Page:Barbour--Lost island.djvu/27

 we were lyin', part of the island looked a good deal like a camel's back.

"We were anchored off a little lagoon, and one day the captain sees something that might have been a wreck half buried in the sand. When the gale had spent itself he went ashore in a boat, thinkin' p'raps there might be a chance of a bit of salvage. But there wasn't. It was an old bark that must have been lost some years ago. We reckoned she'd struck a reef of rocks outside the lagoon, drifted over them afterwards, and landed inside the cove where we found her. Only the stumps of her masts were left. I remember her name. We could just make it out on a copper plate where the bell had hung. She was the Hatteras."

"Had the crew been saved!" Dave asked.

"Bless you, I dunno," replied the mariner. "There's hundreds and hundreds of ships breakin' to pieces off the track of regular traffic, and only the sea knows what became of the men