ou lubbers!
Humph! She is abandoned, sure and sartin."

"Yup," assented Bill. "Her boats are gone. See? Guess that explains the
longboat on the beach, Charlie."

"Cal'late it does; but it don't explain why they left her. She ain't
leakin' none to speak of, that's sure. Rides's light's a feather.
Christmas! look at them decks; dirty hogs, whoever they was."

The decks were dirty, and the sails, sloppily furled, were dirty
likewise. The brig, as she rolled and jerked at her anchor rope, was
dirty--and unkempt from stem to stern. To Ellery's mind she made a
lonesome picture, even under the clear, winter sky and bright sunshine.

Thoph led the way aft. The cabin companion door was open and they peered
down.

"Phew!" sniffed Burgess. "She ain't no cologne bottle, is she? Well,
come on below and let's see what'll we see."

The cabin was a "mess," as Bill expressed it. The floor was covered
with scattered heaps of riff-raff, oilskins, coats, empty bottles, and
papers. On the table a box stood, its hinged lid thrown back.

"Medicine chest," said Burgess, examining it. "And rum bottles aplenty.
Somebody's been sick, I shouldn't wonder."

The minister opened the door of one of the little staterooms. The light
which shone through the dirty and tightly closed "bull's-eye" window
showed a tumbled bunk, the blankets soiled and streaked. The smell was
stifling.

"Say, fellers," whispered Thoph, "I don't like this much myself. I'm for
gettin' on deck where the air's better. Somethin's happened aboard this
craft, somethin' serious."

Charlie and Bill nodded an emphatic affirmative.

"Hadn't we better look about a little more?" asked Ellery. "There's
another stateroom there."

He opened the door of it as he spoke. It was, if possible, in a worse
condition than the first. And the odor was even more overpowering.

"Skipper's room," observed Burgess, peeping in. "And that bunk ain't
been slept in for weeks. See the mildew on them clothes. Phew! I'm fair
sick to my stomach. Come out of this."

On deck, in the sunlight, they held another consultation.

"Queerest business ever I see," observed Charlie. "I never--"

"I see somethin' like it once," interrupted Bill. "Down in the Gulf
'twas. I was on the old Fishhawk. Eben Salters's dad from over to
Bayport skippered her. We picked up a West Injy schooner, derelict,
abandoned same as this one, but not anchored, of course. Yeller jack was
the trouble aboard her and--Where you b