Page:Yule Logs.djvu/75

Rh was already indistinct; and though Arthur and others noticed the gradual disappearance of the barque, no one remarked upon the fact. The men knew their bearings and felt no alarm.

"There she is," cried some one. "My stars!" exclaimed the cockswain, "she is a derelict for sure, and one of our whalers like. Give way, lads!"

Bumping, straining, and with many a shock, the boat was impelled in the direction of the derelict, which the occupants of the pinnace succeeded in reaching safely. She was half afloat, under the lee of the berg, upon a long mass of ice attached to the cliffs in front of her. Her stern was free, released by the breaking floe.

She was a barque, but smaller than the Bertha, and covered by snow and frost above the water-line, below with barnacles. Truly a derelict vessel; no living thing, save a few birds, was near her until the "Berthas" approached.

"It jolly well strikes me," remarked Jackson, "that this is the missing Gladiator, which I am told our old skipper expected to fall in with. Poor chaps! They have all died, I expect, unless mayhap they took boat and escaped. I suppose you gents won't want to go aboard?"

"Certainly we do," said Arthur. "That is why we came. Of course we shall go; shan't we, doctor?"

"I should like to look round her," answered the doctor. "What do you think, Jackson?"

"Well, sir, there's no harm, as far as I knows. But I think I wouldn't, somehow!"

"Why?" asked Reginald." What's the matter?"

"There ain't nothin' the matter," replied the cockswain, looking at the men. "Still, if you're determined, and as I have orders not to stay by the wreck, suppose I report, and come back for you later? There's grub and guns, a rifle, and plenty of daylight for weeks yet, so——"

"All right!" cried Arthur; "hand us up."