Evening star., 1909-08-29
By Herman Scheffauer
Drawing by NJ. Leone Bracker

by her masters words The Scraps was framed out
of the toughest white oak, her tnbers We're heavy
and stanch, her seams new caked, her masts Of
picked Norwegian pine. From famous Belfast ward
she came twelve years before, and i'll of sea or
shore had ever befallen her
Dark green and fecked with foam between black
= and gloomy headlands tlanked by ragged huks
of sinister rocks and helmets of basa that thrust
their ugly shapes from the furious waters the straits
opened before the Seraps The savage and desolate
peaks on both sides looked down like giants on this
white pennoned bird of the that flew straight and
undaunted between their formidable feet and the
jaws of the white fanged bluffs where bleached the
skeletons of shattered ships. Perpetual rain and
gloom brooded on this region of warning elements
Yet safely and swiftly the Scraps fought her way
through the fierce currents Of the straits past this
stormy gateway to burst into the peaceful of
the West. The billows Of the Pacific broke
against her sides.
Several days had passed. and still the Scraps was
wrapped from keel to mantop in the black mood of
the skipper Mary Vance stood for hours by the taft
rail- her pale blue eyes yearning for sign portent
wandering along the llimitable flats, searching
the bland and Interchangeable horizon The soul of the
unhappy woman in torment, and she knew the
soul of her husband wrthed within him. All human
things housed in the belly of this ship felt this bitter
ness as the Serapis spreading her wings
foa1ned steadily northward her track To the
east at times the sharp covered spines of the
Andes glimmered pallidly through the gray dis
tances.
Where be we now Mr. Monroe?' asked the Cap
tans wife the mate stood noon with sextant to
the SUM-
"Fifty-four south; seventy-six thirty minutes
west" replied the officer.
And the course?"
Due north"
And when do we reach the Tigers Tooth?
think, ma am, with this wind, WEI be there at
four bells
When the four slow sweet strokes on the bell
peaed across the waters, Mary Vance kneelng
by the stern rail of the Serap the allow glow of the
sinking investing her with the light of another
world. In her hands she held Of white flowers
sc
an old bonnet. These, with loving looks and trem-
bling hands, she the white boiling wake of the
ship Half mile to the east sharp fanglike rock
protruded above ring of foam. 1t was the Tigers
Tooth
The woman clasped her thin hands in prayer and
inclined her waxen forehead on them. So she knelt
and prayed for long time The sailors moved by
her, tiptoed, in silence.
A Captain Vance lay in his berth that night
Z ing with hot and sleepess eyes on the darkness
filled with an oppressive heat he saw the spectral
form of his wife approach the weak weird light the
stars cast on the She knelt beside him. her warm
embracing his neck, and when she laid her lips
close to his he felt tear pass from her cheek to
his
Jamie" she said, did We see the log to-day?"
No. he replied.
Just few hours ago, Jamie, we were in seventy
six thirty yone west; ffty-f twenty-three south
do ye no remember it. just three year ago. half
mile off the Tigers Tooth? Do ye no remember
darling BARN, Robin and the dark day put
his poor wee body over the side in this bitter spot!
Oh. I've not forgotten it, jamie and to-day when
passed over the same place threw some blooms on
his grave and said prayers. It's over his head we
sailed to-day, Jamie, and it seemed to me could see
dear dead baby lying down there in the deep
bottom, in the thick kelp and the coral, the sweet
fruit of flesh sleeping thousands of fathoms deep
with Gods awful monsters swimming about his
blessed curly head and his bonny blue eyes looking
up at me through the And for the sake of our
dear dead BARN, Jamie, and for the sake of them
that to US, and for the sake of your own
immortal SOUL jamie We will no burn the ship? Tell
me, Jamie, we will no burn the ship!"
Captain Vance loosed himself from the hold of the