Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-24

until, to our great joy, 1t fell on sudden on
its side, stretching out its legs and quivering
in what was no doubt the agonies of death.
But our alarm would not suffer us to quit
the shelter of the companion until we had
discharged five rounds into the carcass. We
then emerged and found the beast dead
enough.
'There may be morei" suggested Whar-
rier.
On this the captain hailed the negro who
still overhung the yard on high. and called
to know if there were more beasts of the
kind aboard the brIgantine. He languidly
shook his head and his teeth cleaned be-
tween his lesthery lips, but no answer
reached us.
Wharrier went forward and called the
men on deck, and and the captain, still
grasping our loaded weapons, got upon the
rail to take view of the brigantine. All
betwixt the rails seemed very shambles.
There were the remains of several ostriches,
the skull of a negro, with portions of black
flesh still attached, deers' antlers, number
of bones of brutes, pieces of torn hesh-and
the scene of bloodi The planks were every
where dyed crimson.
SAFE AT LAST.
We sung out to the negro to come down,
but as he was too weak to bestlr himself,
Wharrier and couple of seamen went aloft,
where they had short talk with the man.
Wharrier bawled down, "1t's arle rect,
capt'n; there's nowt but the tiger, and he's
eaten up everything else-this mans ship
mate along wi t'others."
With much difficulty they got the poor
negro down, but it was some time before he
could find tongue enough to deliver his
story. He then told us that he and another
negro, an old man, had formed part of the
crew of an English schooner hailing from q
West Indian port She had sprung leak.
The crew had abandoned her, leaving the
two negroes behind them. They constructed
a raft, got sail upon it, and after drifting
about for three days, during which the old
negro went blind, they fell in with this
brigantine She was deserted, but under
canvas, and ran so close alongside that they
were able to attach the raft to her. The
blind man was helped onto the deck by his
comrade, but the pair of them were scarcely
over the rail when the tiger came stalking
out past the galley. The negro who could
see took the rigging in a breath, and he told
us that before he had gained the topsail
yard his poor blind mate had been torn to
piecesi
THE TRAGEDY EXPLAINED.
The brigantine was named the New Hope,
and when alterward we overhauled her we
discovered that she was from the west coast
of Africa, bound to New York, but how she
happened to be where we had fallen in with
her it was hopeless to conjecture. The fore
part was fitted up with enormously thick
bulkheads for the storage of live beasts.
The door of the receptacle that had un-
doubtedly imprisoned the tiger was open;
the bars of the other compartments were
torn down-the debris showed the marks of
Al. IL ~,
they had contained by the hideous remains
which lay scattered about the decks. The
general supposition was that the crew had
been stricken by fever, and this seemed to
be confirmed by the discovery of two dead
bodies of white seamen in the forecastle.
There were no signs of human remains in
the cabin or on the deck, saving the half
devoured head of the negro. What had
become of the rest of the crew could only be
a matter of the idlest speculation. The
tiger, maddened by hunger and thirst, had
dashed at the wooden bars of the compart
ments which held the books or African deer,
the ostriches, the zebras, and 1 know not
what else, for the mess on the deck defed
our investigation; but the animals have
named had certainly formed part of the
living freight
And now what remains to be told? Old
Larkins' hulk lay sound and tight along
side; all hands went to work, cleared the
decks, got tow-rope aboard the brig, and
trimmed sail; and by sundown the New
Hope with the hull of the Laughing Creole
in tow was heading a straight course for
Nassau, sliding through the water at four or
five knots in the hour, with pheasant
breeze gushing over the quarter and all
hands hard at work making our new float
ing home comfortable for the remainder of
the passage, which terminated without
further disaster on Sunday morning, as I
very well remember.