to be in
her present hapless condition. Jo thought that she had probably caught
afire and the crew had been compelled to abandon her, but the engineer
shook his head at this theory.

"I don't agree with you, Joseph. My idea is that she is a derelict
that has been abandoned possibly years ago. Some ship has crossed her
trail recently, and to get rid of her as an uncharted menace to ships
in regular travel, has set fire to her, but without completing her
destruction."

"They are bad things to be lying around loose," said Jim. "If we had
been off our course a little, and it had been some hours later, we
would have stood a jolly good chance of running plump into this ship,
and if we had not gone down, we would have been badly stove up."

"You would have gone down," said the engineer briefly.

"I suppose there are a good many of these derelicts floating around
the oceans," remarked Juarez.

"Yes," said the engineer, "and some of them have most interesting
histories. There was a curious incident in regard to a barque named
the _Norton_ that was abandoned in the Atlantic some years ago. The
skipper and the crew were rescued by a sailing vessel, and, after a
while, they drew near an English port.

"The skipper of the _Norton_ was pacing the poop deck from force of
habit, when he suddenly stopped as if petrified, and his jaw dropped,
for there ahead of him alongside of a wharf was his lost and
abandoned ship. The explanation was simple. She had been picked up by
a passing steamer and towed into port, for salvage."

The _Sea Eagle_ was now within a half mile of the derelict and she
could be made out quite plainly. She was a good-sized wooden vessel, a
three-sticker, but the masts had been broken off and the ship had been
rendered entirely helpless. She was rolling sluggishly to the motion
of the waves, without life or hope.

"She's the _Maria Crothers_, London," said the captain from the upper
deck, looking through the glass, "and she looks like she has been
floating around for several years."

In a few minutes the _Sea Eagle_ was lying to, a short distance from
the derelict. It was evident that she had been abandoned a long time.
The sides and bottom of the ship were encrusted with barnacles and
long green streamers of sea weeds on her sides and bow gave her a most
ancient and dilapidated appearance.

In the center of the main deck smoke was slowly rising into the air
from the charred timbers.

"She is too water-l