Greer's
explanation struck home with a certain convincingness. The mere thought
of disease-laden surroundings filled him with alarm. Could they have
unwittingly wandered into a deserted pest-ship? A focus of death in
these rotting seas? The very air he breathed, the wood he touched, might
inoculate him with malignant germs. Then he began reasoning on it.
"Even if it were the plague, there ought to be someone left aboard,
Greer, a last corpse." The American sniffed the hot, breathless,
tar-scented air.
"He could well have gone crazy, sir, in this heat and followed his mates
overboard--but we can look and see."
At this moment, Caradoc stirred and pulled himself to a sitting posture
on the burning deck.
"You--you pulled me aboard?" he murmured weakly, looking about with the
face of a corpse.
"How do you feel--anything I can do?"
"If I had a dr--" he broke off, drew a long breath. "Nobody aboard?"
"If you're all right, Greer and I will take a turn below and see what we
can find," suggested Madden.
Caradoc nodded apathetically and stared seaward toward the cable sagging
into the dead ocean.
The two boys moved gingerly up to the hatchway that led down to the
forecastle. If disease had smitten the _Minnie B_ they hoped to get
some clew from the taint of the sailors' quarters.
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