The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1893-02-23
WRECKED

Iof men VINO, unoHendlng, nave explored
the utmost extremes of pain and sorrow
to which the sensitive human mind is
open listen to brief story in which the
ludicrous and the terrible go hand In
hand, and the methods of that good
providence above, in whom none believes
more completely than those who get IL
living ont Of the depth of Gods great
solitudes are as unintelligible as the
feebleness of man below--attend to o
story which even to recall in plenty and
contentment all these years after fills the
narrator with vague, horrible hunger
Of body and mind.
Twas second mate ON large trading
schooner that, with full cargo and half
q dozen passengers, among whom were
some women and children, had come out
CT the port Of Matanzas, in Cuba, with
copper ore for Sweden, where it was to
be worked up by the smelters of coun-
try always famous in this art. We were
exceptionally well provisioned, the cap
tain was jolly, light hearted old fellow,
who let us fiddle and dance and scrape
to our hearts content. It was soft
green and lavender weather as we rolled
out Of the Bahamas, with the milk
warm Mexican breezes ripping behind,
and then twas blue and golden weather
across the long undulations of the Sara
gossa sea, and those little ones aboard of
rs frolicked and rolled about the ship
and filed her ancient rigging flor she was
nearly the oldest ship ahoaO with their
merry prattle, and the good stalwart
loafers forward smoothed down their
ruggedness to the level Of their sunny
haired playmates. 1t was as pleasant q
voyage as one could wish for, right out
Of the Caribbean into the great cold
northern ocean, and as the old Golden
Verify splashed heavily northward and
her masts cleaned like molten metal
each evening in the last rays of the sun
before he sank into the black and gold
Fields Of the westward waters, the voices
Of the children rose with the rising stars
up to the round Of sky in joy to think we
were "a days sail nearer home"
We had reached latitude 10 degs. or
II dogs. and longitude somewhere nigh
GO degs.-the Orkneys should have been
and the Feroe weed was rid
ing In long, loose strands on the waves
about rs, when the weather changed all
ON sudden, as it will in the early north
ern summer. AS lay asleep in my bunk
In the deckhouse that Monday morning
and dozed in the chilly gray of the twi-
light I was presently aware that the
wind had shifted, and started up upon
my elbow in that little dusky cabin and
listened, with all the sailor instinct alive
within me.
It was scarcely 2 o'clock. Not a sound
was stirring save the heavy lap of tho
water against the vessels side as we
rolled, and the chafe and thud of the
soresail block swinging monotonously to
and fro on Its iron In the calm. There
was sodden, heavy feel in the air, and
I sprang up, and struggling into my
clothes went out to the clammy, wet
decks. Near and far everything was as
silent and deserted as though the ship
were sailing ownerless over the solitudes
Of an ownerless sea. Overhead the damp
gray sails hung wan and sallow in the
white shine Of the opening east, and the
yards, unsteadied by an air. creaked dis.
rnally az the lift of the water tilted them
b right and to left. All on one hand OF
% the waves were sickly silver, RICH,
away from our low sides to where tue
pale sun was rising, yellow and feeble
through the sea vapors.
North and west last night, still spec
kled with its stars, sat unspent upon tn,
uneasy heave Of the ocean, and, lastly
bouthward-it sharpened my pulse t.
look at 1.-THE sky was sullen purpl,
overhead, the sea livid below, and be
kwsen them the spume and spray Of
bearing storm stretched out in a ghostl,
crescent line from side to side. staret
ct that dreadful sky with the stranges
nisgivings in my heart, and as stare,
I could smell the war in the air, an,
bear-dfm and low and dreadful-th
thunder Of its approach, and catch nov
and again, behind the hanging pail o
cloud and spume, the white whirlwin,
churning the water into milk, and OBJ
litsrating and destroying everything a
u raced after us. vtttts
An hour later it was upon the ship
and the Golden Verify was staggering
and plunging through twilight hell o
waters, with the wind bowling in he
eordage overhead, her bluff old bow
ono moment pointing to the sky and tn
pext all down In the gloom of the whit
ham beds In front, and endless ranks o
black sea mountains laundering on be
hind her. All day we staggered blindl,
on through that internal tumult, an,
just at nightfall the word was passe,
Mat there were four feet of water in tn
hold! We took to the pump, and b
midnight that four had grown to 81
and the Golden Verify was sinkingl
We fought the water with the courag
Of despair foot by foot and inch by incl
With the howl Of the night overhead an
the dreadful madness Of the sea belov
and II must have been near anoth,
dawn. The black water was spinnir
and bubbling up through the cracks
the cabin floor, while the women and I
children huddled in o wet mass on de,
when we srddenly felt the ship reel a
staggcr heavily and tremble for
minute, a. though she knew her end v
near. Swami, the carpenter, as I
x1shted once more. ran 10 the e;