply stand by and 'old up for your man, an' 'elp fan 'im 'twixt rounds."

"Rounds!" exclaimed the disgusted Irishman. "I thought they were choosin' sides for a free-for-all."

Caradoc began methodically stripping to the waist and Greer followed suit. The Englishman presented his watch to Madden with a slight bow.

"If you'll be so kind as to keep time," he suggested, "that's a neutral position. We fight four minutes and rest one."

Madden considered the warlike preparations askance. He wondered if he ought not to stop it. The Englishman might suffer another sunstroke. However, he took his station at the ringside, and glanced at the watch, which had a coat of arms carved on the inside of its hunting case.

There was a striking contrast between the two fighters. The Englishman was a beautiful taper from his great shoulders to his small aristocratic feet. His muscles were long, graceful and knitted across his arms, chest, and stomach like lace leather. He was built for swift enduring action and could only have sprung from a race of men who had spent their lives in play and luxury.

Farnol Greer, on the other hand, was as heavily moulded as a bulldog. His arms were short and blocky; his shoulders welted with brawn; his chest was two hairy hills, like a gorilla's, while across his stomach muscles lay ridged like ropes. His waist was thick with pones of sinew bulging over the hips, as one sees in the statue of Discobolus. It was plain that Greer had labored tremendously all his life and that his strength was simply wonderful.

It struck Madden as a strange coincidence that these two extreme types of luxury and labor should meet in this furnace on the Sargasso and fight for the trivial reason that one offended the other's sense of music.

"All ready!" called Leonard.

The two men squared away at each other, Caradoc smiling sarcastically, Greer grim as a gallows. Utter silence fell over the crowd. The fighters crouched, bare fists up, staring at each other over the tips of their guards.

For a moment Smith shifted around his man on his toes. He seemed as light as a cat. Greer stood solid and merely turned on his flat feet. Suddenly Caradoc's long right whipped out with a crack against the shorter man's forehead. Greer made no sign of having received a blow, although a dull red splotch slowly formed on his frontal. Caradoc led another right, which Greer blocked, then the Englishman bored through with a stinging left to the hairy chest.

"Go afther him! Kill him!" cried Hogan to his principal. "Nixt toime he thries to hit ye, knock off his head for his impidence!"

"Aye, 'it 'im! Don't take nothin' off of 'im!" advised two of the cockneys. Sympathy lay with the smaller man.

Smith continued his tiptoe dance and led a straight right. Instantly his massive enemy ducked, leaped in under his guard, and there came the dull thud of in-fighting; Greer's black head jammed up against Caradoc's chin, his great muscular back bent half double, his tremendous arms working like pistons.

The crew howled at this sharp unexpected attack. Caradoc rescued himself by shoving open palms against the big bulging shoulders, and pushing himself away from this battering ram. Smith bumped into some onlookers, and got behind his guard some ten feet away from Greer. The Englishman's fine-grained stomach was covered with pink welts from his punishment. He had ceased smiling and was watching his man carefully. As a matter of fact, he had expected to dispose of Greer easily—as a gentleman disposes of a clod-hopper. But the heavy-set boy's method of fighting was new and effective. Likewise there seemed to be a certain grim system about it.

"First round is over!" called Madden.

"Phwat a shame!" cried Hogan.

With English love of fair fight, the cockneys divided themselves impartially between the battlers and converted themselves into impromptu rubbers and handlers. There was perhaps not a man in the crowd who liked Caradoc; nevertheless they hustled him to his awning, put him down on a box, procured towels, water, sponges from somewhere, and set up a vigorous fanning and rubbing, all out of a desire to see fair play. At the end of a minute they carried their champions back and set them facing each other like human game cocks.

Farnol dashed in at once, whipping right and left hooks to Smith's sides. Caradoc tore himself away and played for distance, stabbing at Farnol's head at long range. The short youth accepted with indifference punishment that cut cheeks and lips. He made rush after rush, driving Caradoc into the crowd, who immediately shifted back and made room. Time and again he landed terrific short arm jolts over heart and kidneys.

The sweating bodies of the fighters glistened in the roasting sunshine. Both were bruised, Smith's body, Greer's head and shoulders. Caradoc's mouth felt slimy and he spit at nothing.

The fighting went in spurts, Greer rushing Land Smith dancing away and stabbing. The two gangs of rubbers bawled encouragement to their men.

"Land on 'is nose there, Smith!" shouted Mulcher. "Don't let 'im to ye! Play away, play away, me boy! Now huppercut 'im! Huppercut 'im, I say!"

On the other side, Galton was shrieking hoarsely, "Bore in, Greer! Bore in, me lad!" and Hogan, "G'wan and mash the spalpeen's ribs! Br-reak his long nick! Cr-rush him! Why don't ye hit him on th' head and lay him out?"

