Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-05-05
MISCELLANY.
A TRAGEDY OF THE SEA,
The story OF -Four CHst"wSys from the
Danish ship Thekla.

some tale than that OF the sailors VINO nave
been confined in the prison at Ritzebuettel,
under charge of murder and cannibalism.
They are the survivors of the crew of the
shin Thekla, and after drifting about for
thirteen days on its wreck almost dead
from starvation, they killed and ate the
flesh of the fourth member of their CHASTITY
party. All three are young Olaf Ander-
sen of Tonsberg, in Norway, is twenty-five;
Christian Hialmar Jacobsen of Christian
sund, is the same age; Alexander Johans-
sen. a Swede, is in his twenty-ffth year.
The murdered man, of whom all three
speak as ''the Dutchman," was the eldest;
he was twenty-seven The story is told by
a correspondent of a Hamburg paper, the
Hamburger Nachrichten' who interview
ed the prisoners and learned the details from
their own lips.
The first to step into the small court is
Olaf Andersen. He is of middling height,
and of broad build, stoops slightly, and has
long swinging arms. His head, covered
with fair curly hair, is a massive one, the
forehead high, and his face, which is not
without some intelligence, is beardless,
bloated and colorless, and his fieshy under
lip hangs down. His steel gray eyes, with
the tired and sad look, only raise them
selves now and then, and very unwillingy,
from the ground The impression that
Olaf Andersen makes is not an untavoraDle
one. One might imagine him to be an
uncouth fellow, but by no means wicked
one.
"Olaf Andersen, sit down and tell me
your story"
"You mean about the Dutchman, sir?'
Eyes about the Dutchman."
Olaf Andersen looks down and begins to
speak. His voice sounds hoarse, but he
speaks without hesitating, as if he knew
there was only one thing now and for ever
that he could relate, and that was about
the Dutchman. Olaf Andersen began.
1--WE left Philadelphia on the first of
December. Up to the both we had good
voyage Then in the North Sea the bad
weather began. Great seas broke over
the vessel and the ship was lost She be-
gan to break up. Two masts had gone by
the board, but that did no good. We were
to take to the boats. but while they were
being lowered they capsized, all but one.
Those who could manage it jumped in, the
captain and some others altogether eight.
Those who remained behind climbed into
the rigging. We did not see much of each
other, and at first did not even know who
had stopped on the wreck. For what with
the continual rolling of the vessel and the
pillows dashing over her we had as much
as we could do to prevent ourselves being
washed away. When we were able to look
about bit we saw that there were four of
us, Jacobsen, Johanssen, the Dutchman
and l. This was on the 22d of December
We all four had nothing to eat, not even a
tobacco leaf; not a slice of bread. 1t had
all happened so suddenly. Besides being
hungry we could not sleep, for we sat in
the scutte, and it was very small When
sleep got the better of one a wave came
and struck one on the head and face,
which caused great pain, SO sleep was not
to be thought Of This made us feel very
bad We suffered greatly. Ships passed
us, but did not see us, for we had deal of
foggy weather, or it was night. We GER
tainly saw them, these strange ships, even
in the darkest night, for our sufferings
made our eyes sharp, but the Others had
not such eyes, so they passed on and saw
us not
Olaf Andersen of course related all this
in broken sentences. The questions had
to be put to him singly, whereupon he an
swered without any hesitation. In his
statements he made the impression of a
man who, although not quite sure how to
express himself, was yet quite sure about
what he wanted to say. He continued:
son the thirteenth day--it was a Friday
the sea had Gained down; the weather
was clear. Dew had fallen in the morn
ing and we licked it off the topmasts and
the manila ropes as far as we could reach
This gave some of us courage. But not
all The Dutchman, tor instance, was quite
desperate
Gould you make yourself understood
with the Dutchman? Did you speak his
language, or he yoursH
There was not much talking going on
Nobody cared to talk or had scarcely the
strength to do so. In order to prevent our
selves being frozen to death, we climbed
from the scuttle to the fOrecaste, which a
this time stood above water and from thu
forecastle back again to the scuttle. Will,
standing there somebody spoke the frs
time of it, Who it was | don't know.
is sufficient to know that it was spoken
One of us was to die so that the other
could live. The Dutchman said he di,
not care anything about his life. He woul'
die. But we others said that if it had /,
be it must be done fairly, as is the custom
in such cases"
"Custom Why, have you ever hearC
of such frightful custom?'
eyes; and we decided to do it that way
First we waited from morning till noon
Perhaps after all ship would come. Blu
none came. Then the Dutchman begal
again. He said that we were to make al
end of the NATTER one way or the other
he could not pear IL any longer. 30 we ue
scended again to the forecastle, one afte
the other. When there one of us tore OF
a piece of linen and divided it into fou
parts, one of which was shorter than tn
others. This short one meant death. TIL
man who drew that was to die, and tn
Dutchman drew it,
Olaf Andersen passed the back of hi
hand over his brow. This was indeed tn
only sign of excitement shown by him
He still spoke in the same hollow tone a
in the beginning He continued:
"The Dutchman became very still, an
we remained so, too. All at once he turne
his face to the sea and his back to us, AM
that was the sign. None of us liked to loo
in his face. from behind passed my arm
round his chest. ia OLSEN did the sam
with his legs and Johansen stabbed at hr
with his knife
"And you really ate him?"
eyes, we ate on it that day and on tn
other till the Danes arrived and took u
off"
"And you did not think of anthin
nyl,ila doinU of God mot Of Won