San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-05-26
ROMANCE OF A o
A Stranded Man Rescues Others
In Being Rescued Himself

lOuCe hueW. ne was the elQeSt sou OF
"a Scotch baronet of old family, and
when the most memorable of all his
experiences befell him he was about
twenty-three years of aga He went
from London on a holiday trip to a sea
side town on the southeast coast of
England The month was August
toward the close of it. when the shadow
of September was in the air, and when
you might sometimes hear a sullen
noise of winter in the beat of the sui
len breakers dissolving upon the sand
Directly opposite the town he visited,
at the distance Of about six or seven
miles, stretches the yellow line of the
most dangerous shoal IN the world
the most dangerous, / say, because OF
the prodigious annual traffic In the
historic waterway upon whose surface
it seems to float. This shoal Is called
the Goodwin Sands
Let the name of the hero Of this ad-
venture stand as Matthew Lewis On
the morning of the third day after his
arrival at Broadstairs, Nh. Lewis, see
ing that the morning was fine, the sea
smooth, the sunshine warm and the
sky full of the promise Of pleasant
weather, walked down to the little,
primitive, tarry stump of pier with the
intention of killing an hour or two by
rowing in a boat He fell into CONVEX
~sation with a waterman who lounged
out of the Tartar Frigate Inn" rs Mr..
Lewis stood viewing the yea
"How far distant are the Goodwin
Sands?" asked my friend
The longshoreman told him
about fourteen miles there and
back" said Mr.. Lewis, eying the
boatman's wart-ridden face with a
musing countenanoe- Five miles an
hour and a spell of rests call 1t about
four hours and a half"
He looked at his watch, reoollected
that the town was exceedingly. dull,
that his object in visiting the seaside
was to spend on the water all the time
he could snatch from meals and sleep
and that a visit to the Goodwins and a
short walk on the hard sand of the
shoal would furnish him with some
thing to talk about and even to boast
of on his return
He was a smart yachtsman, and, in a
fresh water sort of way, ''knew the
ropes" He made certain inquiries
touching the tides and then stepping
into the Tartar Frigate Inn,' he OBJ
tanned a bottle Of water, a small guam
tity of brandy, and a bag of biscuits,
and slowed them in his coat pockets
He now walked down to the little har-
Dor, selected and hired a light, clean
boat, entered her. and rowed away out
to sea, all alone.
Until he reached the Goodwin Sands
nothing in any degree noteworthy oc'
CURED. The air was sweet and re-
freshing. The chalk cliffs shope in the
morning light with a milk-white soft
ness. Whatever Mr.. Lewis eye rested
upon he found idealized by distance,
and the blue and silver splendor in the
atmosphere and by that wonderful
sense of material spaciousness and
human littleness which works like q
spirit in the minds perceptions and in
ter%pretations at sea
The long ~serpentine sauSbenh lay
uncovered, hard, firm, cleaning yellow
in its sinuosities into the southern and
northern distances
About a quarter OF a mfSe from the
! spot where the nose of Mr. Lewis
boat struck lay a wreck, buried in the
sand to her covering board.
h She had been a brig loaded with
coal, and had gone ashore some fort
night or so before this time. Her fore
mast and topmast still stood with the
yards across, supported by the shrouds
and backstays and by the stays leading
to the bowsprit, which forked at a SON
siderable angle out of the sand
Mr.. Lewis eyed the wreck yearninG-
ly. No Imagination of ship wreck could
have found such forlorn expression as
that sand-buried, one-mssted brig.
He determined to get on the sand
and walk to her, and made nc doubt OF
effectually securing his boat by stalk
ing an oar and attaching the wherry's
painter to it This he did, and then
walked to the wreck.
The nearer he approached te less
picturesque and admirable he found
her. Her gauntness grew shocking; he
caught himself CLAN ling around for
the sight of a human skeleton or the
more dreadful spectacle of a drowned
mariner in his clothes Discovering
that a portion of the decks were un-
covered, he grasped the lanyards of q
bhroud and vaulted over the rail
Mr.. Lewis had inherited from his
mother a poetic cast of mind, and
whenever accident landed him in a
bovel situation where there was no
anger, he loved to surrender himself
@ sensation and feeling. He sat down
nd realized that he was on board a
rig wrecked to the very last extrem-
", whose utter evanishment, as
hough she had been wrought out of
noke, could only be a question Of a
wv days of calm weather, or an hour
bat afternoon of a gale of wind.
Now was ne Mortified to discover that
bmething more than time had slipped
way. His boat was gone! He did
BIT need to look long to see her; she
as floating some few hundred yards
+, towing the oar with her, and drift
g away with the tide at a speed that
cry minute would increase.