Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-03-27
CHAPTER Tx.
I Los E M Y 30 AT


 LOSE MY BOAT.
 fingered, I dare say, above twenty min utes contemplating this singular crystal fos- sil of ship, and considering whether should go down to her and ransack her for whatever might answer my turn. But she looked so darkly secret under her white garb, and there was something so terrible in the aspect of the motionless, snow clad sentinel who leaned upon the rail, that my heart failed me, and concluding to have nothing to do with the ghostly sparkling fabric, I fell again to my downward march and looked toward my boat: that is to say, I looked toward the part of the ice where the little haven in which she lay had been, and I found both boat and haven gone
 rubbed my eyes and stared again. Tush, thought I, I am deceived by the ice. glanced at the slope behind to keep me to my bearings, and once more sought the haven; but the rock that had formed it was gone, the blue swell rolled brimming past the line of shore there, and my eye following the swing of fold saw the boat about three cables length distant out upon the water, swimming steadily away into the south, and showing and disappearing with the heave.
 I uttered cry of anguish; clasped my hands and lifted them to God, and looked up to him. I was for kicking off my boots and plunging into the water-but, mad as I was, was not so mad as that; and mad should have been to attempt it, for could not swim twenty strokes; and had been the stoutest swimmer that ever breasted the salt spray, the cold must speedily put an end to my mis- cry.
 The horror that this white and frightful scene of desolation had at the beginning filled me with, was renewed with such violence when saw that my boat was lost, and was to be a prisoner on the death haunted waste, that fell down ill sort of swoon, like one partly stunned; and had any person come along and seen me he would have thought me as dead as the body on the hill, or the corpse that kept its disn1al lookout from the deck of the schooner.
 My senses presently returning, got up, and the rock upon which I stood being level, l fell to pacing it, with my hands locked be- hind me, my head sunk, lost in thought.
 By this time the boat was out of sight I looked and looked, but she was gone. Then came my good angel to my help, and put some courage into me. After all, :" thought I, swhat do dread2 Death! lit can but come to that. It is not long ago that Capt. Rosy cried to me: A man can die but once. He'll not perish the quicker for contemplating his end with stout heart.' He that so spoke is dead. The worst is over for him. Were he babe resting upon his mothers breast he could not sleep more soundly, be more ten derly lulled, nor be freer from such anguish as now af1icts me, who clings to life as if this -this," cried, looking around me, "were a paradise of warmth and beauty. must be a man, ask God for courage to meet whatever may betide, and stoutly endure what cannot be evaded." f
 My mind went to the schooner, yet felt r thought of seeking an asylum in her. had the figure of her before my fancy, viewed the form of the man on her deck, and the idea of penetrating her dark interior, and seeking shelter in a facric that time and frost and death had wrought into black mystery, was dreadful to me. 7ss-a@ %
 It must be done, nevertheless, thought I; shall certainly perish from exposure if I finger here; besides, how do know but that may discover some means of escaping from that ship? Assuredly there was plenty of material in her for the building of boat, if I could meet with tools. Or, possibly, might find a boat under matches, for it was common for vessels of her class and in her time to stow | their plnnaces in the hold, and when the | necessity for using them arose to hoist them out and tow them astern. These reflections somewhat heartened me, and turned my back upon the clamorous ocean and started to ascend the slope once more.
 Ihelped myself along with the oar, and presently arrived at the brink of the slope, in whose hollow lay the ship as in a cup. The wind made noisy bowling in her rigging; but the tackling was frozen so iron hard that not rope stirred, and the vane at the mast head was as motionless as any of the adjacent steeples or pillars of ice. My heart was dis mayed again by the figure of man. He was more dreadful than the other because of the size to which the frozen snow upon his head, | trunk and limbs had swelled him; and the half rise of his face was particularly start | ling, as if he were in the very act of running his gaze softly upward. That he should have died in that easy leaning posture was strange; | however, supposed, and no doubt rightly, that he had been seized with sudden faint
 ness and had leaned upon the rail and so ex- 1 pired. The cold would quickly make him l rigid and likewise preserve him, and thus lie 1 might have been leaning, contemplating the | ice of the cliffs, for years and yearsl
 1 A wild and dreadful thing for one in my condition to light on, and be forced to think