"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.