Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1876-10-20
Mistellanrons.
THE HERO OF TIE iRETHUSt.
BY ETHEL G. GALE.

CONTINUED FROM YEsTBRDAYl
The fearful surgeon-his eyes were full
OF tears. though no one would have dared
to tell him so-pronounced the boys
burns to be very bad. but not OF themselves
dangerous, if only the weather would cool
and he could have perfect quiet. The re-
| suits OF the nervous shock, he said were
more to be feared than even the injuries,
bad as they were.
could not do much, but at least could
give hln more quiet resting place than
his own, and at my urgent request he was
carried to my stateroom after his cruel
burns had been dressed on deck. He
tainted twice during the operation, but
gave no groan or cry. 1 was glad when
at last he lay untortGred in my berth, and
quieted by powerful opiate.
Very few OF the passengers knew the pc
cular danger from which we had been
saved by the wonderful presence of mind
and active courage OF the noble boy; but
all knew that 1t the ship, dry as it was
from the long continued rainless heat, had
once taken fire, there would have been
hardly possibility of extinguishing it,
and that we should then have had to take
to the boats. That the cask. already char
red by contact with the intensely hot met
al candlestick held gunpowder was for
tunately known to but few.
At last The opiate took its effect, and I
listened, quietly tanning him the while, to
the troubled, heavy, unconscious breathing
of the narcotzed boy. The General stood
looking at him with working face.
Miss Gordon, he said after little time,
"Fve no son I'll adopt that boy if | can
get him. Do you know if he has parents
liviDg?"
| did know, and said So The surgeon,
too, had come in, though it was close
standing for us all in the stateroom, and
he now spoke.
Parents | hope not, poor little chap"
"Do you mean
The General spoke huskily, drawing his
thick eyebrows down hard with the effort
to look calm.
"Do you think
at was the nervous strain and shock
you see,' proceeded the surgeon. "He
knew what there was in the hold. and |
believe he felt that all the lives on board
We're in his hands. | don't think he
thought of his own. He might have stood
the shock without the burns but both and
this awful heat, no."
Poor brave little Joe.
While we were talking. sudden COM
motion came on deck, and the vessel be-
gan to rock heavily. The hurried stamp
| ing of feet, the rattle of cordage, and
shouting of orders, portended swiftly
coming storm, though there was not yet
breath of wind, and we still sweltered in
the little airless stateroom, through which
no draught could be coaxed. Soon the
headlights were put on and matches bat
tened down. The one sperm oil lamp in
the cabin flickercd heavily, as if oppress-
ed by the liieless atmosphere, casting only
the dimmest ofrays through the stateroom
door. In the cabin We're assembled most
ofthe passengers, ghastly looking from the
sickly yellow cast of the lamp, yet not
| from tear,
The storm that came with such sudden
fury did not beat down upon us, but rath-
er kept plueking the great ship from her
brazen bed aud hurling her back upon it
in rage of spiteful cruelty that would
never be satisfied. Little Joe, locked in
his berth for safety, already unconsciouslv
suffered for breath. Several OF US by
turns tried to fan him, but beaten and
tossed from side to side as we were, the eff
ort was nearly useless. No air penetrated
our grave-like confinement. In world
full of hurtlng winds we. helpless, locked
up with death, gasped for one mouthtul
OF air More than one in the low cabin
lay in deathlike swoon long before
morning. but while despair is mar
cotic. terror is a powerful stimulant,
and the most of us, sitting and painting as
we were, were yet intensely alive to
every sound.
Nothing can convey to the ear that has
not heard them, the awful dread inspired
in the helpless passenger of tossed
ship by hearing the strange sounds whose
cause he cannot see. The tortured groans
of the straining timbers; the shrieks of
the shrinking cordage; the rushing, mad
dened whirl and flap OF the riven sails
like nothing so much as the " lid scream
of terror-crazed animal; the hurried,
stumbling tread of storm-beaten men,
bravely fronting an unseen, terrible force;
the sharp crack of breaking SPAR the
sullen thump OF the vessel as it falls back
upon its cruel bed; or the ponderous
blows of the waves as they tall with vic
ious thud upon the poor ships quvering
sides, are all thousand times more dread
iul to the useless passenger than would
be the most horrible dangers which he
could see and face.
CuueIHedtu lnese SOUNDS, common to
every ship in furious storm, we heard a
sound for which none of us could account.
A long, thunder-like roll and Ia sudden
blow, then sharp knock and heavy fall;
again the roll and blow; again the knock
and fall, Endlessly repeating itself, this
sound which was below, and not above
us, or on either side, acquired a monolo-
nous awfulness like the pangs of useless
remorse. 1t conquered all other sounds.
and with them all thoughts or emotions
not connected with itself. Life, death.
hope, fear, pain, sorrow, were as nothing
compared with that one undertone of mys-
terious menace. We overland this is
much more wonderful than that we should
have forgotten the greater ithings-forgot
the petty discomforts of our situation, the
drizzles aud sometimes streams of water
that poured through the drought -shrunk-
en- boards of ihe ceiling, the heat, and
the many knocks and bruises. Small
things as well as great passed unheeded
under the nightmare oppression OF this
uncomprehended terror.
Afterwards we learned its simple mean