Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-08-10
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Before Mate Carney got ashore-by the mercy of God
and seamanshp-he had shown the of the Annie T.
how to claw their imperiled craft off the nlurderous
Gridiron Reef when seemed that nothing could
the schooner. Carney saved her, and said nothing
when found out. 1t set Ships Bottom thinking
IF Jack Carney done what know he done-well
he got shot and he touched in the head first off,
And nobody never did sight that Mandarin's hull
Little Welsh said in ungrudging admiration "I she
sunk when she was wrecked she took her masts and
topworks with her, witch is uncommon, an don't
account for where all that truck from that Carney
fetched in. !"
Insensbly the mates proved courage stirred the
of Ships Bottom to sympathy with his logged deter
minaton. They were fighters against odds by trade,
and at least they respected superstition they could not
share.
Hes enough when he talks about ships calling
ships at sea- and Sneaking together a ca m. don no
about wrecked hooker coming back to where she
drowned; but I've ships cuddle up from miles
IN Paddys hurricane like they had engines working.
IimeM tell! And meanwhile" Casco switched the
subject abruptly, "the glass is falling like lump O
lead in shot tower. Jest listen to her blow! We're in
for bowler fit to blow that fool sand ship in the
bay she don't blow the other half of her ashore like
Carney's waiting for. YOU patrol, Welsh; better
post him."
The east wind was moaning with melancholy sound,
as though the sea struggling to tell It's grim secrets,
or the souls of dead saiormen weary of their
watery prison house-down among the blind fishes.
Little Welsh nodded he shook down the government
Vesuvius, and casually marked up "weeper comm"
the station log.
"Al right, Cap" the gunner said obviously, all stop
AT
stove; but e won't-not him"
"Why not?" Casco demanded
"Cause see him fshin' out wooden image seven
foot high today He's found his Chinee Mandarin
fggerhead last Jack Carney has, an finished up his
ship O sand Wat I'm waitin' for now" the gunner
gnned, "s that there wreck Mandarin to sailing
in front yard and git under the house that Jack
built, where she nacherly belongs cording to him.
Welsh went his way, and Casco climbed to the
lookout tower, thinking hard There had been plenty
of people to laugh Carneys folly; but Ships Bottom
laugh-and
mate had done. The fixed conviction of the castaway
had got in the coastguards blood Carney neither
fool coward. If they had been wrong about
that, maybe he was right about the Mandarin.
TT was like shadow that hung over Ships Bottom a
strange prescience of something pending that held
the life Captain the alert A sudden clamor below
brought him from the tower the jump, and the
message of the beach wire told him that the time for
action had come, even before they sighted the ship.
big bark coming in, close hauled, in the teeth of it,
DOM the hardest to claw off an missn stays reg lar,
Harvey Cedars says, his big voice doomed @Shes the
Morning Star that passed the Hook this morning out
ward bound. She's been blowed back in her reckonin.
And Lord! there's mort o people on her. Furriners!'
"Bowlin' for to bury up her bones.
Down. down-in-Davy Jones!''
"Who's singn'?" Casco cried angrily "Confound it!
There's ghosts abroad tonight! There it goes again"
bury her bones
in Davy Jones'"
They knew it was nothing, no more than the sug-
pestion reexed on the retna of their brains from the
sudden alarm of the Cedars 1.-THE next station SOUTH;
but it sent those brawny fighters staring white
faced at each other Big em Casco struggled out of
the trance.
lump the boat out, Johnny, an get all set! Well
have to bowl her out through the inet-reglar bone
breaker"
The doomed ship had passed the first life station and
reached Ships Bottom with railroad speed. Driven
back from the beach by the rollers, they watched her
black shape ramming in before it to her journeys end.
The aboard had given up attempts to save her.
Her three topmasts gone but her square topsa,
frozen the yard dragged her like chain cable to the
rocks.
ashes gone! The Cribs got her-an' they amt