Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1892-12-07

| The wind gradually died away until
it was a dead calm. We lay aloft ane
bent the new topsails, and by the time
we were ready to hoist the yards the
morning was beginning to break.
1 AS daylight came on we were aston.
ished to find that instead of being in
clear, open sea we seemed to be in e
huge green meadow land. AS far as the
eye could reach there was nothing to be
seen but heaving mass of green. We
had been driven into the midst of the
Saragossa sea. This accounted for the
way she had labored and the deathlike
silence that prevailed. The weeds were
already clinging to the sides and bow Of
the vessel. The sun rose clear and bright,
and as the day advanced the heat was
excessive. There was not breath Of
wind anywhere, so that we lay utterly
helpless amidst this entanglement of
weeds. We could do nothing now but
wait for a breeze to release us. During
the day the swell went down, and by
night we lay quite motionless, and with
most appalling stiffness reigning around.
The night was beautifully clear and
the stars shone out brilliantly; so we
spent our first night among this sea of
weeds and grass, rather pleased than
otherwise at the quiet, which was a re-
lief after the three d..ys' incessant
shrieking of the hurricane. At sunrise
the calm still continued, and the men
began to get impatient for a breeze. The
day was occupied in scraping the weeds
81 4 ~ Tho xyacco1 Tho hao+
was intense; there was not a breath of
air, and the sky was without cloud.
AS far at the eye could see, even from a
royal yard, nothing was visible but one
unbroken plain Of floating weed. The
frightful stiffness of everything was the
worst part of it. Hour by hour it be-
came more oppressive. 1t was silence
so intense that one seemed to hear it,
and by sundown even the nerves of the
roughest old seaman had become so un-
strung that the putting down of pan
niken made every one start. Day after
day went on without even u cats paw of
wind, and the captain soon saw that the
only thing to keep up the mems spirits
was to give them plenty of work. We
painted the ship, tarred down, scraped,
holystoned and did every other conceiv-
able kind of work until it became hard
to find anything else to do. Curious kind
of creatures crawled about on the top
of the weeds, gazing at our unfortunate
craft with their meaningless fishy eyes.
When we had been thus becalmed for
three weeks the captain thought it ad-
visable to put us on short allowance of
food and water, as there seemed no more
prospect of a breeze now than there was
on the day in which we had first got en-
tangled. At first we tried to get up en-
tertainments, but no one seemed to have
heart for anything, and all our attempts
at amusements failed. The one absorb
ing thought of the whole crew-morn-
ing, noon and night, waking or sleeping
was, "When shall we get breeze"
What preyed on our minds most was the
appalling stiffness. 1t hung around us
like funeral pail.
One night, while the crew were lying
about the deck trying to sleep, was
suddenly reused by voice shouting,
'Let go your royal halyards.''
In moment every one was on the
alert, thinking and hoping that we were
in for a breeze. 1t was a bright moon
light night-not cloud was to be seen.
On the forecastle head stood seaman,
waving his arms and calling out that a
squan was approaching.
"Where away" shouted the mate.
"Let goP' he yelled in reply.
We now saw that the poor fellow was
raving, and Immediately t, couple of
hands secured him. He became very
violent, so much so that it became neces-
sary to put him in irons. All that night
the poor fellow raved piteously, chiefly
about his wife and child, who he thought
were slowed away in some place all
alone, and where all was silence. For
three days he refused to cat or drink,
and appealed necessarily to Us to let him
90 and help his dear ones.
On the fourth morning of his illness it
was my turn to watch him. He had
been lying quiet for some time, breath
ing heavily. Presently he struggled vio-
lently, and had to call for the assist
ance of another man to hold him down.
Suddenly, with supreme effort, he burst
the irons from his wrists, but the strain
had been too much, and he lay back ex-
hausted for few minutes. Then rails
ing himself on his elbow he looked
around in dazed way, and putting his
hand in mine said in quiet voice, 1.-The
silence has gone now, Kitty" and died.
Now that the rawlings Of this poor tar
had ceased, the silence seemed even
more awful than before, and the skip
per, in order to keep the inen from
brooding, ordered a couple of boats to be
got out and efforts made to tow the ship
clear of the weeds. Our first business
was to bury our dead, and as soon as the
longboat was over the side we lowered
the corpse into it. Poor old Jack! he
had been a good shipmate, though al
ways rather sentimental. -Four seamen
and the mate manned the boat, and
with much labor and difficulty they
managed to get her along until she was
about 100 yards away. We then saw
two of the men parting the weeds with
the blades of their oars, SO as to form
grave. The mate stood up in the stern
sheets and read the burial service,
while the body Of poor old Jack lay
across the midship thwarts. I Ishuddered
as saw him dropped over among the
dark clinging weeds.
'sOh," said Lester, in his shrill voice,
"there goes the first. I'll warrant it
won't be the last"
''Croaker," some one remarked, and
we set to work to get the other boat
over, while the funeral party made
their way back to the ship.
For whole week we tried all posi-
BILE means to shift her with the al of
the boats, but it was not Of the slightest
use, for If we cleared the tangle of
weeds away one day they were as bad
as ever the next, so after time we gave
up this work in despair. Two more of
the men now became light headed and
had to be put under restraint. Day by
day things became more desperate, and
to our horror we saw that the food and
water could not hold out much longer.
The skipper and the mate, after long
consultation, determined to provision a
boat and send her 10 find out how far it
was to the open sea.
The mate and four seamen, myself