joke I ever heard!"

"Well, isn't there something in it?" queried Bob sharply. His father
wiped his streaming eyes and sat up.

"Why, of course not! Can't you hear a gang of old sailors romancing and
dreaming about the things they'd like to do, without going off at half
cock this way! Oh, you'll never hear the last of this, you two!"

And he went off into another fit of laughter.

"Never mind," and Mart grimaced sourly; "you wait and see. You ask
Swanson some day if he ever sailed on a ship called the _Melbourne_."

"Of course he did!" returned the captain, to the boys' chagrin. "She was
a ship lost at sea ten years ago--he was on his third voyage then, and
drifted about in an open boat for three weeks before being picked up.
Don't I know his whole record? Look here, boys. There's not a sailor
alive who hasn't had some mighty queer experiences, and you haven't
taken that into consideration. I never heard of the _Coralie_, and while
I admit that Jerry may have seen piratical days, and probably has, the
whole thing's absurd on the face of it. Now get off to bed, and don't
chase any more wild geese!"

None the less, Mart turned to Bob while they sought their own rooms.

"That's all right, Holly--but you just remember one thing. Your dad
didn't know anything about that Pirate Shark yarn--"

"Oh, shut up and go to bed!" grinned Bob delightedly. "We got excited,
that was all. Forget it!"

But Mart did not forget it.

CHAPTER VI

THE FAR SEAS

Honolulu Bay, with its beautiful shores and white houses with red roofs,
faded out behind the _Seamew_ one sunny morning, and the two boys, up in
the chart house with the captain, began to see wild visions of what lay
before them. Taking a chart, Captain Hollinger traced out their future
course across the Pacific.

"You see, boys, we can take a straight course east-south-east from the
Islands. That brings us here, to the Philippines, but we'll not stop.
Going right ahead under Mindanao, we'll round up into the Sulu Sea and
cut through Balabac Straits, north of Bornea. That brings us in among
the coral reefs--see how thick they're marked on the chart?--and so
straight across the south China Sea to Tringanu."

"And this here's Kuala Besut, eh?" Mart placed his finger on the Malay
coast, just inside the Redang Islands.

"Right you are, Mart! You see how the coast is low all along there, with
lagoons? Wait a minute--here's a larger chart."

Bringing out another ch