Page:Dick Sands the Boy Captain.djvu/44

 30 DICK SANDS, THE BOY CAPTAIN. or look of surprise, he gazed a moment at the dog, knîtted his brow, and, silent and unobserved as he Kad corne, retired to his kitchen. As the boat had rounded the stern of the drifting hull, ît had been obscrved that the one word " Waldeck " was painted on the aft-board, but that there was no intimation of the port to which the ship belonged. To Captain Hull's expericnced eyc, however, certain détails of construction gave a dccided confirmation to the probability suggested by hcr name that she was of American build. Of what had once been a fine brig of 500 tons burden this hopeless wreck was now ail that remained. The large holc near the bows indicated the place where the disastrous shock had occurred, but as, in the heeling over, this aperture had been carried somc five or six feet above the water, the vessel had escaped the immédiate foundering which must othcrwise hâve ensucd ; but still it wanted only the rising of a hcavy swell to submerge the ship at any time in a few minutes. It did not take many more strokes to bring the boat close to the larboard bulwark, which was half out of the water, and Captain Hull obtaincd a view of the whole length of the deck. It was clcar from end to end. Both masts had been snapped off within two feet of their sockets, and had been swcpt away with shrouds, stays, and rigging. Not a single spar was to be seen floating anywhere within sight of the wreck, a circumstance from. which it was to be inferred that several days at Icast had elapsed since the catastrophe. Meantime the dog, sliding down from the taffrail, got to the centre hatchway, which was open. Hère it continued to bark, alternately directîng its eyes above deck and below. " Look at that dog ! " saîd Dick ; " I begin to thînk there must be somebody on board/* " If so," answered the captain, " he must hâve died of hunger ; the water of course has flooded the store-room." " No," said Dick ; " that dog wouldn't look like that if there were nobody there alive."