Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1899-10-16

They kept on pulling. For three
for four days-a week-for ten days
they tugged at the oars, except
when savoring breeze came. The
water was reduced to few pints, the
food to a few half days rations.
Their limbs were cramped, SO that
they could not move from their places
in the boat, their bodies were becom-
ing covered with sores, and the wind
had now died away entirely; the sea
was without ripple. and forever
shone above the fierce, hot sun.
GraGuallyit had dawned upon them
that they were lost-that perhaps tn ey
had run past Samoa. The insanity of
their adventure gave place to despair,
and by degrees their despair grew to
madness of more awful kind.
On the fifteenth day there appeared
to the south and east low, dark gray
cloud. "Land at last" was the un-
spoken thought in each mans heart
as he looked at his comrade, but
feared to voice his hope. And pres
emily the cloud grew darker and more
clearly defined, and one of the men,
the next Oldest to the author of all
their miseries, fell upon his weak and
trembling knees and raised his hands
in thankfulness and prayer to the
Almighty. Alas! it was not land, but
the omnious forerunner of the fierce
and sweeping mid-equatorial gale,
which lay yelled behind. In less than
half an hour it came upon and smote
them with savage fury, and the little
boat was running before q bowling
gale and maddened, foam whipped
sea.
And then it happened that, ill and
suffering as he was from the agonies
of hunger and thirst, the heroic ma
ture of old "Boston Ned" came out,
and his bold sailors heart cheered
and encouraged his wretched, despair
ing companions. All that night, and
for the greater part of the following
day, he stood in the stern sheets,
grasping the bending steer oar as the
boat swayed and surged along before
the gale, and constantly watching lest
she should broach to and smother in
the roaring seas, The others lay in
the bottom, feebly bailing out the
water, encouraged, urged and driven
to that exertion by the gallant old
American seaman.
Towards noon the wind moderated;
in the afternoon it died away alto
gether, and again the boat lay rising
and falling to the long Pacific swell,
and "Boston Ned" flung his exhaust
ed frame down in the stern sheets and
slept.
Again the blood-red sun leaped
from sea of CLASSY smoothness-for
the swell had subsidized during the
highland again the wretched men
looked into each others dreadful
faces and mutely asked what was to
be done. How should they head the
boat? Withouta compass they might as
well steer one way as another, for none of
them knew even approximately the
course for the nearest land. Search
the cloudless vault of blue above, or
scan the shimmering sea-rim till their
aching eyes dropped from out their
following sockets, there was no clue.
Twenty days out the last particle
of food and water had been consumed,
and though the boat was now steer
ing as near westward as old Ned could
Judge, before a gentle southeast
trade, madness and despair were COM
ing quickly upon them, and ON the
twenty-third day two of the five
miserable creatures began to drink
al nf l,,;,, l. &C
death.
Renton, though he had suffered to
the bitter full from the agonies of
body and mind endured by his ship
mates, was not one of these, and by a
merciful Providence remained sane
enough to turn his face away from the
water. But, as he lay crouched in a
heap in the bottom of the boat, with
a silent prayer in his heart to his
Creator to quickly end his sufferings,
he heard Boston Ned" and the
only remaining sane man except him
self, muttering hoarsely together and
looking sometimes at him and some
times at the two almost dying men
who lay moaning beside him. Presently
the man who was talking to Ned,
pulled out of his blanket-which lay
in the stern sheets-a razor, and
turning his back to Renton, began
stropping it upon the sole of his
boot, and even "Boston Ned" himself
looked with awful eyes and blood
baked, twitching lips upon the young
ster. s" n q : t.---s
The lad saw what was coming, and
as quickly as possible made his way
forward and sat there, with his eyes
fixed upon the two men aft, waiting
for the struggle which he thought
must soon begin. All that day and
the night he sat and watched, deter
mined to make a fight for the little
life which remained in him, and Ned
and the other man at times still NUT
tered and eyed him wolfishly.
And so, on and on, these seeming
outcasts of Gods mercy sailed before
the warm breath of the southeast
trade wind, above them the blazing
tropic sun, around them the wide
sailless eXpanse Of the blue Pacific,