Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-08-17

yOt, JAIN W hiS Oiu pOSiiiOu
by the stateroom door.
"We're homeward bound, my boy!" he
yelled. struggling to his feet. "We're
homeward bound, my boy, and we'll all
sup sulphur tonight out of an iron ladle !
We're homeward bound Pll cut the
standing gear of your skull, my boy. FL
let daylight through your throttlel" he
screamed, making for me and jabbing the
air with his knife. "Pll take the matches
off your windpipe, sonny We're home
ward bound, and I'll give you a tow
into"
The worst roll of all staggered across
the floor, tried to stop myself-failed-los
daylight-'elt a horrid blow all over my
body, and for q time. know not how long,
was unconscious. When | recovered my
senses / was in complete darkness. | was
struggling in water among floating objects,
| could not tell what. ] seized hold of a
plank or board and tried in vain TO pierce
the dense darkness. 1t had been daylight
when last my eyes saw, and now it was the
blacklist night. What could have hap
pened Where was /? In moment the
awful answer came.
The Queen Anne had capsized and |
was under her, foating~ about among the
dunnage. The scuttle through which |
had fallen must have led to a half-deek
below. When | touched that must have
been stunned and have lain ON it or rolled
about until the vessel turnad over, then
the thrush of water from the deck revived
me. The moment | recovered conscious
ness all this was presented to me as plainly
as though | saw the whole affair. /
clutched two floating pieces of plank dun
mage, and, having passed an arm over
each, considered my position.
| could see absolutely nothing and
could hear nothing but the burst and
swash of the water washing about in the
sight!ess hold. Now | was pitched this
way, now that. Now was rolled to right,
now to left. | knew | was in no immedi-
ate danger of death. There were twenty
fathoms of water where the Queen Anne
had capsized. Some feet of air must be
between me and the hoorings of the gal
lot, for in my first struggles | had not
been able to touch the plank above my
head. There was, therefore, no reason to
anticipate sufocation. The plank and
oakum and tar that suficed to keep the
water from entering the bottom and bends
of the schooner when upright would suf-
flee to keep the air in when she was
upside down. In her rolling and pitching
the great danger lay, for each plunge she
made air escaped and the water rose
higher in the hold. In the end all the
AIR would ooze out or get out in this plung-
ing, and then the Queen Anne would sink.
This would not in all likelihood occur for
days.
For days When l came to this refiec-
ton rendered the month was March. All
at once felt the bitter GOODNESS of the
water. An icy chill shook me, and my
marrow froze. Whether the vessel swan
for days or weeks or months would be all
the same to me. In an hour-or at most
in two hours, I should become numbed-
be no longer able to keep my hold on the
planks which now kept me affoat. They
would slip from my grasp, and in an hour
or less after that | should be as cold as the
water now stiliening my limbs.
Captain st. Clair was right; | was home
ward bound.
With the thought of that murderous
maniac suddenly appealed to my magma
ton an awful question Where was PhiIip
Maple, the mate? ST. Clair had said at
one time that he had put the mate in his
own bunk; at another that he had thrust
him down the lazaret scuttle. Was it now
washing about beside me? 1t. with its
awful wound Thank Heaven, l had these
planks. They would keep it away. 1t
could not come very near me so long as
had plank on each side of me. The
planks were merciful protection against
that hideous contact. But then, it might
touch the part of my arms and nv hands
outside the planks. Ugh
And yet what egregious nonsense was
this on my part Just now my brothers
were the living; in an hour or two my
brothers would be the dead. should not
mind the fearful fellowship of Maple so
much only for the hideous wound.
Then was cursed by the sight in dark
ness Of images too odious to describe. In
my hands felt contacts of complete and
uncomfortable illusion. Lights glanced and
darted and flashed before my eyes. Lights
pierced my eyes and shot through my
brain with fiery thrills of agony. Lights
entered my eyes in thin pencils, and then
imT acted themselves on the bones of nv
skull, and grew in bulk and glare, and
spread out and permeated all my brain.
and suffused all my head and blazed with
an intolerable tyranny in all the hollows
Of my skull until the walls of my skull
shone with a piercing white light more
uncomfortable than the voiceless gloom of
virgin space.
All the time my hands suffered the ap-
palling contact. All the time my hands
held the throatless man by the throat
Then Heavens mercy was moved: the
lights went out; my hands relaxed, and all
was dark and void of sound and feeling.
How long / washed about supported by
the planks | do not know. When reason
left me, instinct must have remained, for
| must, after being washed aft, have come
against the half-deck under the cabin and
crawled on the bottom of it. There, at all
events, | was found lying three hours
afterward. The bottom of the half-deck
must have been just flush with the water
in the hold, and hence was not drowned.
1t appears that when the men standing
at the corner of the street saw the Queen
Anne blow over they raised the alarm. and
the whole effective force of LAYTON was
enlisted for rescue. There was little hope
anyone would be found alive aboard the
galliot, but they cried, "To the rescue P' as
though the lives of battalion were obvi-
ously at stake. The mate, Maple, and the
boy were believed to be aboard The men
had seen st. Clair cast off my boat, and
they assumed that in drunken freak he
had cast off the ships boat, too. As
matter of fact, both the mate and boy
were safe ashore in distant part of the
town, and all the mailman had said to me
about Maple was the igment of disor-
dered brain,
The first thing the rescuing party did
was to get a tug alongside the galliot She
was fast to the buoy by cable. This was
instantly cut. After great efforts and with
much difficulty the schooner, still bottom
up, was towed to the edge of the craving
dock. As she came into shoal water the
great fear was that the nasts would 90