San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-04-05
ICE BOU N D.
By w. CLARK RUSSELL,
Aathor of "The WrecI; Of the Grosuenor,"
"Jack's Courtship," My Watch Be-
tor, ""1he Lady Maud Etc.

put down to the wine if it was not that his
behavior YVES free from all symptoms of
inebriation. The change in him surprised
me, but not SO greatly as you might suppose
indeed, it excited my suspicious rather than
my wonder. Fear worked in him unques-
tionablY; but what seemed to see best was
some malignant design which he hoped to
conceal by an air of Cancellation and a
quality of respectful bon homie
He came back with flag i'll his hand, and
we spread it between us; it was black, with
a yellow skull grinning in the middle; over
this an hour glass, and beneath a cross bones.
"What CONSERVATION has this signal caused
and does still cause" said l. surveying it,
while hundred fancies of the barbarOus
scenes it had flown over, the miserable cries
for mercy that had swept up past it to the
ear of God, crowded into my mind. IL
think, Mr.. Tassard," said L, 'that our first
step, should we ever find ourselves aflOat in
this ship, must be to commit this and ali
other flags of a like kind on board to the
deep. There is evidence in this piece of
drapery to hang an angelo
He let fall his end of the flag, and sat down
suddenly.
Eyes" he answered, sending curious roll
same time bringing his hand to the back of
his head, ''this is evidence to dangle even an
honester man than you, sir. All flags but
the ensign we resolve to sail under must go
all flags, and all the wearing apparel, and
and-but"-here he muttered a curse-"we
are fixed; there is to be no sailing"
He shook his head and covered his eyes
His manner was strange, and the stranger
for his quietude
l said to him, "Are you ILL.,"
If he heard he did not heed me, but fell a.
muttering and crying to himself And now
L did certainly remark quality in his voice
that was new to my ear; it was not, as he
had said, a labor or thickness of utterance,
but dryness and parchedness of old age,
with many breaks from high to low notes,
and a lean noise of dribbling threading every
word. He sweated and talked and muttered
but this was from sheer terror; be did not
swoon, but sat with stoop, often pressing
his brows and gazing about him like one
whose senses are all abroad.
"GraciouS mother of all angels" he ex-
claimed, crossing himself several times but
with feeble, most agitated hand and speak.
ing in French and English, and sometimes
interfering an invocation in Italian or
my own tongue-'surely am dying. Oh
Lord, how frightful to die Oh holy Virgin,
be merciful to mel l shall go to hell. Oh
Jesu, am past forgiveness? For the love of
heaven, MIR. Rodney, some brandy! Oh,
that some saint would interpose for me!
Only few years longer-grant me a few
years longer-l beseech for that time that 1
may repentm and he extended one quivering
hand for the brandy of which draught
stood melted in the oven), and made the sign
of the cross upon his breast with the other,
while he continued to whine out in his
cracked pipes the widest appeals for mercy,
saying a vast deal that l burst not venture
to set down, so plentiful and awful were his
clamors for time that he might repent,
though he never lapSed into blasphemy, but
on the contrary discovered an agony of
religious horror
was much astonished and puzzled by this
illness that had come upon him; for, though
he talked of darkness and faintnesS and of
dying, he continued to sit up on his bench
and to take pulls at the can of brandy had
handed to him. Il might be, indeed, that
sudden faintness had terrified him nearly out
of his senses with a prospect of approaching
death; but that would not account for the
peculiar note and appearance of age that had
entered his figure, face and voice. Then an
extraordinary fancy occurred to me: Had
the whole weight of the unhappy wretchs
wars suddenly descended EDon hi=zl o. .