Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-11-30

was also her captain, decreed that she
should deal with embarrassed crowned
heads. fleeing presidents. financ!ers of
over-extended ability, women to whom
change of air was imperative, and the
lesser law-brealiing powers. Her career
led her sometimes into the Admiralty
courts, where the sworn statements Of her
skipper filed his brethren with envy. The
mariner cannot tell or act a lie in the face
of the sea or miSlead a tempest, but,
lawyers have discovered, he makes up for
chances withheld when he returns to shore
an affidavit in either hand.
The Aglaia figured with distinction in
the great Mackinaw salvage case. 1t was
her first slip from virtue. and she learned
how to change her name, but not her
heart, and to run across the sea. AS the
Guiding Light she very badly wanted
In South American port for the little
matter of entering the harbor at full speed,
coliiding with a valuable coal-hulk and the
states only man-of-war, just as that man
of-war was going to coal. She put to sea
without explanations, though three forts
fired at her for half an hour. AS the julie,
McGregor she had been concerned in pick
ing up from a raft certain gentlemen who
should have stayed in Noumea, but who
preferred making themselves vastly I'M
quarter of the world; and as the Shah-in-
Shah she had been overtaken on the high
seas indecently full of munitions of war,
by The cruiser of an agitated power at
issue with its neghbor That time she
was very nearly sunk. and her riddled hull
gave eminent lawyers of two countries
great profit. After season she reappealed
as the Martin Hunt, painted a dull slate
color with pure saffron tunnels and boats
OF robin s-egg blue, engaging in the Odessa
trade TIL she was invited (and the invita-
ton could not well be disregardeGD to keep
away from Black ports altogether.
She had ridden through many waves of
depression in. the shipping business.
Freights might drop out of sight, seamen's
a
Gated masters. or stevedores combine till
cargo persisted on the dockhead but the
boat of many names came and went, busy,
alert and inconSpicuous always. Her skip
per, who in a spasm of pride had COM
pared her to a servant girl in a house of
Ill fame. made no complaint of hard times,
and port officers observed that her crew
signed again aboard her with the regularity
of Atlantic liner boatswains. Her name
She changed occasion called; her we'll
paid crew never, and large percentage of
the prohts OF her voyages was spent with
an open hand on her engine room She never
troubled the underwriters, and very seldom
stopped to talk with a signal station, for
Der business was urgent and private.
But amend came to her tradingS, and she
persisted in this manner. Deep peace brood
ed over Europe, Asia, Africa, America
Australia and Polynesia. The powers dealt
together more or less honestly; banks paid
their depositors to the hour; diamonds of
price came safely to the hands of their
owners; republics rested content with their
ulpIOUldtS no one whose
presence in the least incommoded them
and monarchs lived openly with their law
fully welded wives. 1t was as though the
whole earth had put on its best Sunday
bib and tucker, and business was very bad
for the Martin Hunt The great, virtuous
calm enSulfed her, slate sides, yellow fun
nels and ALL but cast up in another hems-
phere the steam whaler Haliotis, black and
rusty, with a manurecolored funnel, a lit
ter of dingy white boats, and an enormous
stove. or furnace, for burning blubber on
her forward well-deck. There could be no
doubt that her trip was successful, for she
lay at several ports not too well known,
and the smoke of her trying-out insulted
the beaches
Anon she departed at the speed of the
average London fOur-wheeler, and entered
q sem-island sea, warm, still and blue,
which is perhaps. the most strictly pre-
served water in the world. There she stay
ed for three months under sail for the
most part, and the great stars of those
mild Skies beheld her playing puss-in-the-
corner among islands where whales are
never found. All that time she smelt abom-
tnably, and the smell. though fishy, was not
wholesome. In the middle of the tenth
week calamity descended upon her from
the island of Pygang-Watai, and she fled
while her crew jeered at fat black and
brown gunboat putting far behind. They
knew to the last revolution the capacity of
every boat on those seas that they were
anxious to avoid. A british ship with a
good conscience does not, as a rule, flee
from the man-of-war of foreign power
and it is also breach of etiquette to stop
and search British ships at sea These
things the skipper of the Haliotis did not