The Grenada gazette., 1888-02-04

and Captain Dobson rushed iiei.ceiy Of
toward the unhappy agents house.
Scarcely. however, had he stepped
ashore. when down came the full fury
Of the gale. and for several hours the
storm fiend did his worst, reveling in
the lightning and thunder, the furious
blast and the angry sea.
Toward evening the gale began to
moderate, and the aspect of the
heavens was such as to indicate that
1t would soon subside into snow
storm
In spite Of the agents urgent en-
treaties that he would not venture out
in the gale, Captain Dodson
took khis place in the long boat and COM
manded me to shove off from the quay
and make sail. He had transacted his
business with the agent and was nat
urally anxious to get back in charge Of
his ship before worse weather might
place her in danger.
II was bitterly cold; the salt spray
kept dashing and beating upon us
heavily, and it was terribly hard work
beating up and handling the heavy
long-boat against both wind and sea.
As the darkness crept on, it grew yet
colder, while the wind gradually fell,
and by the time we had made half the
distance to the brave old Mary Jane, the
snow came on, and we could NO longer
find our way, for the different vessels
became hidden in the whirling, eddying,
thickly packed, pure white flakes that
fell so densely, so gently. and with such
inexhaustible determination. As it
was now impossible to fird our vessel.
all that We could hope to do was to sec
some other craft, on board Of which we
might obtain shelter for the night, or
until the snow storm had sufficiently
abated to permit our proceeding in
in quest OF the Mary Jane.
Blinded by the driving spray and the
thickly falling snow-flakes, for nearly
an hour we drove wildly on at the mer-
cy Of the winds and water, when sud-
denly the boy, whom had placed on
the lee side to keep a lookout, cried:
"There's vessel to loo ard, sir.
Here, we're close aboard her."
"Slack away the halyards," roared
the captain, as he pushed the tiller
over and luffed up head to wind.
! did SO, and, as the sail came down.
saw that we were close aboard small
vessel, Of which. in another two min
utes, had we held our course, we
should have been right athwart hawse,
when in all probability the boat would
have been capsized ether upon her
cable or upon her bows, and we should
have found damp grave at the bot
tom OF the Azof Sea.
Before getting alongside the Xebec
Captain Dobson hailed her several
times in tones sufficiently stentorian to
have awakened Rip Van Wlnkle, and
at length managed to elicit reply
from the drowsy fellow on anchor
watch; but his words were OF some
strange, unknown tongue, so that we
were unable to tell whether he gave
us permission to come alongside or
bade us keep off.
In spite Of our lost and uncomfort-
able position l felt strange and un-
accountable aversion to take shelter
On board the foreigner. Besides the
unknown language and the lookout
mans reply had sounded harsh and
disagreeable
BY the dim light Of a lantern, held
close to our face. we were enabled to
scan the very ill-favored features Of
the lookout man and his captain; the
latter having, suppose. been called
on deck to receive us. They were
swarthy, black-muzzled, villianous-
looking fellows, especially the captain,
who scrowled at us beneath his beetle
brows, and made not tho slightest at
tempt to treat us with the hospitality
which has long been honored as an in
dispensable custom at Taganrog; all
vessels treating kindly the crews Of
such boats as, from the extent Of the
anchorage and distance to the shore,
frequently become belated either by
night or bad weather.
BY using what few words l chanced
to know of that strange jargon, the
''lingua Franco" of the Mediterranean,
ascertained that our inhospitable in
terlocutors were Greeks. So much for
the modern representatives Of glorious
and classic ground!
We were marched aft, then the Greek
captain pointed out to us the round
house over his vessels wheel Gan edifice
in whicl, Greek and Italian craft do
largely rojoice). From the gesticula-
tion to which We were treated, we
derived the information that we could
sleep there. We entered, and were left
in total darkness, for the ill-natured
and unsailor-like lubbers would not
even leave their miserable lanterns
with us; but by and by l found out
their reasons for not doing so
Stumbling over small sails. coils Of
rope. swabs, brooms, buckets and such
like varied ships paraphernalia, we
seated ourselves in the dark, and
munched tho beef and biscuit, and
A a l., i