The door of the captain's cabin was burst in, hanging drunkenly from one hinge. The log-book was open; there were papers on a rude desk. The bunk was empty where the blankets had been thrown hurriedly aside. Thorpe could almost see the skipper of this mystery ship leaping frantically from his bed at some sudden call or commotion. A chair was smashed and broken, and the man who examined it curiously wiped from his hands a disgusting slime that was smeared stickily on the splintered fragments. There was a fetid stench within his nostrils, and he passed up further examination of this room.
Forward in the fo'c'sle he felt again irresistibly the recent presence of the crew. And again he found silence and emptiness and a disorder that told of a fear-stricken flight. The odor that sickened and nauseated the exploring man was everywhere. He was glad to gain the freedom of the wind-swept deck and rid his lungs of the vile breath within the vessel.
He stood silent and bewildered. There was not a living soul aboard the ship – no sign of life. He started suddenly. A moaning, whimpering cry came from forward on the deck!
Thorpe leaped across a disorder of tangled rope to race toward the bow. He stopped short at sight of a battered cage. Again the moaning came to him – there was something that still lived on board the ill-fated ship.
He drew closer to see a great, huddled, furry mass that crouched and cowered in a corner of the cage. A huge ape, Thorpe concluded, and it moaned and whimpered absurdly like a human in abject fear.
Had this been the terror that drove the men into the sea? Had this ape escaped and menaced the officers and crew? Thorpe dismissed the thought he well knew was absurd. The stout wood bars of the cage were broken. It had been partially crushed, and the chain that held it to the deck was extended to its full length.
"Too much for me," the man said slowly, aloud; "entirely too much for me! But I can't sail this old hooker alone; I'll have to get out and let her drift."
He removed completely one of the splintered bars from the broken cage. "I've got to leave you, old fellow," he told the cowering animal, "but I'll give you the run of the ship."
He went below once more and came quickly back with the log-book and papers from the captain's room. He tied these in a tight wrapping of oilcloth from the galley and hung them at his belt. He took the wheel again and brought the cumbersome craft slowly into the wind. The bare mast of his own sloop was bobbing alongside as he went down the line and swam over to her.
Fending off from the wallowing hulk, he cut the line, and his small craft slipped slowly astern as the big vessel fell off in the wind and drew lumberingly away on its unguided course.
She vanished into the clear-cut horizon before the watching man ceased his staring and pricked a point upon his chart that he estimated was his position.
And he watched vainly for some sign of life on the heaving waters as he set his sloop back on her easterly course.
It was a sun-tanned young man who walked with brisk strides into the office of Admiral Struthers. The gold-striped arm of the uniformed man was extended in quick greeting.
"Made it, did you?" he exclaimed. "Congratulations!"
"All O.K.," Thorpe agreed. "Ship and log are ready for your verification."
"Talk sense," said the officer. "Have any trouble or excitement? Or perhaps you are more interested in collecting a certain bet than you are in discussing the trip."
"Damn the bet!" said the young man fervently. "And that's just what I am here for – to talk about the trip. There were some little incidents that may interest you."
He painted for the Admiral in brief, terse sentences the picture of that daybreak on the Pacific, the line of breakers, white in the vanishing night, the abandoned ship beyond, cracking her canvas to tatters in the freshening breeze. And he told of his boarding her and of what he had found.
"Where was this?" asked the officer, and Thorpe gave his position as he had checked it.
"I reported the derelict to a passing steamer that same day," he added, but the Admiral was calling for a chart. He spread it on the desk before him and placed the tip of a pencil in the center of an unbroken expanse.
"Breakers, you said?" he questioned. "Why, there are hundreds of fathoms here, Mr. Thorpe."
Iknow it," Thorpe agreed, "but I saw them – a stretch of white water for an eighth of a mile. I know it's impossible, but true. But forget that item for a time, Admiral. Look at this." He opened a brief case and took out a log-book and some other papers.
"The log of the Minnie R.," he explained briefly. "Nothing in it but routine entries up to that morning and then nothing at all."
"Abandoned," mused the Admiral, "and they did not take to the boats. There have been other instances – never explained."
"See if this helps any," suggested Thorpe and handed the other two sheets of paper. "They were in the captain's cabin," he added.
Admiral Struthers glanced at them, then settled back in his chair.
"Dated September fourth," he said. "That would have been the day previous to the time you found her." The writing was plain, in a careful, well-formed hand. He cleared his throat and read aloud:
"Written by Jeremiah Wilkens of Salem, Mass., master of the Minnie R., bound from Shanghai to San Pedro. I have sailed the seas for forty years, and for the first time I am afraid. I hope I may destroy this paper when the lights of San Pedro are safe in sight, but I am writing here what it would shame me to set down in the ship's log, though I know there are stranger happenings on the face of the waters than man has ever seen – or has lived to tell.
All this day I have been filled with fear. I have been watched – I have felt it as surely as if a devil out of hell stood beside me with his eyes fastened on mine. The men have felt it, too. They have been frightened at nothing and have tried to conceal it as I have done. – And the animals…
"A shark has followed us for days – it is gone to-day. The cats – we have three on board – have howled horribly and have hidden themselves in the cargo down below. The mate is bringing a big monkey to be sold in Los Angeles. An orang-outang, he calls it. It has been an ugly brute, shaking at the bars of its cage and showing its ugly teeth ever since we left port. But to-day it is crouched in a corner of its cage and will not stir even for food. The poor beast is in mortal terror.
"All this is more like the wandering talk of an old woman muttering in a corner by the fireside of witches and the like than it is like a truthful account set down by Jeremiah Wilkins. And now that I have written it I see there is nothing to tell. Nothing but the shameful account of my fear of some horror beyond my knowing. And now that it is written I am tempted to destroy – No, I will wait – "
"And now what is this?" Admiral Struthers interrupted his reading to ask. He turned the paper to read a coarse, slanting scrawl at the bottom of the page.
"The eyes – the eyes – they are everywhere above us – God help – " The writing trailed off in a straggling line.
The lips beneath the trim gray mustache drew themselves into a hard line. It was a moment before Admiral Struthers raised his eyes to meet those of Robert Thorpe.
"You found this in the captain's cabin?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And the captain was – "
"Gone."
"Blood stains?"
"No, but the door had been burst off its hinges. There had been a struggle without a doubt."
The officer mused for a minute or two.
"Did they go aboard another vessel?" he pondered. "Abandon ship – open the sea-cocks – sink it for the insurance?" He was trying vainly to find some answer to the problem, some explanation that would not impose too great a strain upon his own reason.
"I have reported to the owners," said Thorpe. "The Minnie R. was not heavily insured."
The Admiral ruffled some papers on his desk to find a report.
"There