observation. When he, in turn, laid the glasses down his thin, mahogany-hued face bore a puzzled look.
“It’s queer, sir, but I don’t seem to be able to make out a living soul either.”
“A derelict, perhaps?”
“Possibly,” assented the captain, and no more was said as, with all eyes fixed on the strange schooner, the Sea Gypsy drew nearer. The boys could now make out every detail of the other craft. She was a trig-looking schooner, painted black, with a flush deck except for her after house and a small structure astern of the fore-mast. Her canvas was set but it flapped idly in the light breeze as she swung to and fro on the Pacific swells. No guiding hand could be seen at her wheel. Not a soul was visible on her deserted decks.
There is no more melancholy sight than a sea derelict, the aimless prey of winds and currents, drifting sometimes for years over the trackless wastes of the ocean. The boys felt something of this as all doubt as to human occupancy of the schooner vanished.
“Deserted, I reckon,” hazarded Jack. “Although her canvas appears perfect, her hull sound and – ”
He broke off sharply. From the abandoned ship there had suddenly come a sound which, under the circumstances, was particularly depressing and even startling.
It was the measured tolling of a bell, like a funeral knell.
CHAPTER V. – THE “CENTURION.”
“Hark!” cried Raynor, as the two boys exchanged glances.
“I have it,” exclaimed Jack the next instant. “That’s only the tolling of the ship’s bell as the schooner rolls on the sea.”
“My, it gave me a jump though,” admitted Raynor. “Hullo, they are slowing down. Must be going to board her.”
“Evidently,” agreed Jack, as the Sea Gypsy’s propeller revolved more and more slowly.
Captain Sparhawk descended from the bridge. The ponderous form of Mr. Jukes followed him. The millionaire’s face bore a look of strange excitement.
“Of course that can’t be the schooner,” the boys heard him say to the captain, “but still I can’t pass it unsearched.”
His eye fell on the boys.
“Lads, we are going to board that schooner and try to find out something about her,” he said. “Do you want to go along?”
These were the first words the boys had had with their employer in some days. Of course both jumped at the chance, and before many minutes passed, one of the yacht’s remaining boats was being sent over the sea at a fast clip toward the derelict. Close inspection showed the schooner’s condition not to be as good as it had seemed at a distance. Her paint was blistered and the oakum calking was spewing out of her sun-dried seams like Spanish moss on an aged tree. Her sails were mildewed and torn in many places and her ropes bleached and frayed. Mingling now with the incessant, melancholy tolling of the bell, came the monotonous creak of her booms and gaffs as they swung rhythmically to and fro.
No name appeared on her bow, although blurred tracings of white paint showed that one had once been inscribed there. But there was a yellow-painted figurehead; a stern, Roman-nosed bust of a man, apparently intended for an emperor or a warrior.
“We’ll row round the stern and take a look at her name,” decided Captain Sparhawk. “We’ll have to climb aboard from the other side anyway. There is no means of scrambling up from this.”
The boat was turned and rowed under the graceful stern of the derelict. On it, in bold, raised letters, surrounded by a fanciful design, stood out, in fading colors, the lost craft’s name.
“Centurion, San Francisco,” read out Jack, with an odd thrill. There was a sudden exclamation from Mr. Jukes, who had not yet been able to make out more than the first few letters.
“What’s that?” he exclaimed, in a voice so sharp and tense that the boys turned and stared at him, as did the boat’s crew and Captain Sparhawk.
Jack repeated his answer and, to his astonishment, Mr. Jukes, the iron-jawed, self-possessed business man, who had never shown signs of possessing any more emotion than a stone, suddenly sunk his head in his hands with a groan.
“Too late after all,” they heard him mutter unsteadily. But when he again raised his face, although it was ashy pale, he appeared to have mastered himself.
“Well, we’ve reached the end of our journey, Sparhawk,” he remarked in a voice that he rendered steady by an apparent effort. “Let us go on board, however, and see if we can find some trace of the unfortunates of the Centurion.”
The captain looked as if he would have liked to ask a great many questions, but something in Mr. Jukes’ face rendered him silent. He gave the necessary orders and the boat was pulled round to the other side of the schooner. Here they were glad to find some dilapidated ropes dangling which afforded a means of getting on board. Two sailors, after first testing their weight-bearing qualities, scrambled up them like monkeys, and, under the captain’s orders, went hunting for a Jacob’s ladder which would support Mr. Jukes’ ponderous weight. One was found and lowered, and soon all stood on the silent decks which for so long had not echoed the footsteps of a human being.
“Away forward and muzzle that bell, some of you,” ordered the captain briskly. “The sound of the thing gets on my nerves.”
“Send them all forward,” supplemented Mr. Jukes. “Tell them to search the forecastle, anything to keep them busy. We will examine the cabins and officers’ quarters.”
“Are we to accompany you, sir?” asked Jack hesitatingly.
For a fraction of a second the millionaire seemed plunged in thought. Then he arrived at one of his characteristic quick decisions.
“Why not?” he asked, half to himself it seemed. “Later I shall have something to say to all of you. You have wondered at the object of this cruise, no doubt?”
Captain Sparhawk nodded gravely.
“I have guessed you had some great end to serve in it, Mr. Jukes,” he said.
“An end which has now been reached, I fear,” said the millionaire solemnly. “But come, let us proceed with our examination.”
CHAPTER VI. – A MYSTERY OF THE SEAS
At first glance Jack saw that the main cabin of the Centurion was fitted up with a luxuriousness not common to mere trading schooners. A silver hanging lamp of elaborate design, silk curtains at the stern ports, book-cases filled with handsomely bound volumes and the thick carpets on the floor, clearly indicated that whoever had occupied it had been above the class of the rough and ready South Sea trader.
In one corner stood a desk as handsome in its appointments as the rest of the furniture. But it had been roughly dealt with. The front had been smashed in, drawers pulled out and papers and documents scattered about all over the cabin floor. The door to a sleeping cabin leading off the main apartment was open. Within was the same disorder. Even mattresses had been ripped open in a hunt for something, the nature of which the boys could not guess.
Mr. Jukes hastily rummaged through the contents of the desk, selecting some papers, casting aside others as worthless, and gathered up on his hands and knees those on the floor. Then
