The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-08-14
An Ancient
Mariner ale
By F. A. Mitchell

The bells were tolling In a fishing
village where. was temporarily stop,
ping. On a wooden bench facing the
ocean sat an old man, and l, having
time on my hands, sat down beside
him. asked him the cause Of the
tolling, and he said that sea captain
who had long been resident Of the
place had died and was being buried.
I remarked on the dismal effect OF the
strokes, each stroke following the one
before after a long interval in painful
regularity.
"You think that dismal sound, sirT'
said the old man. what would you
think II you heard a bell a-tOllin' for
the dead that bad been rugged by their
selves for that particular purpose? In
this yere case sexton is pullin' on
the rope; in the case I'm talkin' about
the dead was a-tollin' the bell"
looked aside at the old man curl
ously. There was something about
him to indicate that he had been a
sailor and a light In his eye that
caused me to wonder II he were not
an Ancient Mariner with tale to tell
Though the light did not exactly indi-
cate insanity, the fact Of his speaking
Of the dead tolling their own funeral
bells looked suspicious. / asked him
to explain, and he did so as follows:
when / was younker sailed from
this port every two or three years for
the east. There was no Suez canal In
them days, and we always went around
the Horn or the Cape. On one O. them
voyages when we was in the Pacific
what I'm goin' to tell you happened.
The Pacific Is so big that it's kind O.
lonesome. When a pusson has seen
nothin' but water for a month and
nary a ship or sighted land, even a
sailor will sometimes feel as If he's
lost in never endin' space.
zone night when we'd had reason to
feel that way l was one o. the watch,
and, sailin' along in the darkness
there was neither moon or stars-I
thort heard the faint sound of bell.
I listened hard and heard it again.
When l heard it third time asked
one O. the watch II he heard 1t too.
He listened and said he did. Then
knowed 1t wasn't my fancy.
zone after another the rest o. the
watch heard the sound. 1t wasn't reg
ular; the strokes come any way. There
wasn't no bell at sea that ever made
such sounds except a bell buoy. But
we was in the middle O. the Pacific
ocean. where there wasn't no need Of
bell buoy. And vet the strokes kept
comm. sometimes near together, some
times far apart, sometimes heavy,
sometimes light and in that big ocean
o. blackness atop and below they was
awful melancholy.
Either we was movin' toward the
sounds or they was movin' toward us
or mebbe both. Anyway they was
CROWN palmer The ole man come
on deck all of sudden. He'd heard
the tollin' and couldn't make it out.
1t drifted past us in the darkness,
soundin' clear for awhile, then CROWN
fainter astern. The ole man couldn't
bear to lose 1t without KNOWN what
it was and give an order to put the
ship about and stand by or follow II
needed till dawn. which was a couple
o. hours or. So we did, and durin'
them two hours, the dolefulest ever
experienced. we kept within the sound
o. that bell
"Mornin' come at last, and a couple
o. miles away we saw somepin black,
which. as the light growed, turned out
to be a dismantled ship. She was
a-rollin' and a-plungin', and every time
she rolled or plunged we heard that
solemn tollin' That's what we'd been
hearin'-the wrecks bell
THE old man allowed that she was
derelict with no one aboard Of her
and her bell rope had rolled away or
become unlashed. We sailed up to
within a short pun of her, and the
second mate boarded her, | bein' one
o. the boats crew to take him there.
Her decks were awash, and 1t was
plain there was nothin' alive on her
before we got to her. We went on to
her deck for'ard. which was a little
higher than the stern. and looked
; around. but we didn't go below. One
o. the men looked down hatch, and
his report was not encouragin' for us
to go down among the dead men, and
we let 'em alone.
well, now, l told you that I'd
known case where the dead tolled
their own funeral bell This was It
The crew, KNOWN they was doomed
. had nailed board up near the bel
and had painted on 1t message
All hope gone. The ships bell viii toll
! our requiem.
, 'They had cut away the bell rops
) entirely.
Wed brought a blast with Us Il