The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1904-10-14

against mast or the standing rig
ging--and so for hours we waited for
the hammer of fate to strike US, the
Lincolnshire swinging lazily to port
and starboard, no doubt wondering, if
ships have souls, as some used to say
they have, why she had thus been
stripped of her wings, and stopped in
the midst of her splendid course.
And then upon the silence there
stole a sound which no man who has
once heard it can ever forget--a gem
tie sigh in the distance rising to
hiss.
'Al hands lie down and hold on"
came sharp order from the quarter
deck, but most of us had obeyed be-
fore it was uttered. We knew what
that sound meant, and down we went,
hanging on to the first solid thing that
came to hand. The hiss rose to a
scream, the scream deepened into a
roar, the armament split from hori-
zon, as though the sword of the Arch
angel had clovened it through Then
came a crash of thunder like the
trump of God, and then the heavens
and the sea seemed to come together
and for the next few minutes, which
seemed like hours, we were fighting
and struggling and gasping for bretah
with roar of wind in our ears and
a choking of water in our mouths The
sails went out of the bolt ropes like
SO many rags OF cotton, and the stanch
frigate-built ship heeled over as
though a squat had struck her under
full sail For certain uncounted sec
onds we hung between time and eter-
uity, and then the blast passed She
righted, and the water flowed off her
decks through the swilling scuppers,
and man who was holding on the
main fife rail near to me said as he
got up and shock himself:
well, If that amt the end of Bill.
it well ought to be-"
But it wasn't Bills end was many
days off yet.
The pampero went as it had come
out of silence and darkness back into
silence and darkness again. The mer-
curry in the barometer rose to its nor
NAL level, and the next midday saw the
old Lincolnshire STOPPING and swaying
under every stitch that she could car
ry, beneath the cloud-dappled skies of
the region of the southeast trades. And
so, day after day, we went north
eastward over the lonely sea till the
good wind began to die away into
puffs and varying breezes, and the
clouds Joined together into dense
brown pail, and the rains came down,
and the waters that were above the
| armament flowed in unceasing streams
| into those that were below it.
After that we drifted with the cur
rents and were driven by sudden and
fitful squalls from this quarter and
that into what is perhaps the most
| CHASTITY and terrible region of the
world, the zone of equatorial Gains.
The water is without ripple, the
| heavens without breath. The tar
| bubbles up between the planks, and
! the drinking water gets warmer and
warmer, and the boiled pork and salt
horse grow more loathsome every day
and then other ships drift like
ghosts out of the night into the same
area of elemental death, and SO 1t
goes on.
But something else goes on also, and
that is work Now no good seaman
ever objected to work in it's proper
time and seasons; but of all things alb
horrent to the real deepsea sailors
mind the most hateful is the sailors
Eleventh Commandment
Six days shalt thou work and do all
that thou art able,
And on the seventh holystone the
decks and scrape the cable.
regret to say that cur skipper was
one of those misguided captains who
believed in this ordinance, and on the
first Sunday in the Gains, which was
our sixth day in that dismal region
he had the watches alternately work
ing at bending new sails and generally
getting ready for the run home. II
took a whole Saturday and Sunday
and when the work was over Bill