It was a week after the events narrated in the preceding chapters, and the _Seneca_, a converted gun-boat fitted with torpedo tubes for the destruction of derelicts, was plowing her way southward through an azure sea under a cloudless sky. Rob Blake asked the question. In full Boy Scout Leader's uniform, and wearing the different badges to which he was entitled, the young chief of the Eagles stood on the _Seneca's_ bridge with Ensign Hargreaves and Lieutenant Murray, who were in command of the destroyer. "Jove, lad, you have sharp eyes!" exclaimed Lieutenant Murray. "Even the lookout has not yet spied it. Let's see what it may be. Possibly it's our 'meat'--food for our torpedoes." "In that case the boys are in for a bit of excitement," said Ensign Hargreaves. "You think it is a derelict!" exclaimed Rob. "Oh, boys!" he called down to the shady deck below, where the other lads lay reading or writing letters or studying the Scout Manual, "we've sighted a derelict." "An ocean hobo, eh?" hailed back Merritt. "Hold on! Hold on! Not so fast!" laughed Lieutenant Murray. He took his powerful naval binoculars from their case and carefully focussed them on the dot which Rob's sharp eyes had espied at so great a distance. "You are right, Master Rob," he exclaimed the next instant; "it _is_ a derelict, and a big one, too." "And you are going to blow it up?" asked Rob, his voice quivering with excitement. "That's our business, lad." "Hooray! Boys, stand by for the fireworks!" shouted the delighted Rob. The Boy Scouts, who had pretty well the run of the ship and were favored alike by officers and men, came swarming upon the bridge. Lieutenant Murray was adjusting the range finders and directing the quartermaster at the wheel to change his course so as to bear down on the drifting hulk. As they drew closer to the dismantled derelict they saw that, as Lieutenant Murray had declared, she had been a large vessel. Stumps of three masts rose from her decks above the broken bulwarks. Ends of bleached and frayed-out shrouds hung from her fore, main, and mizzen chains. From the look of her, she had been a considerable time adrift. As she rolled slowly on the gentle swell they could see that her underbody was green with seaweed and slime, the accumulation of years. Amidships stood a small deck house, and at the bow a broken bowsprit pointed heavenward as if invoking mercy on her forlorn condition. "Why, she might have been drifting about since the time of Noah, to judge by her looks," exclaimed Merritt, gazing at the odd sight.