At Gaskin's announcement, bedlam broke loose among the diners. They leaped to their feet and rushed headlong from the messroom.
"Get th' buckets!" "Man th' boat!" "We'll niver get there in toime!" "Allons! Allons!" "W'y didn't we put a guard on 'er!" "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" "Yes, 'urry! 'urry!"
Out into the darkness to the forward pontoon rushed the howling mob. Some gave inarticulate cries, others bewailed their lost riches to the vast empty night.
A strange sight met their eyes. The spars and sails of the Minnie B stood out against the black heavens in a flickering brilliance that danced up through the rigging, but presently all saw it was a mere light shining from beneath.
"Th' fire's in th' hold!" cried Galton hoarsely. "Did you men drop a match?"
"'Ow could they drop a match, wearin' nothin' but undershirts?" flared back another navvy.
"We could do no good in a small boat!" cried Galton.
'She's afire from stem to stern!"
"But smoke—w'ere's th' smoke?"
Then, quite surprisingly, the light wavered out, leaving the schooner in stony blackness. A vague blur of complementary color swam in Madden's eyes. A gasp went up from the watchers.
"Bhoys," faltered Hogan in an awed tone, "th' banshees ar-re dancin' to-night!"
"Banshees!" sneered Mulcher. "Th' deck's caved in—it'll break out again!"
"Th' engines must be ruint complately."
"Wot do ye make of it, Mister Madden?" asked Galton, bewildered. "Look—there it is again!"
Sure enough the mysterious light flamed up once more as suddenly as it disappeared. It flickered and wavered over hull and spars.
"It might possibly be a phosphorescent display," hazarded Leonard, completely mystified.
"Tropical seas grow very luminous when disturbed... a school of dolphins or sharks on the other side the schooner might——"
"This must be a reg'lar fire!" cried Mulcher. "Nothin' but a furnace in th' hold——"
"W'y don't hit smoke?"
"'Ow do I know?"
"Hit ain't a fire!"
"W'ot is hit?"
"Phosphescence, didn't you 'ear Mister Madden say!"
"Will hit sink 'er?"
Deschaillon gave a sharp laugh. "What sauvages!"
By this time it became clear to everyone that it was not a fire. As the weird illumination continued its fantastic gambols, little points of light began moving about the deck.
Just then Caradoc's grave voice hazarded: "That must be an extraordinary display of St. Elmo's fire. I should say a storm was brewing."
"Would St. Elmo's fire 'urt th' vessel, sir?" asked a cockney.
"Not at all," replied the Englishman.
As Leonard stared a queer thought came into his head. He looked around at his companions. In the faint radiance from the mysterious schooner, he could make out their faces, pale blurs all fixed on the strange spectacle. He picked out the heavy form of Farnol Greer and moved over to his friend. Under the cover of excited talking and exclamations, he asked in a low tone.
"There was somebody on that schooner this morning, Farnol?"
"Just what I was thinking, sir."
"He could have hidden from us. You thought he must be crazy—a crazy man would probably have secreted himself."
"I had it in mind, sir, the very thing."
"Now could he possibly make a light like this?"
Greer remained silent. The queer fellow never said anything when he had nothing to say.
"I'd like to go over and see," went on Leonard. "I want one man to row with me. We want to go light and fast."
"That's me, sir."
Greer moved instantly to the rope ladder where the dinghy was tied. Madden followed him. Caradoc was still explaining the theory of St. Elmo's fire to the listening men. Madden broke in on it.
"Fellows," he called, "Greer and I are going to row over there. We'll let you know what we find."
Amid warning protests the two climbed down the ladder for the small boat.
"I wouldn't do it, sir." "Leckricity's liable to strike you, sir." "There's a storm comin', sir, and you won't get back, like th' mate did." "You can see just as well from 'ere."
But the two clambered into the half-seen dinghy and pushed off. The moment they dipped oars into water, the mystery was partially explained. Every stroke they made created bright phosphorescent rings in the lifeless sea. Their blades drove through the water in a flame. The navvies cried out at this phenomenon. A sufficient disturbance of the sea beyond the schooner would almost explain the strange light dancing through the rigging. But what made that disturbance?
