CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10034, 22 January 1896, Page 3

CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

- A CARGO OP BURNING COAL.

[by an old shipmaster.] A good many years back, when I was an able young seaman on board the barque Raleigh, I had an experience that was both exciting and strange. Oar vessel was loaded with coal, and bound from Philadelphia to Australia. The run down to the equator had been a slow b,ub pleasant one, owing not only to the mild, beautiful weather that we had held right along since sailing, but because the Raleigh had what was something of a novelty in those days, in the way of an excellenb and kindly set of officers. We were what is called a "happy ship."

After reaching the parallel of 20 degrees south we got a stress of weather for over a week, in which several of our sails were blown away and a number of our light spars were wrecked. All our live stock .of pigs and chickens were drowned, owing to the flooding of our decks, for we sab very low in the water.

On the day that we ran into pleasant weather .again we started to take off the hatches, when a gassy, choking smell poured out of the ouoning. The cargo was on fire. There was only one thing to doto replace the hatches, bore holes through them', and pump streams of water into the hold, endeavouring to drown tho fire before it gained additional headway. All hands were called to the task, and for 24 hours we worked for our lives, the crew being divided into relief gangs so that the deck pumps might be kept constantly going.

Before another morning came, however, we know that the ship was doomed, for the decks grew hot under our feet, and through various crevices the weakening, nauseating fumes of coal gas poured, overpowering us at times as we plied the pumphandles. The wind died away, leaving the ship becalmed, and over and around her hung a sickly blue pall of vapour, Then the order was given to provision tho boats and desert tho Raleigh. Wo pulled a little way from the vessol and rested on our oars, watching the noble ship. As long as she floated there we seemed to have something to cling to on the wide, desolate reach of waters. Shortly afterward the mainmast swayed like a drunken man, then with an awful crash it pitched over the side, dragging with it the foretopgallanb mast and tho mizzen topmast. Through the broken deck a column of winding sulphurous flame shot into the air. The pitch ran wriggling out of the Beams of the Raleigh's planking, and fell hissing in little showers into the water alongside as the vessel rolled sluggishly on the swells. An hour later the barque was a mass of flames, and we pulled away to escape from the heat. There were two boats, the captain commanding one and the chief mate the other. Each bad been provided with a chart and compass, and in addition to these instruments, the two officers had carried away their sextants in order to navigate by the sun and stars. Into each boat had been stowed food and water, which it was calculated would las abou ten days by putting all hands on short allowance ; but it was hoped that before the provisions were consumed we would either bo picked up by a passing vessel or successful in sailing to Rio Janeiro, distant from us something less than 600 miles. The captain's boat being the larger of the two carried the second mate, steward, cook, and eight seamen, while the mate's boat hold the carpenter and four seamen -mysolf included among the latter. The boats laid alongside of ono another while the captain and mate decided upon the course to be steered ; then we separated, mado sad to the south-east breezo that had set in, and stretched away into the northwest, the captain's boat in the lead. The wind gathered strength from the southeast, giving us a following breeze for the port toward which we were steering, and both boats made good weather of the moderate sea then running, sweeping along at the rate of five knots to the hour.

All that afternoon the boats kept within sight of ono another, and when night fell not over a quarter of a mile divided us. With the first Hush of dawn we swept the expanse of waters, but nothing was to be seen. Wo were alone. Every little while during the day that followed we would scan the horizon, hoping to lift the longboat's sail into view ; but in vain. We never saw her again, or heard tidings of the 12 brave souls from whom wo had parted only a few hours before. That she nover reached, port is cortain; but what her ultimate fate proved no one knows. It blew up a gale of wind that afternoon, and I heard the mate say that the storm experienced during the week that was past had recurved, and that wo would get it worse than ever on its back track. To provent the boat from foundering we unstopped the mast, made a span to it by securing a length of rope to each end, and to the middle of tho bridle we bent the boat's painter. Then we dropped the sea-anchor over the bows, and rode to it, the strain upon the painter keeping thehead of the boat to the sea that rolled down on us. When night settled upon the deep it shut out one of tho wildest nights of ocean-lashed waters that I had over seen, but the darkness only intensified tho terror, for in tho blackness we would feel the frail boat swung with dizzy velocity up and up and up on some mountainous sea, as though she was never going to stop; then, while tho groat seething crest was roaring in a thousand diabolical voices about us, she would drop down, down, down with a motion that was like falling through space. It might have been the middle of the night when, worn out from the labour of bailing without'intermission for many hours, I threw myself down in the bows of the boat, and locking my arms around one of tho thwarts to keep from being pitched about, I fell into an exhausted sleep. I don't know how long I slept, but I was brought to my senses by a sea bursting into the boat, and I found my logs wedged under the seat as I Rat half suffocated on the flooring with the water up to my armpits. Looking aft, I could see by the phosphorescent glow of the breaking seas that no shapes of men were visible against tho background of sky. My companions wero gone. The gunwale of tho boat was within a few inches of the water, and it needed only tho spume of another wave falling into the boat to sink her. There was no time for indulging in grief over the loss of my shipmates— there was time only for work, and very little for that, if I was to save my life. Tearing off my cap I used ib as a bailer and worked desperately. At last another morning came, and with it the galo broke ; but I allowed the boat to remain hovo to during that day and following night, so as to give the seas a chance to go down. Tho eocond morning dawned clear and beautiful, with tho ocean subsided into long even swells, and the wind settled down again to the rogular trades. Most of the provisions had been ruined by the sea that had filled the boat, but I found two watertight tins filled with pilot bread that promised to supply my needs for some time to come. The fresh water in the boat breakers had kept sweet owing to the bungs being in place. I had opened one of the tins, and was sitting on a thwart making a breakfast from its contents, when, happening to look astern, I mado out, not more than a mile away, tho wreck of a small vessel. Everything about the foremast was standing below the crosstrees, but only the splintered stumps of her main and mizzen masts wero to bo seen abovo the deck, while the spars themselves, together with their gear, were hanging in a wild confusion over the side. I got in my drag, re-stepped the mast, sot the sail, and bore down upon the wreck. As I drew close to her I expected to see some signs of her crew, for the vessel sab fairly high in the water, and looked seaworthy enough to be navigated into port by making sail upon the fore and rigging up jury masts on the two stumps abaft—plenty of material for such to be found in the raffle alongside. Mo evidence, however, of life showed itself when I rounded under the stern, reading the name Mercedes in large white letters. Letting fly my sheet, I caught the leeward chain-plates, and jumping on board with the painter, I secured tho same to a belaying-pin and looked about me.

