The Adair County news., 1913-12-31
THE ONLY
ONE LEFT
By M. QUAD
Copyright, 1913, by Associated Lit
erary Press.
By M. QUAD

/ made the voyage from London to
Rio on board the Duchess. having a
crew of fourteen, all told. At Rio we
| loaded green coffee for Australia. We
| got away with a fair wind and every
body in perfect health. and our run to
the east, until we had sighted Inac-
cessible island and left it a hundred
miles astern, was something to boast
Of. Then came dead fat calm, which
lasted for eleven days. On the fifth
| day of the calm two men were sud
| denly stricken with a strange ailment.
| They were reported sick at s o'clock
in the morning; by 2 p. N. both were
| dead; at o'clock a third man was
taken down and lived only two hours.
Green coffee will sometimes breed
fever on a long, hot voyage, but the
symptoms of these men were so
strange that some other explanation
had to be looked for No one was at
| tackled on the sixth day, but on the
| seventh the captain, second mate and
| a common sailor all came down at
| once. The first complaint was dryness
of the tongue. That was followed in
half an hour by loss of sight and other
! senses and before noon all were dead.
! On the night of the seventh day a
sailor WHO had lain down on the deck
| in perfect health and soundly slum-
| bered for three hours awOke with
| parched tongue. He did not wait to
| die as others had done. but CROPPED his
way to the ships side and dropped
from the rail into the sea. He was
| the sixth who had died. and the living
were panic stricken.
We had now lost nearly half our
crew, and the ship lay heaving on the
! CLASSY sea without sign that the calm
was ever to be broken. On the morn
| ing of the eighth day there was bet
ter feeling. however. At noon every
man ate a hearty dinner An hour
| later four men were taken down at
| almost the same moment, and the
symptoms were more violent than in
any of the preceding cases. There
was no burial of the bodies; they were
simply thrown overheard as soon as
life had departed. When this had been
accomplished, the mate called the liv
ing around him and said there was
no longer any hope that any man
would be spared. The captains gig
could be got at handily, and in case
we wanted to take it and pull away
from the ship he would help to get her
in the water. The two sailors were
eager to get off. but my mind was
quickly made up to remain with Mr..
Merwin.
When the mate and l were left
alone he wrote up his log book and
also prepared two statements, which
he sealed up and cast overheard. That
night when l went to sleep the bark
was heaving about on the ground swell
in the, same mOnotOnous way, and Mr..
Merwin sat at the table in the cabin
reading a book. l slept the night
through without a break, and it was
sunrise when l turned out. l looked
into the mates staterOOm. but saw
that he had not been to bed. | ran on
deck, but he was nowhere to be seen.
l called him and began search, and
it was a full hour before l gave UP
and realized that he was not in the
ship. What had happened during the
night l could only surmise He had
not wakened me nor left message.
When | fully realized that | was
alone aboard of the ship l was so ter
rified that l hid away in the cabin for
several hours.
Things were not at all clear to me
until the morning of the eleventh day
of the calm. Then awoke to find my
self feeling as well as ever in my life
and ran on deck to find signs of change
in the weather. | knew how to make
a signal of distress of the English flag,
and, although there was nO-wind. ran
the bunting alOft
Ii was 8 O'Clock in the afternoon be-
fore the first catspaws began playing
over the CLASSY surface of the sea. but
in the course of half an hour steady
breeze set in from the north. and the
bark went drifting away before it.
During the next five days and nights
the breeze blew from every point of
the compass except the east. but did
not rise to a gale nor create heavy
sea. | had little to do except to cook
my meals and go alOft to look for sails.
but | made as much work for myself
as could and did not permit my mind
to dwell on the present or future. On
the seventh or eighth day of my lone
illness at O'Clock in the afternoon and
while the bark was drifting to the east
under a light breeze / went aloft and
made out a sail to the north. a second
to the south and a third to the west.
The first two We're too far away to
| hope for assistance. The third was
coming up and must pass me close.
! She was but a speck on the horizon
| when l made her out, but two hours
later l had her in plain sight, and at
| O'Clock she was up with me. She prov
! ed TO be the ship Amazon of Liverpool.
! bound for the Cape with soldiers and
emigrants. and a crew was put aboard
| Of the derelict. and she headed for
that port in company. Ship and cargo
were worth big sum of money, but !
was not entitled to a dollar of salvage.