Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1903-12-12

IAuItOu, WulSpcTcu Ouc, anu we SAT-
still there and stared.
1--WE had orders to board the brig
but I'll be blamed If l could climb that
gangway and step over that silent sit.
ting figure, so we slipped down to the
bow and hauled ourselves on deck by
the chains. Well, sirs, l tell you my
knees shook Il had two Of 'em them as
l stepped aboard, and my heart leaped
into my mouth as half a hundred rats
scampered along the deck. You'll un.
derstand in a minute, gentlemen, WY
look upon any man as amt an honest
thirst on him as akin to one O. them
there varmint.
swell, sirs, the first th.1y as we frd
was four dead men. lcastways as much
as the rats and the sun had left Of
'em, lynn around the for'ard hatch. In
the galley the Malay cock lay dead,
with one hand clutchin' at his shaggy
black hair and the other with his long
finger nails buried in the flesh of his
throat. Close by lay all that was left
of the cabin bow. lis head and shoul-
ders was Inside an overturned cask,
his tongue was swollen and sticking
out, and in his stiff fingers he grasped
tin drinking cup.
There was food enough around to
have kept crew of ten or fifteen men
OH full rations for month. There was
casks of salt beef and rice and -four
and plenty of fuel for the galley fire.
The ship was sound. Not sail split
or halyard started. Masts and spars
all in apple pie order. Everything
snug an taut. The wheel and rudder
perfect. Not a thing the matter with
the ship. Not a sign of mutiny or
murder. What was the mea hing Of the
mystery? We soon found out. Thirst,
gentlemen. Thirst had killed the en-
tire crew, except such, maybe, as had
ended their agonies by jumping over
board to the sharks. Tfe-e was not
one single drop of waite: aboard that
brig.
$40. Il drop of water! Think of that,
yOuSe fellows. when you polish off a
lemonade. Think O. that little cabin
boy crawling around into an upturned
cask trying in his dying agony to
scrape drop from it's dry sides with
his tin mug. Think O that colored
cook tcarin' off the hair from his head
and the flesh off his throat in his fren-
with his last bit O. strength wavin'
sheet from the gangway to 4 passin'
ship, held up by hope for maybe an
hour OF so, then. as she went on her
way. without needing or seeing his
feeble signal of distress, fallin' back
and dying Of despair.
Thirst! 1t takes me to tell yez what
thirst is. Me, who boarded that Por-
tuguese brig, the Santa Maria, in the
Indian Ocean. nearly thirty years ago.
Every water cask aboard her was dry.
Every butt had been upset and drained
to the last drop. Some of the slaves
had been gnawed by human teeth in
the hope of extracting little mois-
ture from what had once been wet.
They knowed what thirst was. they
did, on the Santa Maria. Then the rats
or the sharks got 'em.
"Well, sirs, we never knew for sure
how the Portuguese craft came to be
in such plight. We examined her
papers and found she had cleared
from Goa some months before for a
trading trip along the coast of India,
but there was no seXtant, no chronom,
eter, and no signal flags aboard. There
was no log neither; but besides th9
ships papers, in the dispatch box, was
seventeen pebbles, and we took these
to mean one for each day Of watching
and waiting and thirsting. We sort
O. decided that the brig must "a been
blown off the coast in a hurricane and
lost it's bearings. Blown out O. sight
o land, while waiting to take water
aboard.
+ 1.-The law says as you mayn't leave
vessel adrift, and so there wuz moth.
ing for it but to scuttle her. We took
her stores. sails and cordage, her pa.
pers and all else necessary, to turn
over to the Portuguese Consul at
Singapore, and he advertised her; but
nothing ever came of it so far as I
heard. AS for the brig herself and her
CHASTITY err, we laid all the bodies
In the cabin with the Portuguese flag
over 'em. The captain read the burial
service. then the carpenter bored the
vessels bottom full of holes. As we
sailed away she slowly settled down.
The rats went with her.
"And, gentlemen, afore we locked the
cabin door. the captain, he says, just
as solemnly as If it were really a part
of the burial service, he says, And
may the good Lord save us AL from the
horrors Of thirst he says.
"And SO say I."-New York Times.