"Time's up!" announced Madden.

During the following rounds, Caradoc stuck to the long range English method of fighting, but over and over Farnol broke through his guard and his short-arm jabs spread a sick numb feeling over Caradoc's sides and chest.

The Briton deliberately worked for Greer's eyes. His first round with the silent man convinced him that he would never be able to stop that massive steel body with a knock-out. On the other hand Greer covered up tightly and lunged like a tiger after Smith's stomach and endurance.

Two or three weeks before, Caradoc could never have withstood that terrific bombardment, but his hard life on the dock, his abstinence from alcohol, and the fact that tobacco had long ago run out, all this had armored his body with hard flesh.

The opening of the twelfth round found both fighters blown, bleeding and filled with a desperate determination to end the contest. They formed a ghastly sight when they were pitted in what proved to be the final clash. Greer's face was chopped and bleeding, while Caradoc's ribs were a mass of bruises, as mottled as a leopard's skin.

To Caradoc, the whole dock seemed unsteady. The sun bored into the back of his head. The men had ceased yelling, and the circle silently swayed back and forth to give the battlers room. The whole scene was hazy and fantastic.

The Englishman put up his hands automatically when he faced his enemy, and the next moment black-haired blocky bull of a fellow charged furiously. Smith tried to stop him with a heavy right hand smash, but his fist glanced off the man's sweaty shoulder. The next moment, Greer's right landed in a fierce solid jolt on Smith's hip bone. A sickening pain went through the Englishman. He sagged away and went down on a knee, hunched forward, trying to protect his face with his gloves. Greer Started another rush, when Madden jumped in, put a hand on his shoulder.

"You can't hit him while he's down!" he shouted in the bull's ear, and then the American began counting: "One, two, three..."

Caradoc rested with his broad chest panting convulsively up and down till the count of eight. Then he sprang backwards away from his enemy. Curiously enough, Greer did not press his advantage home. The heavy lad came forward but stood away from Caradoc, attempting nothing but left-hand jabs.

In an instant Smith saw what was the matter. That blow on the hip had ruined Greer's right hand, strained it, perhaps broken it. Greer's rushes had stopped, and Smith, who was a boxer, not a fighter, could stand off and peck at his man's eyes or jaw without danger to himself.

He hitched wearily up to his enemy, blocked Greer's left hand and let his right have a full swing at his exposed body. Farnol went through the motion of striking, but his blow was a mere tap and caused the heavy fellow to cringe with pain.



Caradoc swung a light blow to the neck. Greer countered fiercely with his left, but it was parried easily.

Suddenly the crowd understood what had happened.

"Put 'im out!" "Finish 'im!" "Put 'im to sleep!" bawled a chorus. "He hit you below th' belt w'en 'e broke 'is 'and!"

Farnol continued his chopping one-armed fight. "Put me out! Put me out!" he bubbled furiously. "I said ye was a thief! You are a thief! You're a thief!" and he accented his charges with stabs.

Smith side-stepped the harmless attack, letting it slide first to one side then the other, men were so tired they could hardly keep their feet. The Englishman looked down on the stubborn fellow, with his chopped, bleeding face and blackened, defiant eyes. A hard swing at unprotected jaw would stretch him out in broiling heat, but he did not make the blow. Instead he pushed the frothing fellow away from him.

"Go to your corner and cool off," he panted. "Yes, I'm a thief. Go on away; I don't want knock you out."

He turned his back deliberately and walked to his own awning. The crowd stared, absolutely dumfounded by this unexpected turn of affairs. Greer himself stared, then moved forward automatically to continue his onslaught, when Hogan grabbed him.

"Come on back," cried the Irishman. "Th' scoundrel has lift ye no ixcuse to fight him any more. He says he's a thafe, but I don't belave Come git a wash and let's wrap up yer hand."

At that moment the dignified voice of Gaskin came from the forward pontoon. The crew hushed their hot comments on the fight to listen.

"A sail," called the cook. "A sail to th' sou'west, sir!"

Instantly every man moved forward. The fight was forgot in the great hope of a rescue. Even the gory looking principals hurried forward to see if such welcome news could be true.



CHAPTER XII

THE RETURN OF THE VULCAN

Etched against the horizon lay a stumpy masted vessel that seemed as still and dead as ocean that rotted around it. She had not a sail aloft nor a plume of smoke in her funnel. For the moment this lifelessness was not observed by the hungry castaways. A joyous medley arose from the dock.

"Th' Vulcan! Hit's th' Vulcan! Th' good Vulcan! We'll 'ave full rations t'night, 'at will! Hurrah!"

They fell to cheering. Voices arose in confusion.

"Vulcan ahoy! Vulcan ah-o-oy!" they bellowed in an effort to span the miles with human ices.

