The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-12-15


! stagger heavily and tremble for a
minute, as though she knew her end was
near Swami, the carpenter, as she
righted once more, ran to the main
hatchway and looked down, then tossed
his arms aloft with shrill yell that cut
through the howl of the storm like a
knife and turned the numb blood in our
veins to ice, spun round on his heels and
ran madly to the longboat.
We did not stay to ask what it was he
he'd seen, but we rushed aft in wild,
jostling mob, down slippery deck,
through whose gaping planks-I remem-
bered it afterward-the ghostly water
WAS playing shoulder high in the dark
In countless white fountains-we hud-
died the women and babies in and slung
out-'twas all dim confusion and up
roar, screaming and crying and cursing,
and as we in the first boat flung off the
falls and snatched our oars, while yet
those still on board were getting out the
galley, great sea swept us up for a
minute, right up the steep slope of its
| foam laced sides, we saw the specter
ship, a black island, slide down into
great black valley below US and essay
the other slope, and them with horrible,
sickening sound like sigh, she seemed
to fail and to cleave that mighty watery
range---it opened-and right down into
it, right down into the heart of that
black bowling mountain of water the
Golden Verify sailed out of sight of men
| forever!
For day and night we rowed in that
open boat through an interminable will
derness of spu1ne and darkness, with the
perpetual thunder of the storm in our
ears, death every moment hanging on
the singing crests of foam that lowered
above us on every hand, and no shelter
or food or water for the little ones who
walled and sobbed perpetually, and
crouched with their patient mothers in
an indistinguishable heap in the stern.
On the second morning the wind died
| down bit, a thick, sitting sea fog came
| rolling out of the southwark, and just
before it shrouded sea and sky we made
out on the fringe of the haze low, rocky
| shore.
We rowed hard; by noon we came up
| under shelter of the beach; we landed,
and in the first transport of our delight
knelt and thanked God for our deliver
ance; haggard and cramped and lean,
with the long agony of the slow death
we had passed through in our faces, and
the light of hunger. in our eyes, we knelt
on the sand, and out of our parched
throats and our salt caked lips thanked
the mysterious for our deliverance; aye,
there was not a man among us dry eyed
as the little ones we had saved-two
tender boys and sunny haired lass of
fve-knelt among US, and lifting their
clasped hands to the low gray roof of
the sky lisped their gratitude with trem-
bling blue lips and cold, small limbs
that shook like aspen leaves in the wind.
Then came the disappointment on our
new hope. We crawled to the summit
of grassy hillock and listened; every
where was the same dreadful, impen-
etrable veil of sea fog-worse, from
every hand, on every side, came the
booming of surf, and in haste we sent
one of our party to see what manner OF
place it was. When, in few minutes.
he came back-terribly long moments to
us, yet all too short, as it proved-we read
in his face what we dared not ask, and
with one common cry of renewed misery
knew that it was barren island we had
landed upon; we had but changed one
sort Of death for another.
Then there was none of us who did
not envy those who had gone down with
the Golden Verify, for we soon found
there was neither food nor water on the
reef. The hungry soil had drunk up all
the rain that had fallen on it, and neither
above nor below, nor in the cracks of
the rocks was there enough to stay for a
minute the horrible husky thirst that
burned within us. There was no food
save delusive thing or two we found
westral on the beach. No rabbits bur-
rowed in that lonely place, no birds set
tied on it and SO, In grim resignation,
too weak to struggle further, we built
ourselves shelter out of the boat sail
down by where we had landed, and there
we huddled hour after hour in patient,
hopeless vacancy.
And overhead the sea mist eddied in
smoky folds and hung like dingy, sod.
den curtain few yards out at sea, cut
ting us off from even the faint hope of
passing sail, and the mocking cries of
the unseen seafowl that now and again
tapped by fell on our listless, unnerved
ears like the voices of unhappy spirits. |
All through the night that followed, and
the next day, and the day after that we
covered in sad, gray huddle under the
boat sail and scarcely stirred, with hun
ger and thirst gnawing at our hearts
and horrible chimeras of plenty and |
abundance fitting hectic through our
drowsy brains.
We made no more attempts to see the
confines of our island prison-why !
should we? But now and then one of |
us would crawl out and wiring few
drops of tasteless moisture from the
mist laden sail stretched between two
stones, or one of those desperate moth
ers would wander away to the beach to
look for shelffish and to be out of hear
ing for a time of the pitiful crying of
her children. And TINS we waited for