The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-03-05

the fighting was over there was no one left of our enemies except just the warders, the mates, and the doctor.
 "tTt was over them that the great quarrel arose. There were many of us who were glad enough to win back our freedom, and yet who had no wish to have murder on our souls. It was one thing to knock the soldiers over with their nluskets in their hands, and it was another to stand by while men were being killed IEt cold blood Eight of us, five convicts and three sailors, said that we would not see it done. But there was no moving ndengast and those V[S1<, were with him. Our only chaL.e:a of safety lay in making a clean job of it, said he and he would not leave 2 tongue with power to wag in R. vs3'- neSS5box. It nearly came to our siiar- ing the fate of the prisoners, but ct last he said that if we wished 1-e might take a boat and go. We juplpet at the offer, for We were already SICK of these bloodthirsty doiHgs, and we saw that there would be worse before it was done. We were given a suit Of sailor togs each, a barrel Of water, two casks, one of junk and one of biscuits. and a compass. Freno gast ttH1ew us over a chart, told us that we were shipwrscIped mariners whose ship had foirndered in Latitude IS minutes and Longitude 25 degrees west, and then cut the painter and let us go.
 ".And now I come to tht most sur prising part of my story, my dear son. The seaman had hauled the fore-yard ,aback during the rising, but now as we left tl1e1n they brought it square again, and as there was a light wind from the north and east the bark began to draw slowly away from us. Our boat lay. rising and falling upon the smooth rollers, and Evans and I, who were the most ed ucabed of the party, were sitting In the sheets working out our posllon and planning what coast we should make for It was a nice question, for the Cape de de Vertis were about five hundred miles to ths north or us and the African coast about seven hundred to the east On the whole, as the wind was coming round to the north, we thought that Sierra Leone might be best, and turned our head in that direction, the bark being at thattirrle nearly hull down on our star board quarter. Suddenly as we looWed at her we saw a. dense black cloud or smoke shoot up from her. which hung like a monstrous tree upon the SKY like thunder burst upon our ears, ana as the smoke thinned away there was no sign left of the Gloria Scott in an instant we swept the boats head round again and pulled with all our strength for the place where the haze stiM trailing over the water marked the scene of this csatastrophe.
  reached it. and at first we feared that we had come too late to save any one. A sp1intered boat and a number of crates and fragments of spars rising and falling on the waves showed US where the vessel had foundered; but there was no sign of life, and we had turned away in despair when we heard a cry for help, and saw at some distance a piece of wreckage with a man lying stretched across it. When we pulled him aboard the boat he proved to be a young seaman of the name of Hudson, who was so burned and exhausted that he could give US no account of what had happened until the following morning.
 " Tt seemed that after we had left, Prendergast and his gang had pro- ceeded to put to death the five re- naining prisoners. The two warders had been shot and thrown overheard, and so also had the third mate. Prem dergast then descended into the 'tween-decks and with his own hands cut the throat of the unfortunate sur mate, who was a bold and active man. When he saw the convict ap- preaching him with the bloody knife in his hand he kicked off. his bonds which he had somehow contrived to loosen, and rushing down the deck he plunged into the after-ho1d. A dozen convicts, who descended with their pistols in search of him, found him with a matchbox in his hand seated beside an open powder-barrel,