Morley Roberts (1857-1942) was an adventurer who worked on railways and cattle and sheep ranches all over Africa and the Americas and still found time to write a large number of very varied novels and stories with a zest that only real-life experience can give.

'The Old Ancient Ship' is a mysterious and ghostly sea story. A strange old mariner, Bill Blood, has hitched a ride on a boat travelling to a remote set of islands in the Pacific. When they make a forced stop at one island to repair a leak in the ship, the crew are eager to go aboard the deserted island and explore. Bill Blood goes with them and leads them to an ancient ship full of skeletons lying in the middle of the tropical forest and overgrown with creepers and foliage. Blood tells them the peculiar and terrible tale of the ancient vessel and those who died in her....