The dory slackened speed, turned in obedience to the steering oar, and slid under the forequarter of the anchored vessel.  Ellery, looking up, saw her name in battered gilt letters above his head—­the San Jose.

“Stand by, Thoph!” shouted Charlie.  “S’pose you can jump and grab her forechains?  Hold her steady, Bill.  Now, Thoph!  That’s the time!”

Thoph had jumped, seized the chains, and was scrambling aboard.  A moment later he appeared at the rail amidships, a rope in his hand.  The dory was brought alongside and made fast; then one after the other the men in the boat climbed to the brig’s deck.

“Ahoy!” yelled Burgess.  “All hands on deck! tumble up, you lubbers!  Humph!  She is abandoned, sure and sartin.”

“Yup,” assented Bill.  “Her boats are gone.  See?  Guess that explains the longboat on the beach, Charlie.”

“Cal’late it does; but it don’t explain why they left her.  She ain’t leakin’ none to speak of, that’s sure.  Rides’s light’s a feather.  Christmas! look at them decks; dirty hogs, whoever they was.”

The decks were dirty, and the sails, sloppily furled, were dirty likewise.  The brig, as she rolled and jerked at her anchor rope, was dirty—­and unkempt from stem to stern.  To Ellery’s mind she made a lonesome picture, even under the clear, winter sky and bright sunshine.

Thoph led the way aft.  The cabin companion door was open and they peered down.

“Phew!” sniffed Burgess.  “She ain’t no cologne bottle, is she?  Well, come on below and let’s see what’ll we see.”

The cabin was a “mess,” as Bill expressed it.  The floor was covered with scattered heaps of riff-raff, oilskins, coats, empty bottles, and papers.  On the table a box stood, its hinged lid thrown back.

“Medicine chest,” said Burgess, examining it.  “And rum bottles aplenty.  Somebody’s been sick, I shouldn’t wonder.”

The minister opened the door of one of the little staterooms.  The light which shone through the dirty and tightly closed “bull’s-eye” window showed a tumbled bunk, the blankets soiled and streaked.  The smell was stifling.

“Say, fellers,” whispered Thoph, “I don’t like this much myself.  I’m for gettin’ on deck where the air’s better.  Somethin’s happened aboard this craft, somethin’ serious.”

Charlie and Bill nodded an emphatic affirmative.

“Hadn’t we better look about a little more?” asked Ellery.  “There’s another stateroom there.”

He opened the door of it as he spoke.  It was, if possible, in a worse condition than the first.  And the odor was even more overpowering.

“Skipper’s room,” observed Burgess, peeping in.  “And that bunk ain’t been slept in for weeks.  See the mildew on them clothes.  Phew!  I’m fair sick to my stomach.  Come out of this.”

On deck, in the sunlight, they held another consultation.

“Queerest business ever I see,” observed Charlie.  “I never—­”