The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-23
THANKSGIVING OF
 THE MARTHA DAWES
BY J. c. PLUMMER.

bG Js Ne FAUMAGzAs
 VCopyright, 1904, By Daily Story Pub.
 Col
 A great grey wave like a great grey beast all afoam with rage as to its mouth, rearing, it seemed hundreds of feet in the air, bore down from wIndward on the Martha Dawes. HoItzen at the wheel swore or prayed in Danish--I don't know which--and gripped the spokes and spread his feet to withstand the coming shock. Two men in the waist ran panic stricken for the first lines they could grab and swung myself Into the lee rigging. It came, the blow, thun- derous avalanche of water, and the schooner. shaking and quivering as If her timbers would rsnd asunder. list ed over to leeward. It was an assault at arms that might we'll bear down the doughtiest knight that ever wore harness and he have no cause for af- ter shame at his defeat. The staunch- est iron steamship that ever carried tunnels might have foundered under that crush of sea water. but the Mar tha Dawes, thirty years old, weak in her upper works and scorched by & thousand suns and buffeted by many a hurricane, came slowly up again. drenched, quivering and yet on even keel, and hurling water from her decks through the hawseholes in thick streams.
 Hard up!' spat the captain in the face of the shrieking spindrift to the man at the wheel and Holtzen, still swearing or praying, in Danish, did as he was commanded.
 Two men gone" groaned the cap tain, his eyes sweeping the decks and then wandering out to that heaving mass of sea mountains as if wonder ing under which particular wave two brave seamen smothered to death. On the schooner Martha Dawes, strug- gled for her life against the awful power that showed her steadily tow ard the deadliest spot in the world the Diamond shoals-there were four men left for the storm to kill.
 The whole of that Thanksgiving day we had striven against the storm, played our weak cards against a play CT who only laughed derisively at every effort and went us better and the stakes on the table-four human lives-seem- ed already In his hands.
 The fore topmast had gone over early in the morning and the main fol- lowed suit about noon. There was no such thing left as a starboard rail on the forecastle, and the galley was turned upside down and damned itself with the water butt between the stump of the foremast and the lee rail.
 And yet the Martha Dawes made no water. With all that terrible pounding not a seam had opened. The old schooner meant to die game. One could imagine her shouting back at the wind and sea. You may smash me to pieces on the rocks, but sheer wave and wind can't kill mer'
 But die she must. The drift had us and the wind and sea helped the drift. straight for the Diamond shoals Against the nor'east gale and rush ing sea there was only one thing to do-die game, as the schooner meant to.
 don't believe there ever was a on from the deck that afternoon. I had seen great thunder-heads arise in the tropical ocean-purpllsh black and copper-tinged as to the edges. I had beheld a mass of clouds writhinR and twisting in a wind straight from the south pole as the snip rolled and tossed, trying to pass Cape Horn, but that drear expanse of drab heaven across which ragged patches of darker hued clouds were flying with such furious velocity that they looked like Bmoke-the utter dreariness of that dun brown sky, the desolation of the scene terrified me as no combination of sea and sky had done before.
 Haltzen had left the wneIl and Bobbitt had taken his place. The