"I think that a reprimand is due them for their infraction of the ship's discipline and for resisting their _superior_ officer" (a grin from Jim), "but I ask this Honorable Court to remember their tender years and to deal gently with the prisoners. If you do not, I fear that ghosts with green faces will haunt your fevered sleep forever. I leave their fate in your hands."

Bowing low, the attorney for the prisoners sat down. Then the culprits were sent back to their cabin-cell while the judges took their fate under advis.e.m.e.nt. There was quite a lengthy discussion. Juarez being influenced by his friend, the engineer, was in favor of having the captain give them a severe call down, and let it go at that. While the captain himself favored the rope's end and imprisonment in the lazaret that had not been used since old Broom's day.

It was their resistance to the skipper that added to his severity, for he was a firm believer in discipline. But Jim suggested a more reasonable course that would better favor the ends of justice (which was not the rope's end)--than that which the other two judges recommended. His plan was finally adopted; then the bound prisoners were summoned before the August Court. (That is a pun the writer will have to make for Jo, as he is not in his normal spirits.)

They stood at the end of the table, looking sullen and defiant, and evidently expecting the worst.

"It is the finding of the court that you, Joseph Darlington and Thomas Darlington," read Jim with much emphasis and in a sonorous voice, "are guilty on both charges of the specifications, and by the unanimous judgment of the court, you are sentenced," Jim paused to give due impressiveness to the following words; meanwhile the two boys paled slightly, "sentenced to hard labor, shoveling coal, until Pete and the boy get over their lameness. This sentence to be immediately executed." And it was.

"I'm glad the sentence is going to be executed instead of us," said Jo as he was sent below with his comrade in crime to get busy feeding the insatiable furnace. Altogether the boys were pleased to get off without the rope's end being used on them.

"That was a good sentence, Judge," said John Berwick to Jim after the court had adjourned. "It met the case, for the real damage done was having Pete and the boy laid off on account of their prank."

"That's it," remarked Jim. "Then, too, Jo and Tom are husky and hard workers, and, with them shoveling coal, we ought to get to the coast now in a few days."

CHAPTER XV

"THE MARIA CROTHERS"

As the boys drew near the end of the voyage, they began to be anxious to see the land once more, not that they were tired of the sea, for they had come to regard the _Sea Eagle_ as their home, and every plank was familiar to them. Moreover, there was nothing equal to the freedom of life on the ocean wave, but they were anxious to start for the Sierras to attempt the discovery of the Lost Mine, so that perchance they could take a trip around the world.

According to their calculations it was now only a question of a few days before they would make the harbor from which they had sailed a few months before. Jim was on the quarter deck talking over matters with Captain Kerns. It was a very pleasant afternoon, with a clear shining sun, and a sparkling sea, and sufficient breeze to make the air alive. The captain was seated in his scarred but comfortable armchair. That was the only piece of furniture which he had brought with him from his cabin on the coast. He wore his heavy woolen jacket b.u.t.toned across his chest because it was cool even in the sun. Jim leaned easily against the rail, dressed in his well-remembered blue flannel shirt, and trousers to match, with the gray sombrero pushed back from his forehead. His bronzed face and keen gray eyes determined him to be a very fair specimen of the American boy when in top-notch condition.

"I hope you will be able to look after the _Sea Eagle_, Captain,"

propounded Jim, "while we are in the mountains."

The captain mused for a while, pursing up his eyes, then he took his short blackened pipe out of his mouth.

"I'll do it, Skipper," he said. "I'm fond of this yere boat, and it's like home to me. Then, too, I like you boys. There's nothin' of the fresh, gabby kid about any of you. I'll do it fer you, Skipper." And the bargain was sealed with a warm grip between the two friends.

"There's one thing I ought to speak about though," said Jim, "and that is in regard to old Bill Broom, the pirate, who had the _Sea Eagle_ before we took her. He is a revengeful old beggar and may make you trouble if he gets a chance."

"I never really met Broom, though I came near it once," remarked the old captain grimly, "but if he is wise, he won't come bothering around me or the _Sea Eagle_ either."

"I expect old Pete will stay aboard and the boy," said Jim, "so you won't be without some company."

"I've always got 'Lyssus' here," grinned the captain, picking up the big tortoise sh.e.l.l that was purring around his legs. "I don't want any better company than him."

