A DISMAL SEA STORY.

Grey River Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 5396, 16 January 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

A DISMAL SEA STORY.

A terrible tale of the sea has jusl been told at Liverpool, says the London Daily Chronicle of October 22nd, by one of the survivors of the crew of the British steamer Lady Frances, wrecked on her passage from Shields to Alexandria. Save that cannibalism was avoided, there is not a conceivable element of horror wanting in the narrative given. We hear of a boat capsized between one and two in the morning, and eight of the men that were in her clinging to the keel for a time, and then, by desperate efforts succeeding in righting her. Seated in this frail craft, without food or water, for as usual, she had no locker provided with such means of prolonging life, they strained their eyes vainly in the hope of detecting the approaching of a sail. Weakened by starvation and maddened by burning thirst, they one by one began to loose their reason. " Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink,"theymighthavemoanedinthewords of the ancient mariner. The captain of the lost ship at length in his delirium, imagined that he had reached * ne whishedfor shore, and stepped cheerfully into the sea to return no more. He was followed at intervals by others of the doomed men >vho thus terminated their sufferings. But the steward became a furious madman, with a desire to attack his miserable companions. He wished to get possession of a knife, but baffled in that design he tried to dig the caulking from the boat, in order that she might sink, and he took other means, but in vain, to bring about the deaths of those still clinging to life. At last he, too, cast himself into the sea, leaving but two survivors of all those in the captain's bo«it — the men who have just been brought to Liverpool by the steamer Magdala. The occupants of the other boats that left the Lady Frances fared much better, for only one of them was drowned.