Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1897-11-18


sea, having crossed the Bay with COM
fort, the word went round that storm
signal was hoisted on the Cape. No
one who has gone through an exper-
fence such as that is likely to forget
it. Everybody on deck, the blanched
faces, the hushed voices, the quick
whispers, the eager glances around, the
interrogations of the officers on duty,
and their bantering answers belied by
their anxious looks, then the darken-
ing Sky, the freshening breeze, the low
ering horizon, the tingling gloomy at
mosphere creeping down from the
mast-heads, and the air of the whole
ship, above and below, charged, as it
were, with sudden electricity. 1t is like
nothing else in life except the bugle
call in camp, telling those who lie
smoking and drinking about the fires
that the enemy is coming and is near.
I was standing on the quarterback
watching the Lasoars reefing sails, bat
tening down the matches, tarpauling
them, and making everything snug,
when fellow passenger whom l had
not observed before stepped up and
spoke. His remark was a casual one,
and it has gone from my memory.
think it had reference to the native sea-
men, and was meant as a jest upon their
numbering slowness, which suggested
pitiful thoughts to him of what their
capacity must be in a storm. But the
air of the man more than his words
aroused and arrested my attention. 1t
was that of one whose spirits had been
quickened by the new sense of danger.
He laughed, his eyes sparkled, his
tongue rolled out his light remarks
with a visible relish. l looked at the
man, and saw that he had the soul of a
war horse. Tall, slight, dark, hand
some, with bushy beard, quivering nos
trils, mobile mouth, and eyes of fire,
alive in every fibre, ana full of uncon-
querable energy. He appeared to be a
man of thirty to thirty-five, but proved
to be no more than four and twenty. I
learned afterwards that he was an
adventure.
That night we flew six hours before
the storm, but it overlook our ship at
last. What befell us then in the dark
ness of that rock-bound coast l did not
known until mornings Can you believe
it? l took my usual dose of drug pre-
scribed to me for insomnia, and lay
down to sleep. When 1 went UP on
deck in the late dawn of the following
day-the time was the spring-the wind
had slackened, and the ship was rolling
and swinging along in sea that could
not be heard above the beat and thud of
the engines. Only the memory of last
nights tempest lay around in sullen
wave and sky-only there, and in the
quarters down below of the native sea-
men Of our ship.
The first face l encountered was that
Of the American. He had been on deck
all night, and he Odd me what had hap
pened. Through the dark hours the
storm had been terrible, and when the
first headlight of dawn had crept across
from the east the ship had been still
tossing in great white pillows. Just
then a number of Lascars had been Or
dered aloft on some urgent duty
know not what-and a sudden gust had
swept one of them from a cross-tree
into the sea- Efforts had been made to
rescue him, the engines had been re-
versed, boats put out and life-buoys
thrown into the water, but all in vain.
The man had been swept away; he was
gone and the ship had steamed on.
The disaster saddened me inexpressi-
bly,. l could see the Lascar fall from
the rigging, catch the agonizing glance
Of the white eyes in his black face as he
was swept past on the crest of wave,
and watch his chesterfield arms as he
sank to his death down and down and
down. 1t seemed to me an iniquity
that while this had happened I had
slept Perhaps the 'over-sensitive con-
dition Of my nerves was at fault, but
indeed | felt that in his way, in his de-
gree, within the measure of his posi-
bilities, that poor fellow of another
skin, another tongue, with whom l had
exchanged no word of greeting, had that
day given his life for my life.
How much of such emotion express
ed at the time it is hard to remember
now. but that the American gathered
the bent of my feelings was clear to
me by the pains he was at to show that
they were uncalled for. and unnatural.
and false. What was life? I had set
too great a store by(it. The modern
reverence for life wigs eating away the
finest instincts = ans nature. Life
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