The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-02-25
CHAPTER XXI.

= got to Cazones all right and found
Valdez and his ragged rapscalliOns
awaiting me, and within fOTty-elght
hours we had landed all the arms and
1 was ready for sea again, when at sun
set a government cruiser suddenly ap-
peared around the point I slipped the
cable, and. having a full head of steam,
tried to escape, when the cruiser at
once opened fire on US at less than
couple of cable lengths, and the fourth
shell from her Armstrong Foreground
ers burst in the engine room, killed
three men, made holy smash up OF
the engines and brought US to-
Half an hour afterwards, 1, Clancy.
big Sam aad Rocket and the rest of
the crew were in irons and on our way
TO Caracas. There We were tried and
sentenced 70 death, but later on the
sentence was cCmmuted to seven years
in irons. The ship, being under the Ii
berian flag, the British government
could not or would not, interfere on
our behalf, and left US to our fate
For three long years we suffered the
torrents Of the damned in that hen Of
a prison in Caracas, and would have
been there for another four had not an
other revolution burst uD the rotten
government and opened the doors OF
our prison.
seWith Clancy I made my way back
i III
and child had left for Caracas two
months after the Bass Rock had been
/ captured. She wished to at least be
| near me in my captivity, for she had
/ learnt from the foreign office that there
was no possible hope of the British gov
/ eminent attempting to interfere on my
| behalf, but thought that with the two
/ hundred pounds she possessed she
would perhaps be able to do something
/ for me with my gaolers. First of all,
/ though, on the day after that on which
/ the news of my seizure was published
! she went to PattermoTe and begged
him to lend her a few hundred pounds
/ q was told all this by Nina Chester.)
/ He professed to be highly indignant at
her making such an appeal 10 him.
What have to do with your hus-
/ band. madam he said. The Bass
/ Rock was not my ship; if your husband
! chooses to engage I'm such improper
/ transactions and is caught, what right
have you to come begging to me for
/ assistance? 1t Is quite bad enough Tor
me to see reports in the newspapers
/ that I was the owner of the steamer
reports which 1 have promptly contra
! dicted' Good morning, madam
My poor wife went away bewildered
and desperate. On the following day
she wrote to her father and begged him
/ to give her a hundred pounds 10 aid
/
was returned to her unopened. Then
she and her sister Nina, who had al
| ways been loyal to her, tried to see
| Patterrnore at his office. 4 clerk came
| and said that Mr.. PatteTmOre declined
to see Mrs. Christie either then or at
any other time
! .sSbe made her way to London and
took passages for herself and the child
in a steamer named The Hope, for La
/ Guayra. She was an old and ill-found
| craft. but my wife had no choice; she
| had not anything like enough money
TO nav her passage in a better ship
and the captain of The Hope, taking
/ pity on her, only charged her NOM
/ inaI sum. for which the Almighty has
rewarded him.
/ six weeks after the steamer sailed
from London one of her boats was
picked UP near Blanquilla island, OF
| the Venezuelan coast. In 1t were the
dead bodies of my wife, my child, and
the captain and five other men. They
had all persisted of thirst. Another
boat. in charge Of the mate, reached
Tortuga. and reported that The Hope
had foundered In hurricane between
! Grenada and Tortuga-
when Clancy and I reached Eng
land we found that Tobias Pattermore
had sold out his English interests and
gone to Australia. where he had estao-
Iisbed a big business. We, accOmpa-
MED by Rocket and big Sam, followed
for ] was burning with resentment
against the hypocritical scoundrel fol
the way in wrich he had treated my
wife At night, Tom, I would dream
oh Cod such agonizing dreamsi
saw her blackered lips and hollow eyes
waving her hand to me and trying Il
utter my name. and then pointing t
our dead child who lay upon her knees
as the boat drifted upon sea OF glas:
under a blazing sun. and l called Il
, her: HAIice, my Alice, / am coming
and tried to rise, and hen l would
: hear the clank of my chains as I tr e.
to burst my letters in my agony o