Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1888-07-28

others. He threw himself on his couch,
and giving way to his anguishing feel
ings, exclaimed:
Farewell, dear parents! farewell,
sweet home, for time! but to cruel
Louise, farewell, forever! All! Louise,
Louise, how is it possible for one once
so kind to become so heartless!'
The vessel made well her way tia the
middle of the afternoon, when some part
of the machinery gave say, and she was
suddenly brought to stand. For
some time there was much confusion On
board, until all were in possession of the
facts of the accident. In the meantime,
while the engineers were busiy striv-
ing to repair the breakage, the sky be-
came overcast, and an angry storm-cloud
was rolling up with great velocity, and
ere the anxious crew got the crippled
vessel ready to meet it, it burst with
great violence upon them.
The winds came in furious surges,
the lightnings flashed, deep thun-
ders rolled, the sea moaned and hurled
high its foam-capped waves; the
steamer plunged madly, her tim
beers creaked, her sails tore from their
lashings, her masts bent Like twigs be-
fore the gale and heavy seas swept over
her deck with laundering noise.
The seamen were fully aware of their
danger. They knew that they were
near dangerous reef, toward which the
steamer was hopelessly drifting. Every
effort to change her course or to bring
her to, had been made in vain. With
the last anchor gone, the masts stripped
of every sail, the engine broken, end
the rudder useless as the bare mssts
themselves, there was no help, and the
vessel was fast nearing the reef, over
which the waves could now be heard as
they were dashed over them.
Soon the steamer was plunging amor g
the rocks at the will of the storm, and
at length mighty wave lifted her en-
its crest and drove her with an appal:-
ing crash upon the reef, breaking her
sturdy timbers asunder and sweeping
the affrighted crew and passengers
abroad upon the angry waters.
But short We're their struggles, fer
all were soon hushed in death, save ,
few more fortunate ones, who chance.l
to get hold of fragments of the drifting,
wreck, and thus saved themselves, as
least for time.
Amid drifting fragments of the wreck
and his drowning fellow-traveIers.
George CHANGED to reach mast that
was driven down endwise among tho
rocks, and the rigging attached to it
having become entangled among them,
it was thus held in nearly an upright
position, swaying to and fro as the waves
rose and fell about it.
In the meantime the young groom
had also caught portion of the wreck,
and, as he was being drifted onward,
his terror-stricken bride with a small
piece of timber clasped in her arms
which served to keep her head above
the water, was drifted within reach of
his buoy. She seized hold of it, but it
was too frail to bear the weight of both;
and to her unspeakable astonishment,
her husband, regardless of their relation
or the moving appeals of her situation,
put forth his hand and thrust her off.
She uttered faint cry, and exclaimed:
"Oh! is this my husband? Will he
not save his"
But here kinder wave interrupted
her broken utterances, and bore her
along on it's foaming crest to the sway
ing mast upon which George was
perched. George. seeing her so near
him, and recognizing her uptured face,
seized her and drew her to him.
81, oc& %o1
conscious of the person and his generous
act, and family expressed her thanks.
George, keeping himself afoat as well
as he could, while adjusting her on the
end of the mast-its buoyancy not suf-
ficient for the weight of both-and
moved by her pitable condition, said to
her:
"Oh, Louise, although you have so
severely afflicted me, yet I love you;
and now give the only chance for
my own life to save yours. Farewell,
dear Louise! can hold out no longer"
and losing his hold on the mast, was
swept away.
Her stiffled screams were her only
answer, but there was no ear to hear
them, for George, the only living being
near her, was now rapidly borne away
by the waves. So now she chung here
all alone, the happy bride of the morn
ing, her sad walls mingling with the
oceans sullen roar, with all her once
joyous companions buried beneath
the waves around her, and she
herself restricted to limits narrower
than the tomb. And thus she re-
manned till the next day, when she was
taken off by passing steamer and car
ried back to Boston, where she was re-
ceived by her astonished friends.
1t was long ere Louise recovered from
the effects of this terrible disaster,
though she was kindly nursed by friends
and consoled on account of the loss of
her husband, which they thought the
chief cause of her grief. But great was
their surprise, when told by her that,
although she regretted his untimely
death, she mourned not his loss as her
husband, for she was convinced that
he had welded her for gain and not for