During the drive the captain and his passenger discussed various topics of local interest, among them Captain Nat Hammond and the manner in which he might have lost his ship and his life.  It was now taken for granted, in Trumet and elsewhere, that Nat was dead and would never be heard from again.  The owners had given up, so Captain Zeb said, and went on to enumerate the various accidents which might have happened—­typhoons, waterspouts, fires, and even attacks by Malay pirates—­though, added the captain, “Gen’rally speakin’, I’d ruther not bet on any pirate gettin’ away with Nat Hammond’s ship, if the skipper was alive and healthy.  Then there’s mutiny and fevers and collisions, and land knows what all.  And, speakin’ of trouble, what do you cal’late ails that craft we’re goin’ to look at now?”

They found a group on the beach discussing that very question.  A few fishermen, one or two lobstermen and wreckers, and the lightkeeper were gathered on the knoll by the lighthouse.  They had a spyglass, and a good-sized dory was ready for launching.

“Where is she, Noah?” asked Captain Zeb of the lightkeeper.  “That her off back of the spar buoy?  Let me have a squint through that glass; my eyes ain’t what they used to be, when I could see a whale spout two miles t’other side of the sky line and tell how many barrels of ile he’d try out, fust look.  Takes practice to keep your eyesight so’s you can see round a curve like that,” he added, winking at Ellery.

“She’s a brigantine, Zeb,” observed the keeper, handing up the spyglass.  “And flyin’ the British colors.  Look’s if she might be one of them salt boats from Turk’s Islands.  But what she’s doin’ out there, anchored, with canvas lowered and showin’ distress signals in fair weather like this, is more’n any of us can make out.  She wa’n’t there last evenin’, though, and she is there now.”

“She ain’t the only funny thing along shore this mornin’, nuther,” announced Theophilus Black, one of the fishermen.  “Charlie Burgess just come down along and he says there’s a ship’s longboat hauled up on the beach, ’bout a mile ‘n a half t’other side the mouth of the herrin’ crick yonder.  Oars in her and all.  And she ain’t no boat that b’longs round here, is she, Charlie?”

“No, Thoph, she ain’t,” was the reply.  “Make anything out of her, cap’n?”

Captain Zeb, who had been inspecting the anchored vessel through the spyglass, lowered the latter and seemed puzzled.  “Not much,” he answered.  “Blessed if she don’t look abandoned to me.  Can’t see a sign of life aboard her.”

“We couldn’t neither,” said Thoph.  “We was just cal’latin’ to go off to her when Charlie come and told us about the longboat.  I guess likely we can go now; it’s pretty nigh smooth as a pond.  You’ll take an oar, won’t you, Noah?”

“I can’t leave the light very well.  My wife went over to the village last night.  You and Charlie and Bill go.  Want to go, too, Zeb?”