Milford chronicle., 1885-06-05
A BEWITCHED SHIP.
BY ". CLARK RUSSELL.

"About ten years ago." began my
friend, Captain Green, ri went as
second mate of a ship named the Ocean
King. She'd been an old Indiaman in
her time, and had poop and topgallant
forecastle, though alterations had
knocked some of the dignity out of her.
Her channels had been changed into
plates with dead-eyes 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
rounding 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 lady who has seen better days, who
has got to do work which servants did
for her in the times when she was we'll
off, but who, let herset her hand to what
she will, makes you see that the breed
ing and the instincts are still there, and
that she's as little to be vulgarized by
poverty and it's course struggles as she
could be made a 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 Ocean King had been turned
into a collier, and went second mate
of her when she was filled up with coal
for a South African port. Yet this ship
that was now carrying one of the dirtiest
cargoes you could name, barring phos-
phate manure, had been reckoned in her
day a fine passenger vessel, a noble
Indiaman indeed-her tonnage was
something over eleven hundred-with a
cuddy fitted up royalty. Many freight
of soldiers had she carried round the
Cape, many an old nabob had she con-
veyed--aY, and Indian potentates, who
smoked out Of ieweled hookahs, and
who were waited upon by crowds of
black servants in turbans and slippers.
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 sumptuous cabin
trappings were all gone, and l seemed
to smell coal in the wind, even
when my head was over the weather
side, and when the breeze that
blew along came fresh across q
thousand miles of sea; but there was @
good deal of the fittings left-6tting'
which, don't doubt, made the newspa
pers give a long account Of this fine
great ship when she was launched
quite enough of them to enable a mar
to reconstruct 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 skip.
per, sitting with the mizzenmast behind
him, would look, with his red face ano
white hair, down the row OF ladies and
gentlemen eating and drinking, stewards
running about, trays hanging from the
deck above, and globes full of goldfish
swinging to the roll of the vessel as she
swung stately, with her stunsails hang.
ing out, over the long blue swell
wrinkled by the wind. The ship is still
afoat. Where are the people she car
ried The crews who have worked her
The captains who have commanded
her? There is nothing that should b'
fuller Of ghosts than an old ship; and
very well remember that when first
visited the Victory, at Portsmouth, anc
uchCtuu6u AuEO ueE COChpibs WANe t'e-N
was not a well-preserved and cleanly
length of massive deck, but groups O
wounded and bleeded and dying mel
littering the dark floor, and the hatch
way Swallowed by grooming figures
handed below, while the smell of En-
glish, French and Spanish ganpowder
even down there, was so strong-phew
1 could have spat the flavor out |
''IWelI, the old Ocean King had once
upon time been said to be haunted.
She had certainly been long enough
ahoat to own a hundred stories. and she
was so stanch and true that il ever q
superstition got into her there was nc
chance Of it getting ont again. I only
remember one of these yarns; it was
told to me by the dockmaster, who ha6
been at sea for many years, was an ole
man, and knew the history Of all such
craft as the Ocean King, He said that
in 81, think It was, there had been 9
row among the crew; an Italian sailol
stabbed an Englishman, who bled tC
death. To aYenge the Englishman'l