"He is a good old fellow," said Jim, playfully nipping the cat's ears with his fingers, "and a mighty good sailor, too." Just then Jim chanced to look up, scanning the expanse of sea ahead, not with the expectation of seeing anything, but just force of habit. Immediately he straightened up and his gray eyes narrowed with interest.

"What is it, Skipper?" questioned the old captain, getting to his feet.

"It looks like smoke," exclaimed Jim, "about three points on our starboard bow."

"Maybe it's a steamer," said the captain. "We ought to be running across them now once in a while."

"Possibly it's a volcano," suggested Jim.

By this time the captain had got the gla.s.s from his cabin, and had it focused on the slender blue-gray column of smoke that was rising close to the southeastern horizon.

"It's a ship, almost burned out," exclaimed the captain.

"By jove!" cried Jim. "We will see exactly what it is," and he gave the order to Pete, who was at the wheel, to change the _Sea Eagle's_ course accordingly.

"I reckon n.o.body is alive aboard," remarked the captain. "She looks pretty well burned out."

No sooner had the ship's course been changed, than every member of the crew was out on deck to see what was up, and all were intensely interested watching the column of smoke that now could be seen rising from a dark hull close to the water, marking one of those oft-repeated tragedies of the sea. Rapidly the gallant little _Sea Eagle_ plowed the blue surface of the ocean in a straight course towards the burning ship.

Many were the conjectures as to how the destroyed ship came to be in her present hapless condition. Jo thought that she had probably caught afire and the crew had been compelled to abandon her, but the engineer shook his head at this theory.

"I don't agree with you, Joseph. My idea is that she is a derelict that has been abandoned possibly years ago. Some ship has crossed her trail recently, and to get rid of her as an uncharted menace to ships in regular travel, has set fire to her, but without completing her destruction."

"They are bad things to be lying around loose," said Jim. "If we had been off our course a little, and it had been some hours later, we would have stood a jolly good chance of running plump into this ship, and if we had not gone down, we would have been badly stove up."

"You would have gone down," said the engineer briefly.

"I suppose there are a good many of these derelicts floating around the oceans," remarked Juarez.

"Yes," said the engineer, "and some of them have most interesting histories. There was a curious incident in regard to a barque named the _Norton_ that was abandoned in the Atlantic some years ago. The skipper and the crew were rescued by a sailing vessel, and, after a while, they drew near an English port.

"The skipper of the _Norton_ was pacing the p.o.o.p deck from force of habit, when he suddenly stopped as if petrified, and his jaw dropped, for there ahead of him alongside of a wharf was his lost and abandoned ship. The explanation was simple. She had been picked up by a pa.s.sing steamer and towed into port, for salvage."

The _Sea Eagle_ was now within a half mile of the derelict and she could be made out quite plainly. She was a good-sized wooden vessel, a three-sticker, but the masts had been broken off and the ship had been rendered entirely helpless. She was rolling sluggishly to the motion of the waves, without life or hope.

"She's the _Maria Crothers_, London," said the captain from the upper deck, looking through the gla.s.s, "and she looks like she has been floating around for several years."

In a few minutes the _Sea Eagle_ was lying to, a short distance from the derelict. It was evident that she had been abandoned a long time.

The sides and bottom of the ship were encrusted with barnacles and long green streamers of sea weeds on her sides and bow gave her a most ancient and dilapidated appearance.

In the center of the main deck smoke was slowly rising into the air from the charred timbers.

"She is too water-logged to burn," said the captain.

"We will try to blow her up, Captain," cried Jim. "She is a dangerous proposition so near to the coast."

"It's a good idea, lad," agreed the captain.

"Lower the boat, my hearties," ordered Jim with a grin.

They put two kegs of powder into the boat, and with the material for a couple of long fuses, they started for the derelict, now but a short distance off. None of the boys will ever forget that boarding of the abandoned vessel, not on account of the danger, for there was none, but for the unusualness of the occasion and the picturesqueness of the scene.

The sun was just setting as they rowed towards the _Maria Crothers_, or what was once that gallant vessel, and the crimson glow came over the slow-rolling swell and touched everything with a lurid light, especially the desolate derelict. As they were nearing the hulk, Tom exclaimed:

"Look, there is a shark coming out from a hole under her bow!"