* *

He rubbed his sleepy eyes with a savage hand and stared again. There
were no breakers--the sea was an even expanse of heaving water.

"I could swear I saw them!" he told himself, but forgot this
perplexing occurrence in the still more perplexing maneuvers of the
sailing ship.

This steady wind--for smooth handling--was all that such a craft could
ask, yet here was this old-timer of the sea with a full spread of
canvas booming and cracking as the ship jibed. She rolled far over as
he watched, recovered, and tore off on a long, sweeping circle.

The one man crew of the little sloop should have been preparing
breakfast, as he had for many mornings past, but, instead he swung his
little craft into the wind and watched for near an hour the erratic
rushes and shivering haltings of the larger ship. But long before this
time had passed Thorpe knew he was observing the aimless maneuvers of
an unmanned vessel.

And he watched his chance for a closer inspection.

* * * * *

The three-master _Minnie R._, from the dingy painting of the stern,
hung quivering in the wind when he boarded her. There was a broken
log-line that swept down from the stern, and he caught this and made
his own boat fast. Then, watching his chance, he drew close and went
overboard, the line in his hand.

"Like a blooming native after cocoanuts," he told himself as he went
up the side. But he made it and pulled himself over the rail as the
ship drew off on another tack.

Thorpe looked quickly about the deserted deck. "Ahoy, there!" he
shouted, but the straining of rope and spars was his only answer.
Canvas was whipping to ribbons, sheets cracked their frayed ends like
lashes as the booms swung wildly, but a few sails still held and
caught the air.

He was on the after deck, and he leaped first for the wheel that was
kicking and whirling with the swing of the rudder. A glance at the
canvas that still drew, and he set her on a course with a few
steadying pulls. There was rope lying about, and he lashed the wheel
with a quick turn or two and watched the ship steady down to a smooth
slicing of the waves from the west.

And only then did the man take time to quiet his panting breath and
look about him in the unnatural quiet of this strangely deserted deck.
He shouted again and walked to a companionway to repeat the hail. Only
an echo, sounding hollowly from below, replied to break the vast
silence.