Entering the cabin I overhauled the four state-rooms it contained, finding in three of them nothing bub such odds and ends as are peculiar to sailors' chests, and in the fourth room, which had boon used as a pantry, quite an assortment of boxes and barrels of provisions, although there was proof that some of them had been broken into and rummaged quite recently. Then I went on deck again and lifted off quo, guile, main, hatgli cQvets. No cargo of

any nature wag to be seen, nothing bub a mass of black, oily water washing from side to side. It was plain that the vessel was in ballast, that she had sprung a leak in the lasb gale of wind, that her crew had become frightened, had given her up for lost, and taken to the boats. It was also clear that the leak had stopped itself in some manner—possibly when the old tub had ceased straining after the sea went down—and that if I could pump out the hull I might be able to put her before the wind by making sail on the fore, and so, with the favouring trade winds, let the Mercedes drift along to the port dead away to leeward. By the time night arrived I had sunk the water in the hold to half its original depth. Thon I settled away the topsail and let ib hang. The jib I left standing, knowing that it would help to keep the vessel out of the trough, even if it did little or no good in the way of forcing the barque ahead. The weather promised to continue clear and moderate, so I built a fire in the galley range, brought a quantity of stores from the pantry, and made a hearty meal. I "turned in all standing," as seamon say when they go to bed without undressing, and slept long and heavily. The next morning I again set my topsail, and scudded away to leeward while I finished clearing the barque of water. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. I had gone up on the little topgallantforecastle to have a look at the Mercedes' ground-tackle, when 1 made out, about two points on the bow, and less than a mile away, a ship's boat filled with men. They had discovered the barque, for they were pulling to got in her path. As soon as I appeared to them there was a waving of hats and a confusion of cheers and calls. By the time that I had settled away tho topsail-halyards and pulled the jib down the boat was alongside, and her late occupants wera tumbling over the rail, The first one to touch the deck was a fat little man, almost as swarthy as a Malay, and twice as dirty, who wore enormous gold hoops in his ears and a dilapidated red fez upon a mop of greasy black hair. He rushed up to me so wild with excitement that he kept hopping up and down like a juuiping-jack, while he smote his breast and screamed something in Portuguese. I shook my head and said, thumping my own breast, "No speakee Portuguese; me American 1"

At this he yelled, accompanying his words with such a tremendous smiting of his poor ribs that I thought he would break them in.

"Me speakoe Americano ! Me Cnpitano! Me Capitano this sheep 1 How you come ? me say ?" I saw how it was. I had picked up the crew of the Mercedes three days after they had abandoned tho vessel to which they had just returned. I held up ray hand as a sign to the frantic, jabbering monkeys to keep silence, then I explained partly by broken English and the rest by signs bow I had found the bark deserted, had pumped her out, and was trying to reach the coast of South America in her. I ended by telling the captain that I was glad to see him and to give him back his vessel. He was so overpowered with gratitude and joy at such an unexpected and happy ending to his troubles that he flung his dirty arms around ray neck and kissed my cheeks effusively in the fulness of his heart. I was an honoured guest on board the captain's "sheep" from that time forth, and several days later, when, crippled and torn, the poor old Mercedes staggered into the beautiful harbour of Rio Janeiro, and 1 took leave of the uncouth bub kindly and grateful sailor, he repeated his kissing act, and forced into my hand a small bag of gold pieces, representing probably all his savings, while he said : " You take dees. Me love brave Americano sailor who save mo "-Harper's Round Table.