Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1895-03-30
A TRUTHFUL SAILOR.
RELATES THE EXPERIENCE IN WHICH
HE SWCRG N-VER TO LIE.

TWO Sennen, Ia,h,r and Son, Swallowed
by II SHARK. bat Eo,. We're Rescued In
Marvellous Manacr-A Day That Was
Certainly Very Hot.
Have l ever seen shark? Ask my
nl&te-hin. that's rowing that ere cou-
rto ont yonGer. We were shipmates to-
.,cther aboard the Rajapootah India
man. His father, who is dead and gone
this 20 year or more, was carpenter
aboard of her.
'Well, one day we were becalmed on
the line, when, says young Bill-he was
young Bill then. him as | just pointed
out to you-Says he, Il shall have a
swim round for cooler, for believe
me, the sun WAS that hot we had to
throw buckets of water Oh tho deck to
keep it from catching fire
I'm fact, a pig we killed tho day
afore we hung aloft and roasted him in
the sun, catching the gravy in bucket,
and he was done beautifully.
$50 in he goes head first, with his
clothes on, and me and his old man
looked over the side just abaft the fore
rigging to see him come to the top of
the water again.
but no Bill coul we see, and in
stead of him up came q tremendous
shark, with his sides sticking out as if
he had cargo inside over and above
his regular bill Of laling.
1T was then as clear to us as the
nose on our faces that poor Bill had
dived clear down his throat.
1.-The poor old man had fit right
away, aud we carried him below and
put him i'll his hammock and then ran
up Oh deck again i'll the hope that we
should be able to catch the fellow.
''But it was nowhere to be seen, so
after watching some timo to no pur-
pose we went down below to SEQ how
the old man was getting on, and to our
astonishment and sorrow we found his
body nearly cold and as stiff as the fly
ing jibboom.
1--WE sewed him up in his hammock,
putting the grindstono that he used to
grind his tools with inside to make it
sink and laid the body on hatch, with
the union jack spread over it for pail.
Then the skipper read the funeral
service, all of us standing round dread
fully cut up, me especially, for young
Bill was my messmate, and | was very
fond of the old man.
''As soon as the skipper had finished
the last words, which | shall never for
get, they was so solemn, the hatch was
tipped up, and overheard the body went
with splash, and all was over, at least
we Thought so.
But almost Immediately afterward
up comes another shark, bigger one,
it seemed, than the first.
The boatswain at once ran for the
shark hook and baitcd it with hunk of
pork and slung it over the stern, and it
was not many minutes afore we had
him hooked and hauled on deck.
"Well the first thing we did was to
cut his tail Off, for he was tapping it
about so that it shook the ship from
stem to stern, that we were afraid it
would shake her to pieces.
"After we had done that we thought
we heard very strange noise inside of
him-a sort of grating sound, like boat
being dragged over shingly beach.
$50 we set to and cut off his head
and then ripped him up, when, what
dye think? What should we see, to our
great astonishment and delight, but Bill
and his father sitting upright like two
Jonahs, the youngster turning the grind
stone and the old man sharpening his
knife, intending to cut their way out of
the creatures belly.
"You say said the old man was
dead? Please don't interrupt me, and
I'll tell you all about it.
''There's 10 doubt but what he seem
ed dead, but it was only his blood froze
with horror, and the shark warmed him
to life again. What made him most un-
comfortable, Bill said, was the slip
peryness and topsy turvyness of the
place, for there was no rest at all, for
one minute he was standing on his
head and the next on his feet, and then
he would be tossed from one side to the