The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-10-07

THE acrid smell of scorching paint
aroused me. The hull above the wa
ter line glowed redhot from the buru-
ing oil beneath the steel deck that di-
vided the main hold from the lower.
A geyser of steam was rising from
the broken matches. The burning oil
beneath the steel lower divisional
deck had turned the Stirling Castle
into a monster floating cooker. The
sea water that had poured down the
shattered matches was bubbling like a
caldron.
Dawn was now at hand, the swift
coming dawn of the. tropics. The
storm had passed out to sea, and l
was alone upon this boiling, burning
ship. But she was steel and stanch
and still floating. The steam that
mounted high in the air would surely
mark us plain! There was yet hope
for me!
Galveston and it's needs were for
gotten. With selfish, human persist
ence, l chung but to one dull, aching
thought was alive and hardly hurt
or harmed. | should be saved! The
naked, the hungry, the hurt, the per
ishing, in the tangle of timber and
Iron and brick that had once been Gal
weston, must wait for other aid to
come. But | was alive, uninjured, and
the rest were gone who had sailed
this ship with me.
THE little Welshman who had toll
me of his family at Cardiff, his twin
babies who had red hair, who had
told too of his petted eldest daughter
who could play the parloT organ and
sing the hymns he liked-he was nor,
and the places that knew him would
know him no more. He, the brisk,
brave little Captain, was gone, dead.
The young supercargo, the dark hair
ed young Irishman from Belfast, Nc
Kenna, who had told me so proudly
that he was saving his money to buy
an interest in a little linen business
at home-he too was gone, drowned.
The crew, the stokers-those squat,
strong fellows who had amused them.
selves and me with blow forfeit horse
play when not on watch-had likewise
been swept away, floating some
where with swollen faces to the skies.
But l was saved, l was spared, alive
on a floating caldron!
THE steam Kissed higher, singing
through the deck seams as though es-
Gaping from a giants kettle. Great
foamy bulges of boiled rice came ris-
II ing out of the hatchways and mush-
IrOomed over the deck. And then l
saw the deck heave conversely and
a great, jagged seam opened down the
| length of it, as a cake cracks in the
baking, and up from the hold rose Il
light yellow mountain of cooked rice.
THE very rivets of the side plates
sheered off beneath the resistless
pressure of this expanding mass
Then felt myself lifted up with the
bridge, which tore loose with the
strain, and was aware of being slowly
and even gently turned over and
! dumped out upon the warm and sOggy
mass that rose and swelled and spread
as only rice in cooking can rise ana
spread and swell.
THE sundered Stirling Castle now
turned over on it's starboard side and
dropped into the deeps, -, while the
great mass of cooked rice, floating
! light and high, bObbed and quiveTed
in the outer edges of the whirlpool
gurgle of water where the ship had
sunk. One last hiss and mighty puff
of steam, as the water met the blaz-
ing oil and quenched it, and then sill
ence! And l was drifting off on the
slowly widening mass of cooked grain
that spread upon the sea, light vel
low in color, two hundred feet high, |
and acres in extent Five thousand
bushels of rice cooked in one vast
quantity needs the wide sea to serve
it as its dish!
IlSlG anu IllSlS SOluG Dll0 Vi NIGCk-
age clung,-a stoker's coat, some bar
rel slaves, a coil of rope, part of the
bridge and pilothouse, and the blue
banded funnel of what had once been
the stanch tramp steamer Stirling
Castle. But this was all. The rest
was rice-cooked rice.
Mechanically | bent down AMI |
scooped up handful. I had. not far
to stoop; for l had sunk to my knees
by my own weight in the soggy mess. !
l touched the handful to my lips, and
a cry of wonder escaped me- At least
was not to starve while my strange
island held together; for the sea wa
ter had sailed it, the sugar had
sweetened it, the eggs had en-
riChed il, the very cases of sDices