San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-04-09
CHAPTER xxx.
LIE THE LADING

The day had been so full of business, there
had been so much to engage my mind that
it was not until was seat ed at supper in the
old cook room, in which / had passed so
many melancholy hours, that found myself
able to take a calm survey of my situation,
and to compare the various motions of my
fortunes. l could scarcely indeed believe
that | was not in a dream, from which l
should awaken presently, and discover my
self still securely imprisoned in the ice, and
all those passages of the powder blasts, the
liberation of the schooner, my lonely days in
her aflOat, my encounter with the whaer, as
visionary and vanishing as those dusky forms
of vapor which had swarmed in giant shape
over my little open boat.
But even if confirmation had been wanting
in the sable visage of Billy Pitt, who sat near
the furnace munching away with prodigious
enjoyment of his food and bringing his can
of hot spiced wine from his vast blubber lips
with a mighty sigh of deep delight, must
have found it in each kissing leap and roar
ing plunge of the old piratical bucket, SO full
of the vitality of the wind swollen canvas, so
quick with all the life instincts of a vessel
storming through the deep with buoyant keel
and under full control Oh heaven how diff
ferent from the dull ambling of the morning,
the sluggish pitching and rolling to the weak
pulling of the spritsaIl!
was up and down a good deal during the
night But for the treasure l should have
been less anxious, l dare say. had come so
successfully to this point that was resolved,
if my hopes were to miscarry, the misfort-
une should not be owing to want of vigilance
on my part; and there happened an incident
which Inevitably tended to sharpen my
watcbtumess, though l was perfectly Goa.
scious it was million to one against its oc-
curing a second time.
came on deck to relieve Wilkinson at
midnight, after a half hours nodding doze
by the furnace below. He went to his cabin;
stood under the lee of a cloth seized in the
weather main rigging. Pitt arrived. and l
told him he could return to the cook house
and stay there till l called him The helm
being dashed and the schooner doing very
well, nothing wanted watching i'll particular
yet l would not have the deck abandoned,
and meant to keep a lookout turn and turn
about with Pitt as Wilkinson and Cromwell
had. She snow had ceased, but it was very
dark and thick, the ocean a roaring, welter-
ing shadow, palpitating upon the eyes in roll
ing folds of blackness, with the quick expir-
HASH VI W Ou d SUI
den, looking over the weather quarter, me-
thought discovered deeper shade in tho
night there than was elsewhere perceptible
1t was like great blot of ink upon the dark
ness. Even while specialized it drew out in
the shape of ship running before the gale.
She seemed to be heading directly for us.
The roof of my mouth turned dry as
desert sand my tongue and limbs re-
f,SaI fhair T
stir, being indeed paralyzed by the ter
rible suddenness of that apparition and
the imminence of our peril. 1t all happened
while you could have told thirty. The great
black mass surged up with the water boiling
about the bows; she brought thunder along
with her in her rigging and sails as she
scared to the crowns of the seas she was
sweeping before. could not tell what can
vas she was under, but her speed was a full
ten knots and as 1 did not see her till she
was close she looked to come upon us with a
single bound. She passed US to windward
within stones throw, and vanished like a
dark cloud melting into the surrounding
blackness. Not CLEAN of light broke from
her; you heard nothing but the boiling at
her bows and the thunderous pealng Of the
gale in her canvas. A quarter turn of the
wheel would have sent us to the bottom, and
her, no doubt, on top of u.s. Whether she
was the Susan Tucker or some other whaler,
or big South sea man driven low and get
ting what casting she could out of the gale,
know not. She was as complete mystery
of the ocean night as any spectral fabric,
and heavier terror to me than phantasm
worked by ghosts could have proved.
l knew such a thing could not happen
again vat yVhaTo I l1aI PITT I EoII-,l =, Ii.