Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-11-15


away; we shall be rushed and swamped''
Bill obeyed with heart and soul. an,
down sank the boat below the level of tn
upper decks, just as the mob was gettin,
the mastery. In five seconds more the,
were hanging close over the water. anC
whilst they were in this position a mar
leapt at the boat from the bulwarks. He
struck on the thwarts, rolled off into tn,
water, and was no more seen. Alady, tht
wife OF a Colonial Judge, threw her child
Augusta tried to catch it, but missed, anc
the boy sank and was lost In anothe.
moment the two sailors had showed of
from the ships side. As they did so, tn
stern Of the Kangaroo lifted right out O
the water 50 that they could see under he1
rudder post. Just then, too, with d vel
Of terror, Mr.-Meeson, in whom the ele
mentary principle Of preservation a
all costs were strongly developed, cast
himself from the side and fell with splasl
within q few feet of the boat Rising tt
the surface, he clutched hold of the gun
vale and implored to be taken in.
Knock the old varmint over the knuck-
les, Bill" shouted the other man: "he'I
upset us.'
mo, nor' cried Augusta, her woman's
heart moved at seeing her old enemy in
such case. ''There is plenty of room in
the boat"
Hold on, them" said the man addressed
whose name was Johnnie; when we get
clear we'll haul you in.
And, the reader may be. sure. Mr. Nee
son did hold on pretty tight ill., after row
| ing about fifty yards, the two men halted
and proceeded, not without some risk and
trouble-for there was q considerable sea
| running-to hoist Mr. Meeson's large form
over the gUnwale Of the boat.
Meanwhile the horrors on board the
doomed ship were rebuilding as she slow
Iy settled TO her Watery grave. Forward,
the steam foghorn was going increasingly,
| believing like q thousand furious bulls:
while now and again rocket still shot up
through the misty morning air. Round
| the boats a hideous war was being ragged
Augusta saw a great number of men jump
into one OF the largest life-boats, which
| was still hanging to the daYits, having
evidently got the better of those who were
attempting to fill it with the women and
children. The next second they lowered
the after tackle, but, by some hitch or
misunderstanding, not the foremost one;
with the result that the stern of the boat
| Tell while the bow remained fixed, and
every soul in it, some forty or fifty people,
| was shot out into the water Another
| boat was overturned by sea as it settled
! on the water. Another one, full of women
and children, got to the water all right,
! but remained fastened to the ship by the
| bow tackle When, a couple of minutes
| afterward, the Kangaroo went down, no
| body had d knife at hand wherewith to cut
the rope, and the boat was dragged down
| with her and al its occupants drowned
The remaining boats, with the exception
OF the one in whicA Lady Holmhurst was,
and which had been got away before the
rush began, were never lowered at all, CT
! sank as soon as lowered. 1t was impossi-
bic to lower them owing to the mad be-
havior of the panic-stricken crowds, who
| fought like wild beasts for place in
them. A few gentlemen and sober-headed
sailors could do nothing against q mob Of
frantic creatures, each bent on saving his
own life If it cost the existence of every
body on board
| And thus it was exactly twenty minutes
| from the time that the kangaroo sank the
whaler for, although these events have
taken some time to describe, they did not
take long to enact) that her own hour
eighty-and-twenty souls, al told, the hour
also of every living creature who had TAX
en- passage on her
CHAPTER XIII.-KERGUELEN LAND
AS soon as Mr. Meeson, saved from
drowning by her intervention, lay gasping
at the bottom of the boat, Augusta, over
come by q momentary faintness, let her
head fall forward on to the bundle of
blankets in which she had wrapped up the
child she had rescued, and who, too terri
fed to speak or cry, stared about him with
wide-opened and frightened eyes. When
she lifted it, few seconds later, a ray
from the rising sun had pierced the mist
and striking full on the sinking ship, as,
her stern well out Of the water and her
! bow well under it, she rolled suIlenly TO
| and fro in the trough Of the heavy sea,
seemed to wrap her from hull to truck in
wild and stormy light.
''She's goingEby Heaven, she's goingr'
said the seaman Johnnie; and as he said it
the mighty ship slowly reared herself upon
end. Slowly-very slowly, amidst the
hideous and despairing shrieks of the
doomed wretches on board of her, she lift
ed her stern higher and higher, and
plunged her bows deeper and deeper. They
shrieked, they cried to Heaven for help;
but Heaven needed them not, for mans
agony cannot avert mans doom. Now,
for space, she was standing almost up
right upon the water, out of which about
hundred feet of her vast length lowered
like some monstrous ocean growth whilst
men fell from her in showers like flies be-
numbed by frost, down into the churning
foam beneath. Then suddenly, with a
sound of breaking spars, a loud explosion
of her boilers, and smothered boom of
bursting bulkheads she plunged down in
to the meaSureless deeps, and was seen no
more forever"
The water closed in over where she had
been, boiling and foaming and sucking
down all things in the wake of her last
journey, while the steam and prisoned
air came up in huge, kissing jets and bub-
bles that exploded into spray on the sur
face.
The men groaned, the child stared stupe-
fed, and Augusta cried out, sob! oh'' like
one in pain.
Grow backn' she gasped, ROW back and
see if we cannot pick some of them up!'
''No! no!' shouted Meeson, they will
sink the boat!'
:" 'Ialnt much use, any way" said John
ME. Il doubt that precious few of them
will come up again. They have gone too
deep!'
However, they got the boats head round
egain-slowly enough, Augusta thought
and as they did so they heard feeble cry
or two. But by the time that they had
reached the spot where the kangaroo went
down, there was no living creature to be
seen; nothing but the wash of the great