"Say, lads, she ain't movin'!" cried someone making the surprising discovery.

"Faith and phwat's th' matter with her now?" exclaimed Hogan in exasperated wonder.

A silence fell over the boisterous group.

"Out o' coal," hazarded Galton, "that's w'y she harsn't got back no sooner."

"W'ere's 'er sails, then?"

"A tug couldn't do nothin' with sails—she isn't made for sails!"

"It ain't w'ot ye're made for, hit's w'ot ye can git in this blarsted sea!"

"Maybe 'er machin'ry's broke?"

"Maybe they're hall sick?"

"Or dead?"

"Maybe——"

Madden hurried to his cabin and returned with binoculars. The men foregathered curiously about him as he scanned the vessel. He ran his eyes over the tub from stem to poop. She stood out with absolute distinctness in the glaring light. He could see her high prow, the swinging buffers along her side, the wide-mouthed ventilators. He could even make out her name in rusty letters under the wheel-house. Her small boats were in place, but he saw neither life nor movement aboard. She appeared as deserted as a pile of scrap iron.

"W'ot are they doin'?" queried Galton.

"Nothing." Madden was puzzled over the strange condition of the tug.

"Ain't they crowdin' to th' side, sir, lookin' at us and fixin' to come to us?"

"Nobody's on her," replied Madden. "At least I don't see anyone."

"W'ot! W'ot! Nobody on 'er! Is she deserted, too? Just like the Minnie B!" chorused apprehensive voices.

"Seems so," frowned Madden, then he made up his mind quickly and moved over to the small boat which had been hauled up on the forward pontoon.

"Fall to, men, lower that dinghy. We'll go over and see what's the trouble."

The crew went about their task with a sudden slump of enthusiasm.

"If the crew's gone, sir," mumbled one of the men, as he paid out the rope, "w'ot's the use goin' across?"

"To get to the tug, of course."

"An'w'ot'll we do?"

Madden looked hard at the cockney. "Get the provisions aboard if nothing else."

"There wasn't none on the Minnie B, sir."

"What's the Minnie B got to do with the Vulcan? We're going to run the tug and dock out of this sea, crew or no crew—ease away on that rope, Mulcher. Let go! Now climb down, Galton, loose the tackle and swing her in alongside the ladder."

When the cockneys obeyed, Madden ordered the whole crew into the small boat. They climbed down the ladder one by one with a reluctance Madden did not quite understand at the time.

Fifteen minutes later, the little boat, loaded down to her gunwales, set out for the tug. Four oarsmen rowed, one man to the oar. The slow clacking of shafts in tholes echoed sharply from the huge walls of the dock as the dinghy drew away through the burning sunshine.

At some half-mile distance, the harsh outlines of the walls and pontoons changed subtly into a great wine-red castle, that lay on a colorful tapestry of seaweed, with a background of blue ocean and bronze sky.

As he drew away, Madden had a premonition that the dock was vanishing out of his life and sight, that never again would he live in its great walls. Like all crafts in this mysterious sea, it seemed completely forsaken, deserted. With a shake of his shoulders he put the thought from him and turned to face the future in the motionless tug that lay ahead.

Half an hour later the dinghy drew alongside the silent Vulcan and the crew clambered aboard. As they had suspected, there was no sign of the tug's crew aboard.

Although the binoculars had forewarned them of this, the adventurers bunched together on the deck with a qualmish feeling and began talking in low tones, as men converse in the presence of mystery, or death.

"We'll search her first," directed Madden, in a tone he tried to make natural.

"Yes," agreed Greer, "and, men, keep a sharp eye out for lunatics. Don't let anything jump on you——"

"Lunatics!" gasped Mulcher.

"Greer and I fancied someone scuttled the Minnie B," explained Madden with a frown, "but that's no sign such a person is aboard the Vulcan."

"They are wonderful like, sir," observed Gaskin.

"Anyway we'll look her over."

The men agreed and began scattering away, two by two for companionship. Presently from the port side Hogan raised his voice guardedly.

"Oh, Misther Madden, just stip this way a moment, if you plaze."

The call instantly attracted several other men. They moved across deck. Hogan was pointing. "Jist th' same as th' other wan," he said gloomily and significantly. "We knew it would be this way, sir. It was th' same hand as done it"

Leonard looked with rising dismay at the sinister parallel.

The Vulcan also was lying at sea anchor.

In brief, here was conclusive proof that the tug had been abandoned deliberately and with forethought by Malone, Captain Black and the whole Vulcan crew. Moreover, as in the case of the Minnie B, they had deserted their ship without taking a boat or even so much as a life buoy.

The amazed group of men collected about them other members of the searching party, who stuck their heads out of ports and doors now and then to see that no evil magic had set the rigging in flames.