Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-08-24

and nizzen was gone. The jigger topmast
was a splintered stump of pine. The steel
bulwarks and rails were shattered and torn
as though by shot and shell. When she
rolled her underbody into sight she exposed
a growth of grass as rank and long as an
unkempt lawn. Along the rail of the raised
deck amidships was line of pasty, scruvy-
marked faces, the handful of men apparently
left from her company, and with no master
among them.
Helen Muir would have gone with Pericles
when he went away in the Electra's motor
surfboat to board the Drumliebank; but he
declared against it, and there was no moving
him. He and Johnny Coogan found the
bare frame of Willie Faulkner, afame with
fever and delirium, in the masters cabin.
One of his legs in splints told of break.
What they saw in the quarters of the Drum
liebank's skipper made them shudder, strong
men though they were. Men had suffered
there, suffered terribly, and the almighty
sea had tried to get them even in this refuge.
The story that came from the lips of the
eight men and two apprentice boys-all that
survived of a company of twenty-six which
had sailed from Liverpool-took but mo-
ment in the telling.
THE second officer and two men had been
lOSC Ill d SdIC Oil CilC l1olI. oui "SSho
of dead calm had followed the day of their
being spoken on the line Then had come
wonderful day with fair breeze which
had given the ship one hundred miles of
northing. The apprentice boys spoke OF
this day as if they had beheld miracle But
on the heels of this breeze gale had risen
from the eastward. This had flung the ship
into the arms of hurricane and far to the
westward, out of the track of all kindred
trafickers.
The wreck of things aloft told the story
of the part the hurricane had played in the
Drumliebank's affairs. The main royal
yard, falling; had killed the first officer and
two men in their tracks and broken Faulk-
ner's leg. The rest of those who were miss
ing had gone in an attempt to cut away the
wreckage over the side SO as to keep it from
piercing the hull With fresh provisions ex-
hausted and rations low, disease and fever
had come aboard. If there had been one
day of fair wind, there had been two of foul.
Head winds or Gains had been the rule.
All the oil aboard was gone. 1t had
been poured away upon the waters. For
a month these men had not seen a lighted
lamp until the Electra had flashed by in
the gale.
DERICLES carried Willie Faulkner in his
arms back to the Electra, and as he laid
him down in his own room he wondered If
John Laysan, IT,, had not seemed heavier
when he had last held him.
"My boy, my own boy!" cried Helen
Muir, kissing the brow of the wreck OF man
at whose side she threw herself.
Only woman's love could have borne the
touching of lips to him as he lay that day.
Proctor tried to draw her away. She stood
up and faced Pericles.
"Can we save him2 VIII he live?' she
asked, and the man who looked down at her
beheld a woman gazing at him, woman,
whose girlhood had suddenly slipped away,
and one for whom man might well lose
world.
"There's life there, little woman. We're
going to fight to keep the flame going.
At three O'Clock that afternoon Johnny
Coogan came to the door of the room and
interrupted Pericles in the task of making
cast for Faulkner's leg.
"Im going now, Sir. My own six DULLES
are ready I've everything aboard plenty
of spuds and fresh stuff. | wish | had a
couple of lawn mowers too. | want to say
say-thanks and goo-goodby for four or five
weeks" Tears were sneaking down his
weather-beaten cheeks.
ats your chance, Johnny Coogan,' said
Pericles. "Take it-and make good"
IL WILL but l want to say if God!
you're just square, that's all!'
With a wringing handclasp Coogan was
oona RI taka the Dr11n11iehank into San