San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-04-05

then falling grave with a startling sudden
ness, he began to dribble out piratical love
story he had once before favored me with,
describing the charms of the woman with a
horrid leer, his head nodding with the nerv-
Gus affection of age all the time, while he
looked blindly in my direction-a hideous
and yet pitiful object! .t'"
could not say that his mind was gone,
but lie talked with many breaks for breath,
anu not very cOherently, as though the office
of his tongue was performed by habit rather
than memory, SO that he often went far
astray, and babbled into sentences that had
no reference to what had gone before, though
OH tue whole managed to collect what he
meant. | was sure he had not power enough
OF vision to observe me in the dim reddish
light of the cook room, and this being so he
could not know was present-more particu-
larly as he could not hear me; yet he persisted
in his poor babble, which was behavior in
him that, more than even the matter Of his
speech, persuaded me of his imbecility.
He made no reference to our situation,
and in solemn truth believe his memory
retained no more than few odds and ends
of the evil story of his life-liSe bits of tar
nished lace and rusty button or two lying
in the bottom of a dark chest that has long
been empted of the clothes it once held.
But my condition made such heavy de-
mands upon my thoughts that had very
much less attention to give to this surprising
phenomenon of senility than its uncommon
merits deserved 1t has puzzled every men,
Der of the faculty that have mentioned it
to, the supposition being that, given the case
of suspended animation, there is no waste,
and the person would quit his stupor with
has ko al
when he entered it, though it lasted thou
sand years. But granting there is no waste,
Time is always present, waiting to settle ac-
counts when the sleeper lifts his head. There
may be an artificial interval, during which
the victim might show as my pirate did-but
/ the poised load of years is severed on a sud-
den by the scythe and becomes superincum-
bent, and with the weight comes the trans
formation; and this theory, as the only eye
witness of the marvellous thing, l will hold
and maintain while have breaL h in my body
to support it,
left him gabbling to himself-sometimes
grinning as if greatly diverted, sometimes
lifting a trembling hand to help his ghostly
recital by an equally ghostly dumb show
and went on deck, satisfied that he was too
weak to get to the fire and NEEDLE with it,
but sufficiently invigorated by his long
nights rest to sit up without tumbling OFF
the bench.
This time l carried with me an old per-
spective glass l had noticed in the chest in
my cabln-the chest in which were the nauti-
cal instruments, charts and papers-and
leveled it along the coast of the island; but
1T was poor glass, and found l could man
age nearly as we'll with the naked eye.
There was no change Of any kind only
that there was a sensible diminution in the
blowing of the wind, and corresponding
decrease in the height of the seas The ice
stretched in a considerable bed on either
hand the ship and ahead of her; the water
frOthed freely over it, and there was great
janglng and flashing of broken pieces but
the hull was no longer heavily hit by them
l got into the main chains to view the
body of the vessel, and noticed with satisfac.
ton that the constant pouring of the sea had
thinned down the frozen snow to the depth
of at least a foot This encouraged me to
hope that the restless tides would sap to her
keel at least and put her into a posture to be
easily launched by the blow of a surge upon
her bows-that is if fortune continued to
keep her head on.
To determine the hour and our position,
fetched quadrant from my cabin, and was
happily just in time to catch the sun crossing
the meridian. My watch was half an hour
fast, so had been out of my reckoning to
the extent of thirty minutes ever since l had
been cast away. 1 made our latitude to be
"a degs % minis. south, and the computation
was perhaps near enough
This business ended, went to the cook
house to prepare dinner, and the first object
saw was Tassard fiat upon his face near the
door that opened into the cabin. He groaned
when / picked him up-which 1 managed
without much exertion of strength, for so
much had he shrunk that dare say more
than half his weight lay in his clothes-and
set him upon his bench with his back to the
dresser. l put my mouth to his ear and
roared, "Are you hurtr' His head nodded
as if he understood me, but question if he
did. He was the completest picture Of old
age that you could imagine. 1 fetched
couple of spears from the arms room, and,
cutting them to his height, put one in each
hand, that he might keep himself propped;
and while my own dinner was broiling 1
made him mess of broth, with which fed
him, for now that he had the sticks he would
| not let go of them. But in any case doubt
| if his trembling hand could have lifted the
| spoon 70 us i.lS ~IUuOuu Caus7azsE. -