The Monticellonian., 1904-02-25
By S. n. LAURENCE

Il embers had gone, with hissing and snarling voice, to add the name of the good ship Southern Cross to the list Of dereliets at anchor in the ancient port of Missing Ships. The sun blazed from a white tropical sky on the oily surface of a fiat calm From rim to rim the sea was dead level of gleaming gray, broken only by the occasional flash of flying fish or the dull black dorsal fins of the sharks.
 Two parched and sun-baked figures, all nat were left of crew of 20, sat staring at each other from opposite ends of half-charred ships boat. their eyes glowing with the fever of madness and their lips and tongues swollen and blackened with the tortures of thirst. The clothes hung in folds from their wasted frames as they crouched, num- bling and jibbering to themselves, in the sweltering heat of the calm.
 Eight days of the cursed sun and not a sail to be seen! Where have all the ships got to-"
 For the hundredth time since dawn the mate worked the horizon with his glass in the vain hope of seeing some thing Nothing broke the lonely mo- notony of that wide expanse of silent ocean beyond the equator.
 Things are coming to an end" he muttered sinking back on the thwart.
 We squeezed the last drop out of the breaker yesterday morning, and that idiot for'ard spilled them, blast him"
 Look at him. there. chewing his fin gers. Why does he stare at me so? His eyes are l.ke red-hot gimlets; they seem to bore right through me. He thinks I'll go off my head. and then he'll kill me as he would have done the last if I'd not choked him off Said lot about the survival of the fttest and that the weak should be given for the stroeg. I wonder who'll go next, he or I? We gave the others to the sharks one by one at night. poor boys, and tried not to see. And now. who'll help me with him, for he's sure to go. he's got to go. he's got te get move on him; won't have any sodgering.
 Hi, there, you, Yes, you forard therel Who are you looking at? Get on with your work, Do you think this is pleasure yacht. you flounder-footed son of deck-walloper, Come to sea te get fat, do you? I'll soon take some of that off you! None of your back talk, now, I'll have no sea-lawyers on this ship
 v@There. there. this won't do, Keep ef4p on yourself Mister Mate. if you want to get out of this mess, believe I was beginning to feel a bit queer just then
 Now. let me see I'll try to think bit and get my mind eff this little picnic Where were we when the fire broke out? Oh, know We had passed St. Helena, and were beginning to make little east ing. so as to pick lip the sou east trade. Hang it all. he's looking at me again. + had just gone eight bells at the end of the middle watch, and the old man had been up in his pyjamas to look at the card he was always poking about when I should have been asleep, SO had the watch aft to take pull at the braces to make all ship-shape before turning in. when Forsyth came to me and said the air in his cabin was that thick he couldn't sleep. and wanted me to go down with him and see what I could make of it. Thought he smelled smoke; said he was SO used 10 bad smells in the ship, he couldn't be sure. Just then the second came up to take over the watch, and we went below. Talk about smells. Why the air was as thick as peasoup with smoke. and the fuddle-headed old Sotch- man couldn't smell it! Well. we reused the old man out and turned the hands up and got the matches open. The place was a merry hell down there, She was