consecrated ground, coming out of the sea like that. I didn’t know quite what to do, and I suppose I should have taken them out and put them back into the sea, the way most sailormen are done by when they’re dead. But I didn’t decide to do that way; I buried them with my own people, yonder in the field, and they lie there marked by four bits of sandstone.

38

“Jo and I have been back on the boat several times, for we felt we had a duty by her, lying at our door as she does, but we can’t find a trace of anything to identify her and we both had that feeling that something there is wrong. Something was watching us all the time we were on her. So I’ve given up trying to think where she came from or who sailed on her, for such things a man like me is not supposed to know. Spirits from the sea no doubt came on board during the storm and threw the crew overside. But if those spirits are there now I don’t understand why the sea don’t claim her and break her up. Sea seems to be shoving her back on the land as though it wanted to be rid of her.”

“That is a great story, Fred,” said Mr. Seymour. “And I can sympathize with the way you felt; it must have taken a great deal of courage to go back39 to her when you and Jo looked her over. And you have never seen anything move on the boat?”

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Ann wanted to tell about the light she had seen there last night, but that was her discovery and she so hoped to be the one to solve the mystery! She said not a word about it.

“Nary a sight of anything have we ever had,” Fred answered.

“Very strange indeed,” said Mr. Seymour. “What about the coast guard? Of course you reported the ship to them. Weren’t they able to discover anything?”

Ann knew already of the blue-uniformed men who patrolled the shores of the United States on foot and in small boats, men who were stationed at dangerous points to look for ships in distress and help them, men who were always ready to risk their own lives in their efforts to bring shipwrecked sailors ashore.

“Yes, they came,” Fred answered. “They went aboard her, and they took her measurements, her type and capacity, but they could find no record of such a boat nor the report of any missing boat of her description. And because there was no salvage on her and as she didn’t lie in such a way as to be a menace to shipping they left her for the sea 

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