Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1884-10-16
A Bewitched Ship.

about ten years ago." began my
friend, Capt. Green, Il went as second
mate of ship named the Ocean King.
She'd been an old India man in her
time, and had a poop and top-gallant
forecastle, though the alterations had
knocked some of the dignity out of her.
Her channels had been changed into
plates with dead-eye S above the rail, and
the eye missed the spread of the lower
rigging that it naturally sought in look
ing at craft with a square stern and
windows in it, and Checkered sides reach
ing out into curves that made complete
tub of the old hooker. Yet spite OF
changes, the old-fashioned grace would
break through. She looked like lady
who had seen better days, who has got
10 do work which servants did for her in
the times when she was we'll off, but who,
let her set her hand To what, she will,
makes you see that the breeding and the
instincts are still there. and that she's as
little to be vulgarized by poverty and its
coarse struggles as she could De made
truer lady than she is by money. Ships,
like human beings, have their careers,
and the close of some of them is strange,
and sometimes hard, | think. The
lier, and went second mate of her when
she was full up with coal for South At
rican port. Yet this ship, that was now
carrying one Of the dlrtiest cargoes you
could name, barring phosphate manure,
had been reckoned In her day fine pas
senger vessel, a noble Indiaman, indeed
her tonnage was something over eleven
hundred-with a cuddy fitted up royalty.
MANY freight of soldiers had she car
ried round the cape, many an old nabob
had she conveyed-aye, and Indian po-
tentates, who smoked out of ieweled
hookabs, and who were waited upon by
crowds of black servants In turbans and
slippers. | used to moralize over her,
lust as / would over a tomb, when | had
the watch, and was alone, and could let
NV thoughts run loose. The sumptuous
cabin trappings We're all gone, and l
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 good deal of the fit
tinss left, fittings which don't doubt
made the newspapers give long &C.
count of this fine, great ship when she
launched, quite enough of them to en-
aple man to construct picture of the
cild6y of the Ocean King as it was in
tie DAYS of her glory, when the soft oil
lamps sh0ne bright on the draped tables
ond sparklei on silver and glass, when
the old skipper sitting with the mizzen-
mast behind him, would look, with his
red face and white hair, down the rows
ofladies and gentlemen eating and drink
ing, stewards running about, trays hang
ing from the deck, and globes full o
gold fish swinging to the roll of the YES
sci AZ she swung stately, with her stun
sails hanging out over the long blue
swell wrinkled by the wind. The ship
is still afloat Where are the people
she carried? The crews who have
worked her? The captains who have
commanded her? There is nothing that
should be fuller of ghosts than an old
ship, and very we'll remember that
when first visited the Victor, at Ports.
mouth, and descended into her cockpit,
what l saw was not well-preserved and
cleanly length of massive deck, but
groups of wounded and bleeding and dy-
ing men littering the dark floor, and the
hatchway Swallowed by grooming figures
handed below, while the smell of Eng
Rlell, TICnCli, dho NpdhlSh kuupoNuCi,
even down there, was so stropg-phew
/ could have spa: the flavor out.
.Well, the Ocean King mad once upon
a time been said to be haunted. She had
certainly been long enough afloat to own
a hundred stories, and she was so
staunch and true that if ever supersti-
ton got into her there was nc chance of
its getting out again. only remember
one of these yarns; it was told to me by
the dOckmaster, who had been at sea
for many years, was an old man, and
knew the history of all such crafts as the
Ocean King. He said that, in 81,
think it was, there had been a row
among the crew; an Italian sailor stab.
bed an Englishman, who bled to death.
To avenge the Englishman's death, the
rest of the crew, who were chiefly Eng
fish, thrust the Italian into the forepeak
and let him lie there in darkness. When
he was asked for they reported that he
had fallen overheard, and this seems to
have been believed. Whether the crew
vueant to starve him or not is not certain;
but after he had been in the forecastle
{. zee or four days, fellow going behind
til galley out Of the way of the wind to
ligI \his pipe-it being then four bells
in Il \irst watch-came running into
the f. scastle with his hair on end, and