The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1898-11-09

terrible to contemplate. A rising
tide and raging sea lay beneath
his feet; stormy and starless sky
overhead. The night was pitch black
and bitterly cold. Olasping the iron
staff with both hands, and clinging to
the slender topmast with crossed
knees, the unhappy man realized that
he would probably be swept into
eternity at high water, aud that, even
il the tide should turn without reach.
ing him, eleven or twelve hours would
elapse before the first streak Of day
might reveal his desperate position tc
the crew of some passing craft.
Ever an anon the lights of some out.
ward or homeward bound vessel would
CLEAN mockingly through the dark
ness fer awhile. only to disappear
eventually into the shadows beyond
with a hoarse groan which seemed
but an exaggerated echo of his own
passionate cries for help. The human
voice was entirely lost amid the din OF
shrieking wind and raging water
nothing but cry of warning produced
by lungs of steel could make itself
audible on such night. Yet, in spite
of the futility OF attempting to attract
attention in this way, Cotgrove con-
tinued to shout until his voice failed
him entirely and he was unable to
hear his own cries.
So the hours dragged by, each an
eternity Of suspense and suffering.
And the remorseless tide rose, inch
by inch, until the higher waves
actually broke over the feet of the
man who was so nearly within their
reach, and the icy spray stung his face
like sleet.
"When my voice was completely
gone" said Cotgrove, zone OF the
boats belonging to our feet came SO
close to me that could thrown bis
cult aboard. ! saw the fishermen
lower their sails, and stopped shout
ing, foolishly believing that, although
my voice was quite inaudible to my
own ears, they had heard me. But
the sail had only been lowered for the
purpose of hauling in the trawl; and
in another moment the boat dis
appeared slowly into the darkness,
leaving me well-nigh frantic with de-
spair."
The tide had now reached Cot
groves knees, and the agony he
endured as wave after wave swept
over his body can neither be fully
imagined nor described. The most
hideous nightmare that distorted
imagination can conceive loses all its
horrors before the kindly light Of
day, and can only be described by
the sufferer, in all its gruesome de-
tail, within few moments of its oc.
currence. 1t is impossible for o
man adequately to describe the suffer-
ings of another, and it is an equally
hopeless task for the suffer himself to
convey to another midd the multitude
of sensations which have crowded
themselves into the one supreme mo-
ment OF lifetime.
We can only imagine q frail human
form clinging desperately to few feet
of mast, amidst q wilderness OF white
crested pillows. We can understand
the hopelessness Of such a situation,
intensified by the horrors Of darkness
and uncertainty. But the most emo
tional or imaginative reader would
fail to comprehend a tithe of the
mental torture endured by this man
during a single minute of that pro-
tracted struggle for life. Cotgrove
was clinging to the summit of the
mast of Bawley No. 416 for thir-
teen hours!
For the first five hours the tide
rose steadily; but it was at the expira-
ton of the fifth hour that the strangest
and most thrilling scene Of this drama
of darkness was enacted. With the
icy cold waves actually tapping his
waist, Cotgrove believed that the final
moment had at length arrived, and
he resolved to struggle no longer.
Yet even while the fisherman, resign
ing himself to the fate which he now
considered to be inevitable, was actu-
ally endeavoring to unclasp his
numbed fingers, a strange CLEAN,
similar to the flash of o search. light,
illumined the broken waters, reveal
ing the shadowy outline of a man
standing in boat hard by.
"For a moment" said the narrator,
'T thought it was one OF my mates
come to take me off, although the at
titude of the figure, standing in open
boat with arms outstretched, caused
me to tighten my grasp instinctively,
instead of letting go. And when the
craft and its queer navigator had dis
with the momentary CLEAN,
/ felt convinced the vision had been
sent as warning. This convic-
tion had no sooner entered my
mind than / felt the sunken
bawley move slightly beneath me,
and in another moment she changed
sides, swinging the mast suddenly
over in the same direction. The sensa-
ton of flying through space in that
way was really terrible, and was inn
mersed in still deeper water. The