San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-03-26
CHAPTER III.
LOSE MY COMPANIONS.

lay for long while insensible, and that
should have recovered my mind instead of
diving in that SwOOn | must ever account as
the greatest wonder of a life that has not
been wanting i'll the marvellous. | had no
sooner sat up than all that had happened and
my present situation instantly came to me. l
got upon my legs, and found that l could
stand and walk, and that life flowed warm in
my veins, for all that | had been lying mo-
tionless for an hour or more, laved by water
that would have become ice had it been still.
1t was intensely dark the pinnacle lamp
was extinguished, and the light in the cabin
burned too dimly to throw the faintest color
upon the hatchway. One thing | quickly
noticed-that the gale had broken and blew
no more than fresh breeze. The sea still
ran very high; but, though every surge con-
tinued to hurl its head of snow, and the
heavens resembled ink from contrast with
| the passage, as it seemed, close under them
of these pallid bodies, there was less spite in
its wash, less fury in its blow.
Finding that had the use of my voice,
halloaed as loudly as l could, but no human
note responded. Three or four times
shouted, giving some of the people their
names-but in vain. Father of mercy
thought, what has come to pass? Is it posi-
BILE that all my companions have been washed
| overheard:
| | stood for some moments as one stunned,
! and then my manhOod-trained to some pur-
pose by the usage of the sea, feasserted itself;
and may be | also got some slender comfort
| from observing that, dull and heavy as was
the motion of the brig, there was yet the
buoyancv of vitality in her manner of mount
ing the seas, and that after all her case might
not be 50 desperate as was threa tened by the
way in which she had been torn and precipi-
tated past the iceberg.
| Feeling as though the very marrow in my
bones were frozen, l crawled to the compan-
ion and pulling open the door descended
| The lamp in the companion burned family.
| There was clock fixed to beam over the
table; my eyes directly sought it, aid found
the time twenty minutes after ten. This sig
| nifed that had nine or ten hours of dark
ness before me!
l took down the lamp, trimmed it, and
| went to the lazarette hatch of the after end
of the cabin. Here we kept the stores for
the crew. | lifted the hatch and listened,
and cotll} hear the water in the hold gurgline
and rushing with every lift of the briggs bows:
| and could not question, from the volume OF
water which the sound indicated, that the
vessel was steadily taking it in, but not
RAPIDLY. l swallowed half pannikin of the
! hollands for the sake of the warmth and life
of the draught and TO render myself as water
| proof as poSsible-I took from the captains
cabin stout cloak and threw it over me, en-
veloping my head, which had cased in a
warm fur cap, with the hood of it; and thus
equipped l lighted small hand lantern that
was used on dark nights for heaving the log
that is, for showing how the sand runs in
the glass-and carried it on deck.
moved with extreme caution, casting the
lantern light before me, sometimes starting
at sound that resembled a grOan, then stop
ping to steady myself during some paIticu-
lar wild leap of the hull; until, coming
abreast of the main batch the rays of the
lantern struck upon mans body, which, on
my bringing the flame to his face, proved to
be Capt. Rosy. There was a wound over his
right brow; and, as if that had not suffced
to slay him, the fall of the mast had in some
wonderful manner whipped a rope several
times round his body, binding his arms and
encircling his throat so tightly that no eve