out Merritt; "I saw– "
"Saw what?" demanded Lieutenant Duvall.
"A face peering at us over that transom. It dodged into the darkness as I looked up, but I saw it as plain as daylight."
Both officers bent forward almost breathlessly. Merritt's communication appeared to affect them strangely.
"What kind of a face was it?" demanded Ensign Hargreaves.
"A wild looking one. Very pale, and fringed with dark whiskers."
The effect on the officers was electrical. They both sprang up and made for the door followed by the puzzled Scouts.
"Was – was it anyone you know?" demanded Rob, as he paced beside Lieutenant Duvall.
"Yes. From the description it was Berghoff, the spy of a powerful European nation whose ambition it is to outgeneral all other powers on the sea. We must apprehend him if possible. It is only too clear that he followed us here from Washington and must have heard a great part of our conversation."
"Phew! This is action with a capital A!" gasped Rob as they ran down the stairway and out into the lighted street.
But although a rigorous search was made and all trains watched, no trace was found of Nordstrom Berghoff, the naval spy. It was surmised that he must have made good his escape in a speedy "roadster" car in which he had crept into Hampton earlier in the evening.
CHAPTER III.
AN OCEAN DERELICT
"What's that object off on the starboard bow, sir?"
It was a week after the events narrated in the preceding chapters, and the Seneca, a converted gun-boat fitted with torpedo tubes for the destruction of derelicts, was plowing her way southward through an azure sea under a cloudless sky.
Rob Blake asked the question. In full Boy Scout Leader's uniform, and wearing the different badges to which he was entitled, the young chief of the Eagles stood on the Seneca's bridge with Ensign Hargreaves and Lieutenant Murray, who were in command of the destroyer.
"Jove, lad, you have sharp eyes!" exclaimed Lieutenant Murray. "Even the lookout has not yet spied it. Let's see what it may be. Possibly it's our 'meat' – food for our torpedoes."
"In that case the boys are in for a bit of excitement," said Ensign Hargreaves.
"You think it is a derelict!" exclaimed Rob. "Oh, boys!" he called down to the shady deck below, where the other lads lay reading or writing letters or studying the Scout Manual, "we've sighted a derelict."
"An ocean hobo, eh?" hailed back Merritt.
"Hold 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 story, "what was that?"
"Sounded like a bell tolling," exclaimed Rob.
"It is a bell!" cried Merritt.
Sure enough, borne over the gently heaving water, there came to their ears the melancholy ding-dong of a deep-toned bell. Coming as it did from the abandoned sea-riven hulk it cast a gloom over them.
"Who can be ringing it?" cried Tubby, in what was for him, an awe-stricken voice.
"No mystery about it, I guess," said Lieutenant Murray; "it is the ship's bell, and as the craft rolls it is ringing a requiem for the dead."
"Ugh! It gives me the shudders!" exclaimed Hiram.
"It's not a cheerful sound certainly," agreed Rob.
"Bom-boom; bom-boom," chimed the bell, waxing now faint, now loud, as the wind rose and fell.
"I'd like to go aboard that boat and explore her," declared Merritt.
"That's an opportunity you shall have," said the Lieutenant. "It is our rule to explore all such derelicts for a hint as to the fate of their crew before we consign them to the deep."
Orders were given to check the speed of the Seneca and to prepare to lower a boat.
"Are we to go?" chorused the Scouts eagerly.
"Of course. Mr. Hargreaves will accompany you."
"Aren't you going?" asked Rob.
"No. It's an old story with me. While we are waiting for you, I will work out our position, which must go in with my report of the derelict's destruction."
Five minutes later, in one of the Seneca's whale boats, the boys were skimming over the sea toward the melancholy old derelict. As they glided along, the bell kept up its monotonous booming with the regularity of a shore bell summoning worshippers to church.
As the whaleboat was pulled around the derelict's stern they could see a name painted on the square counter, surrounded with many a scroll and flourish in the antique manner. These flourishes had once been gilded and painted, but the gilt and color had long since worn off them.
"Good Hope of Portland, Me.," read out Rob. "What a contrast between her name and her fate!"
"Bom-boom," tolled the bell as if in answer to him.
"She must have been one of those old-time clippers that sailed round the Horn with Yankee notions for the Spice Islands and China, and came back with tea and other Oriental goods," opined Ensign Hargreaves.
"She was a fine ship in her day, sir," ventured the old quartermaster who pulled stroke oar.
"Aye, aye, Tarbox; in those days the American mercantile marine was a thing to be proud of," agreed the ensign. "To-day not one-tenth of the craft that used to fly the Stars and Stripes remain afloat. They have vanished and their keels sweep the sea no more."
By this time they had arrived below the derelict's port main chains. From these several bleached ropes hung down, but all proved too rotten to support the weight of a Boy Scout, let alone a man. But by