Reflections of the shining spars made a wavering path over the weed-strewn water, and up this path the dinghy moved amid its own flashing fires. It formed a queer spectacle, a glowworm creeping up on a bonfire.
The fact that the two boys had just traversed the Sargasso lanes a few hours before aided them greatly now in finding their way to the schooner. Presently they were skirting the drift of seaweed where Madden had come so near losing his life. As they rowed, the flashing of the water about their oars only half convinced Madden that a similar cause underlay the bizarre illumination on the schooner. The American's mind clung to the idea that there was somebody on board the Minnie B, a madman, possibly, who in some unknown way produced this amazing light.
He groped for some theory to account for a maniac on a deserted schooner in these desolate seas. No doubt if a solitary man were left in these terrible painted seas he would go insane. Madden regretted that he had not searched the Minnie B more thoroughly when he had the opportunity.
Similar thoughts evidenly played in Greer's mind, for presently he puffed out, between oar strokes: "Did you bring along a pistol, sir?"
"No, but there are two of us."
"They say they are tremendously stout, sir."
"We can use our oars; they'd made good clubs."
"I'm with you, sir."
By this time they had entered a long S-shaped rift that Madden recalled led straight to the schooner. By glancing over his shoulder, the American saw its two curving strokes drawn in pale light against the dark field of seaweed. As they drew nearer, wild notions of what they might encounter played through Madden's mind. What would be the outcome of this fantastic adventure?
The dinghy was moving down the middle of the long "S" when a dull noise from the schooner caused both oarsmen to look around. Such an extraordinary sight met their eyes that they ceased rowing completely, and stood up in the boat to stare at their goal.
The Minnie B no longer lay at rest. Some strange and mighty convulsion was taking place in the schooner. The lights still played about the vessel, but her whole prow rose slowly out of the sea, while she settled heavily by the stern. The most unexpected thing in the world was happening.
The Minnie B was foundering!
In the ghastly light, her masts and rigging swung in a slow drunken reel. Presently she settled back to normal with a heavy crushing sound as the water in her hold rushed forward. She seemed some mighty leviathan weltering in agony. She lay on even keel for four or five minutes while a hissing and spewing of air compressed in her hull told she was slowly settling.
In the ghostly light the foundering vessel gave a strange impression of clinging desperately to her life. She seemed striving to remain upright. Her hissing and sucking might have been a living gasp for breath. Very slowly she rolled over, and came the noise of many waters cascading down over her upflung keel. Her masts crashed, yards broke, rigging popped in the wildest confusion as they dashed into the sea. Great phosphorescent waves dashed through the prone rigging and over the hull in liquid fire. A sea of quicksilver leaped up to lick her down. With great bubbling and sucking and groaning, the Minnie B fought for her last gasp of life. For several minutes she lay thus, on her side, every detail clearly delineated as liquid fire roared down her open hatches. At last, as she filled with water, the schooner straightened with a mighty effort, a last stand between sea and sky, then sank slowly out of sight in a scene of wild and ill-starred beauty. Her mainpeak disappeared in a shining maelstrom. The convulsed water flashed and hissed, and the circling waves here torches into the dead seaweed and moved the black fields to a whispered sighing.
Toward the south the waves moved with great velocity and brilliance. Indeed something seemed to be rushing away from the wreck, clad in long winding sheets of flame. It might have been a continuation of the waves in that direction, or it might have been some dolphin or shark flying from the roaring vessel.
In ghastly mystification, the two watchers stared at the last weird gleams that marked the foundered schooner. The waves reached the dinghy, raised it and dropped it with a slow gurgling, then died away in firefly glimmers. The sea presented once more a dim gray surface. To Madden's mind there came, with a sharp sense of pathos, the picture of the little sunny-haired girl he had seen in the chart room.
"Sunk," murmured Greer in a strange tone, "sunk—when she was as dry as a chip."
"Heeled over," shivered Madden, "heeled over in a dead calm—God have mercy on us!"
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