nging loose, swaying gently to the
almost imperceptible heave of the ship on the glass-smooth sea. And
finally, when they had arrived within a mile of her, they saw that her
paint was so bleached and blistered by the sun that it was difficult to
say what its original colour had been, while much of it had peeled off
altogether, exposing the bare wood which, in its turn, had turned
blue-grey from long exposure to the weather. Not a soul was to be seen
on board her, no sign of life about her save the great cloud of birds
that swept hither and thither round her. Her boats still hung at her
davits, therefore it was to be assumed that her crew had not abandoned
her; yet what had become of them? The answer was supplied a little
later, for as the _Flying Fish_, with stopped engines, slowly drifted to
within about a quarter of a mile of her, the party of curious gazers
suddenly caught a whiff of horrible odour that told the whole story.
She was a ship with a dead crew!

The professor promptly dashed into the pilot-house, and backed the ship
off to a distance at which she would be safe from infection; and then
the men of the party held a consultation as to what should be done in
the matter of this ghastly tragedy upon which they had stumbled. Here
was another case wherein it was desirable, for obvious reasons, that the
name, nationality, and other particulars of the ship should be
ascertained; and this, of course, could only be done by boarding her.
It is true that her name and nationality might perhaps be determined by
the simple expedient of running round her and reading the inscription
upon her stern; and this was tried, but with no very satisfactory
result, the only letters decipherable being "insch--en--otter--m."

It was at once apparent that Sir Reginald was distinctly averse from the
idea of boarding the ship; and this was not to be wondered at, for who
was to say of what disease the unfortunate crew had died? It might be
plague, cholera, or something equally malignant; and if so, what
guarantee was there that the boarding-party would not bring the
infection of it back to the _Flying Fish_? Even when Mildmay suggested
the possibility that life might still be lingering in some poor wretch
aboard the stranger, he still hesitated, questioning the prudence of
exposing eight healthy persons--or eleven, if they included Ida's nurse,
George, and the _chef_ below--to serious risks of infection upon so
remote a probability