d on! Hold on! Not so fast!" laughed Lieutenant Murray.

He took his powerful naval binoculars from their case and carefully
focussed them on the dot which Rob's sharp eyes had espied at so great a
distance.

"You are right, Master Rob," he exclaimed the next instant; "it _is_ a
derelict, and a big one, too."

"And you are going to blow it up?" asked Rob, his voice quivering with
excitement.

"That's our business, lad."

"Hooray! Boys, stand by for the fireworks!" shouted the delighted Rob.

The Boy Scouts, who had pretty well the run of the ship and were favored
alike by officers and men, came swarming upon the bridge. Lieutenant
Murray was adjusting the range finders and directing the quartermaster
at the wheel to change his course so as to bear down on the drifting
hulk. As they drew closer to the dismantled derelict they saw that, as
Lieutenant Murray had declared, she had been a large vessel. Stumps of
three masts rose from her decks above the broken bulwarks. Ends of
bleached and frayed-out shrouds hung from her fore, main, and mizzen
chains. From the look of her, she had been a considerable time adrift.

As she rolled slowly on the gentle swell they could see that her
underbody was green with seaweed and slime, the accumulation of years.
Amidships stood a small deck house, and at the bow a broken bowsprit
pointed heavenward as if invoking mercy on her forlorn condition.

"Why, she might have been drifting about since the time of Noah, to
judge by her looks," exclaimed Merritt, gazing at the odd sight.

"I have heard of derelicts that have followed the ocean currents for
fifty years and more," declared the Lieutenant. "This craft looks as if
she might date back that far. Certainly she has been a long time adrift.
Sailors sometimes become panic-stricken and leave their ships when there
is no real necessity for so doing. A case in point is that of Captain
Larsen of the _Two Sisters_, which sailed from Bath, Maine, for a West
Indian port. She was abandoned in a hurry after a hurricane, and the
captain and crew took to the boats. After drifting for weeks--they had
had time to provision the boats well--they arrived in Kingston, Jamaica,
and the first sight that greeted the captain's eyes was the hulk of the
_Two Sisters_. She had drifted close to the island and had been towed
in, arriving ahead of the crew that had forsaken her!"

"Hark!" cried Merritt, while they were still commenting on the
Lieutenant's st