"Well, well, what a most extraordinary thing!" "What ship can she be?" "She looks like a schooner." "Why does she drift in that aimless fashion?" "What can be the matter with her?"
By this time glasses had been brought. Eager eyes scanned the strange ship from stem to stern, and one of the gazers exclaimed:
"She certainly doesn't seem to have anyone at her wheel. She is evidently at the mercy of the sea."
This set everyone to talking at once and the greatest excitement reigned. Everyone crowded to the side of the ship to get a better view. The stranger seemed to be about three miles away, but, as the distance lessened between her and the _Fearless_, the excitement on board increased, and as, even with the glasses, no sign of living creature could be seen, the sense of mystery deepened.
When, at last, the captain announced that he would send a boat out to speak the strange ship, a murmur of satisfaction was heard on every side. At the call for volunteers there was no lack of response and our boys were among them.
It was with breathless delight that they heard their names called, and tumbled with others into the boat.
"Here's luck," Dick exulted as he scrambled to his place. The others agreed with him. But, if they had expected a pleasure trip, they were quickly undeceived. Standing on the deck of a great ship like the _Fearless_ is a very different thing from sitting in a small boat, with the waves which, from the ship's deck had looked only moderately large, now piling up into a great, green wall in front of them, looking as if it must inevitably fall upon and crush them.
That the wave did not conquer them, but that the boat mounted to the top of it, seemed little short of a miracle; and then, after poising for a moment at the top, the plunge down the other side of that green wall, seemed an equally sure way to destruction. They were glad indeed to remember that the boat was in the hands of experienced and capable seamen. Altogether, they were not sorry when, by the slowing up of the speed, they knew that they were nearing their goal and saw the ship that had so interested them looming up before them.
Her name, _The Aurora_, flashed at them in great golden letters from her prow. She was a fair-sized schooner in first-class condition outwardly, and calling for a crew of eighteen or twenty beside the captain and officers; but, where were they now? Sure enough, there was no one at the wheel nor anywhere about the decks. Were they below? If so, what was the desperate need or urgent business that could hold officers and crew below decks while their ship, unguarded, her rudder banging noisily back and forth, lay, uncontrolled, upon the waves?