Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1894-06-20

the noble little craft suddenly rose buoy
ant, with tho long savage yell Of the
gale i'll her rigging as she thrashed her
lofty spars to windward.
"After this she made fairly good
weather of it, but for three days we lay
under bare poles, sagging helplessly to
leeward in the trough Of that mighty
ocean. The weather then moderated
Within six hours of the breaking of the
gale it was blowing a gentle wind out
of the northeast. The sun shone bright
", and the schooner tapped leisurely
along her course under all plain sail and
over large but fast subsiding swell.
During the time of violent weather
Captain Huddersdeld had seemed much
depressed in spirits. had attributed
his detection to the peril of those hours.
We were asmall ship for that tall south
ern surge Moreover, his risk in the ves-
sci might be large, for all we knew. I
could not guess how gravely I misjudged
one of the manifest intelligences that
ever informed a sailor.
"We were seated alone at dinner on
the first day Of fine weather. He said
after regarding me steadfastly for some
moments:
" DO you attach any meaning to
dreams?'
"'T do not, answered.
"'But when they recur? said he.
"'No, said I, mot though they should
recur for a month of Sundays
"He was silent for while and then
said, speaking In very serious voice:
For three nights running the same
odd vision has troubled me. I have
thrice dreamed that I was becalmed in
an icy atmosphere of antarctic dark
ness. The stars rode brilliantly, but
they made no light. Regularly through
this black atmosphere there sounded, in
note of signing, human with articula
ton and yet.resembling the noise made
by the whale when it spouts it's foun-
tain, these mysterious words: TRY for
her in so! Try for her in SOL" Over
and over again it so ran, TRY for her
in 50!' Now, to have dreamed this once
would be nothing; twice makes it re-
markable; the third time of the same
vision must affect even the most wood
en- Of minds with a spirit as of convic-
tion. I don't believe in dreams any
more than you do, yet there ought to
be some sort Of meaning in the repeti-
tion of one, in such haunting cry re-
peated on several occasions Of slumber
as, 'Try for her in 50p''
"a few days after we had had that
talk have just repeated, almost imme-
diately on making eight bells by our
sextant, man on the forecastle hail
ing the quarter deck bawled out that
there was a small black object ON the
lee bow.
81 took the glass from the captain
and made out boat with mast, but
no sail. The figure of a man stood
erect, and one arm hooked the mast
We shifted our helm and presently had
the boat alongside.
'Two men were in her. One lay mo-
tionless under the thwarts. The other,
though erect on his feet, had barely
strength to catch the ropes end that
was flung. The boat was of the ordinary
pattern of ships quarter boat While
we leaned over the side looking down
into her, the captain said:
"'What is the name written in the
stern sheets there?'
"My sight was good. I answered,
Prairie Chief!'
'He started and turned pale, with a
said nothing.
In the afternoon we buried the body
of the dead, nameless seaman; name
less because it seemed that the other was
incapable of relating his story. Pain
and famine had paralyzed the tongue in
his mouth. The captain read the service.
His manner was so subdued-his whole
demeanor expressed him as so affected
that you would have supposed he was
burying some dear friend or dear rela-
tive. had often attended burial serv-
ice at sea- but never one more impress
sive than this. All the desolation of the
mighty deep seemed to have centered as
in very spirit in the lifeless body that
lay stitched in a hammock in the gang
way.
"When the body was overheard, the
captain walked to the boat we had hoist
ed in and stood with his first look OF
amazement and grief, musing upon, or
rather staring at, the name Prairie Chief
painted in the stern sheets. He then
went to his cabin. When he again made
his appearance some time after, he was
extraordinarily reserved and gloomy.
Throughout the watches he would ask
II the man was better. I do not recol.
lect that he addressed another word to
me than that question.
"Next forenoon, some time about eight
bells, the man was sufficiently recover
ed to come aft. stood beside Captain
Huddersfield, sextant In hand, while he
talked to him. He said his name was
James Dickens and that he had been an
able seaman aboard the bark Prairie
Chief. The ship was from London, bound
to Sydney. South of the cape they met
with very heavy weather from the north
ward, which hove them to and drove
them south. 1t was so thick the captain
could not get an observation. In the
middle of the day, when the smother
upon the sea was so thick that the fly
ing jibboom end was out of sight from
the wheel, loud and fearful cry Of
Ice right ahead!' rang from the fore
castle. The wheel was revolved-every
spoke-with the fury of despair, by the
helmsman, but the ships time was come,
and there was nothing in seamanship to
maneuver her clear of her fate. She tel
escoped into the ice and went to pieces.
ga number of people, said the man,
got upon the ice. Among them were
the captain, his wife and female pas
senger. Dickens particularly noticed
these people-that is, the commander
and the two women. He and three 9th
ers drifted away in boat. The bark
went to pieces aloft when she struck
He was sure that none others, saving
himself and the three men, escaped in
the boats. It was in the middle Of the
day when the ship ran into the berg,
and the darkness happened SO quickly
after the disaster that he was unable to
tell much of what. followed. Two of his
F., companions died while they were adrift,
and their bodies were dropped over
board
while Dickens told his story ]
: watched the captaiu. His features were