A BRIDE FROM THE SEA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1649, 7 October 1903, Page 5

A BRIDE FROM THE SEA.

One morning when the American, ship Tornado was about 50 miles south of the Madeiras, I was called to the lookout two hours after midnight. I was digging my eyes and fighting away sleep when a curious sound from over the bows caught my ear. It was a dark night, with not a star visible, and I could not see beyond the end or the jibboom. As I listened to the noise the only thing I could compare it to was the noses of sharks bumping against a small boat.

It would have been ridiculous to call to the mate and give him any such explanation, but I finally reported the curious noises and left the cause for him to find out. He brought up and lighted a port fire, and the glare illuminated the &ea -or a hundred feet around, and the first thing wo saw was a ship’s boat within had a cable’s length of us on the port how. In the bottom of the .boat were two human figures, and one of them was a woman, and all around the boat the sea was alive with sharks. They were diving under the craft, running their noses against it and seeking in otner ways to upset it. Had it been a short, boat it could not have withstood their attacks.

As soon a-s , wo oa-ught sight of the boat the mate ran to call the captain. By the time ho had arrived the boat, had drifted right down against us, and one of the crew lowered himself down and fastened the painter. Tlien I get down to assist him and we passed up the bodies— the man first,.. We might as wejll have dropped him into the sea, for he had been dead at least 24 hours. As we lifted ud the woman, having not a doubt that she was also dead, she moved and uttered a groan and gave us a great fright. We had her on board in a couple of minutes, and the small boat, which was a captain’s gig, new and without a name,, was later hoisted up. We found the woman greatly exhausted through thirst and hunger, but with lire enough to build hopes on. and sue was cared for so well that art the end of two or three hours it was reported that she had fallen into a deep sleep and woujld probably pull through.

It may surprise you to learn how long that castaway female slept. At intervals the captain raised her head to administer soup ‘.or drink, but not actually to interrupt her sleep, and she did not open her eyes until 50 hours had passed. Then sleep had brought her back to life. It was two or three days plater, however, before we heard her story, or, to our great amazement, learned that there was no story to tell. The woman could remember nothing of the past—not even her name. If you have ever read Clark Bussell you wijl remember two such incidents in his books. You may have set them down as “sailors’ yarns,” nut such things have happened on land a dozen times over. The woman awoke to find herself aboard a strangle ship, with strange men about her. She was handsome and well formed, English in looks and speech, but the wore no jewellery and had neither a purse nor a card case. When asked how she came to be at sea with the man in the gig—whether she had visited Madeira or the Azores—whether she lived in England or elsewhere—she aou,ld tell absolutely nothing. She began a new ife as she opened her eyes in the cabin of the Tornado.

These things all came to us on deck because the case was a mystery, and because the more it was talked over the sooner a solution might be found. After three or four days' both cabin and forecastle came to the same conclusion —that the sailor must- have been nowing the woman off to a ship, or was rowing from ship to snore, at> some of the islands. The boat had not been provisioned, and she had been at sea. for four or five days. One would have thought that the sailor would have borne up better than the woman, but he may not have been in good health. Of course, the right thing to do was to .leave the woman at Fayal, but she strongly objected to this plan, saying fonts sue he penniless and among strangers. It was finally decided to carry her *on to our port, and upon arriving there she was placed in charge of the English consul and her story given to the papers.

To add to the romance, or rather, to make a romance of it, our captain fell in lore with the woman, and she returned the sentiment, she would have married him at the end of a few months, but he dared not chance to risk it. He fully believed that she was already a wife, and that word must come from her husband sooner or later. As for her, the past was dead. It was doubted whether she would remember her husband if he came to claim her. She loved as any single woman might love. .Eventually however, the captain’s infatuation overcame his prudence and they were married.

One evening four years after the wedding, th captain of an English ship just in called at the chandler’s in the way of trade. Something happened to be said about the Azores, and the etranger at once began a sorrowful story. Six years before, while his ship was at the islands, his wife attempted to return to the snip in the face of a squall, and the boat was upset and the

occupants lost. They found neither the boat nor bodies, hut had no doubt about the calamity. The husband was nearly crazed with grief and was a victim of brain fever for many months. The story was not half told when Captain Clark knew that the woman’s real husband stood before him. Whether he would have suppressed the truth or boldly stated it, no man but him can tell, but he was not put to the trial. The climax was a curious one, but in keeping. The stranger, who gave his name as Burke, was looking at Captain Clark in a puzzled way as he told Iris story, perhaps having some faint intuition of the »truth, when a small anchor swinging from a beam above his head broke loose from its fastenings and fell upon and crushed the 2ife out of him, and ho was dead with the words of his story yet upon his lips.