The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1884-10-30
A BEWITcHED SHIP.

"About ten years ago." began my
friend, Captain Green, II went as sec
ond mate of a ship named the Ocean
King. She'd been and old Indiaman in
her time, and had a poop and top-gal-
liant ~forecastle, though alterations had
knocked some of t~hedignity out of her.
Her channels had been changed into
plates with dead-eye5 above the rail,
and the eye missed the spread of the
lower rigging that it naturally sought
in looking at a craft with a square stern
and windows in it, and checkered sides
reaching out into curves that made a
complete tub of the old hooker. Yet,
spite of changes, the old-fashioned
grace would break through. She looked
like a lady who had seen better DAYS,
who has got to do work which servants
did for her in the times when she was
well of, but who, let her set her hand
to do what she will, makes you see that
the breeding and the instincts are still
there, and that she's as little to he vul-
CARRIED by poverty and its coarse strug-
giles as she could be made a truer lady
than she is by money. Ships, like hui
man beings, have their careers, and the
close of some of them is strange and
sometimes hard, l think, The Ocean
King had been turned into a collier,
and I went second mate of her when she
was full up with coal for q South Afri-
can port. Yet this ship, that was now
carrying one of the dirtiest cargoes you
could name, barring phosphate ma
nure, had been reckoned in her day q
fine passenger-vessel, a noble Indiaman,
indeed-her tonnage was something
over eleven hundred-with a cuddy fit
ted up royalty. Many a freight of SOL
diers had she carried round the
cape, many an old nabob had she
conveyed-aye, and Indian potentates,
who smoked out of jeweled hookahs,
and who were waited upon by crowds
OF black servants in turbans and Slip
pers. l used to moralize over her, Just
as / would over a tomb, when l had the
watch, and was alone, and could let
my thoughts run loose. The sump-
tuous cabin trappings were all gone, and
/ seemed to smell coal in the wind,
even when my head was over on the
weather side, and the breeze that blew
along came fresh across a thousand
miles of sea, but there was a good deal
of the fittings left, fittings which 1 don't
doubt made the newspapers give a long
account of this fine, great ship, when
she was launched, quite enough of them
to enable a man to construct a picture
of the cuddy of the Ocean King as it
was in the days of her glory, when the
soft oil lamps shone bright on the
draped tables and sparkled on silver
and glass, when the old skipper, sitting
with the mizzenmast behind him, would
look, with his red face and white hair,
L dnuyn fha r.omc af 1odiac on1 rrnnt1arnan
eating and drinking, stewards running
about, trays hanging from the deck,
and globes full of gold fish swinging to
the roll of the vessel as she swung
stately, with her stunsails hanging out
over the long blue swell wrinkled by
the wind. The ship is still afoat.
Where are the people she carriedP The
crews who have worked herP The
captains who have commanded hers
There is nothing that should be fuller
of ghosts than an old ship; and 1 very
well remember that when l first visited
the Victory, at Portsmouth, and de.
seconded into her cockpit, what 1 saw
was not a well-preserved and Clearly
length of massive deck, but groups o.
wounded and bleeding and dying mer
littering the dark floor, and the hatch
way Swallowed by grooming figures
handed below, while the smell of En-
gGsh, French, and Spanish gunpowder
even down there, was so strong-phew
! could have spat the flavor out.
"Well, the old Ocean King had once
upon a time been said to be haunted
She had certainly been long enough
adoat to own a hundred stories. and she
was so staunch and true that if ever 6
superstition got into her there was NJ
chance of its getting out again. only
remember one of these yarns; it wa
told to me by the dockmaster, who baC
been at sea for many years; was an ole
man, and knew the history of all sucl
craft as the Ocean King. He said that