THE SEAMAN'S NARRATIVE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2130, 20 December 1894, Page 28

THE SEAMAN'S NARRATIVE.

HE Jason caught afire at about 4 bells in the afternoon of r December 23. She burned so fast, her lading being chiefly > woods, spices, and oil, that « there was no manner of hope 3 of saving her from the first. The cap'en, seeing this, ordered the boats out, and we took to

'em with heavy hearts. There was only one passenger — the cap'en's wife. She waa a trader's daughter of Apia before ho married her, which he only did the week before he Failed, and she was making the voyage with him to Penang. Captain Blake was the last man to leave his ship. It was hip, in a way, for you ree, sir, he'd a big share in every plank in her hull, and when she went to the bottom he lost all he had in the world. Now there was a dreadful mistake made. How it caroo about no one could ever tell, but it was the most miserable thing you ever heard. It killed a messmate of mine thinking of it; I could see it was in his mind when he hove up his anchor in this world and set sail on his last cruise to the other port. I shall think of it to my drinj£ day. It came about this way:

Though the cap'en could see the ship was doomed from fche first, it Feemed as it he couldn't bring himself to leave the deck while he could feel it under bis feet. And his wife Btood beside him all through it, lookirg 80 young and brave and pretty, not touching him to interfere with him, but just waiting quietly at his aide without a word. It went, to the hearts of some of us to sec her standing there bo fearless, ready to face death like a man might, and when we come to think o£ it afterwards, and that it was because sho was with him that she didn't mind what happened to her, it turned us cold. Aa I said before, the j-kipper wouldn't move till he'd seen us all sate in the boats, but some of the men hung back for the lady, and noticing this he passed her aloi g and told the mate to put her in his own boat— meaning the cap'ea'n, of course. She wouldn't go at first", being loth to leave him even for a moment, but he smiled at her and told her he vw-uid be with her the next minute, and after a bib she obeyed him aud went, looking back at him all the way, aud the mate handed her over the Bide as tenderly as if she'd been a piece of porcelain and might be broke in tbe bundling. Now this is where the horrible mistake was made. Somehow, in the harry and confusion, she gotpnt in our boat (there was only two boatloads of us), and not knowiii^, :u- ] >> li( : ,kk>. !■!•■•;, *. <:' -•" ie ),u • 0.1 ,-i.v c.Q. •.i■ „ „-i, t '\ '• , <i > <y t „ii n v'« '-ci . • ->'-■ '

<_> '- , '. he- ' -• .' t ' i >- ,ii' ■ *> ' > "■'", •■ ' r - >-■ !<! < .'-' ■ ~ 1r- ;.,,» hi t .■ l lit '. ' 1., ,i- Cd-t L ±T\o 'v" ' . i i 11 'Hiing gear and blocks aloft was beginning to drop arouud U3, and might have stove the boat in. With that Mrß Blake given a cry, and tbe mate, tun ing about sharply, yells out, "My God I men, what's this 1 We've got the cap'en's lady aboard 1 She's in the wrong boat I" Then we Baw what had been done, and looked at one another like criminals, though it wasn't the fault of any one of us However, it was too late then to remedy the mietake, and all the Bkipper could do was to sing out cheering messages to his wife from bis own boat, bidding her keep a brave heart, and they would soon be picked up and be together agaiD. And she tried to answer him in a steady voice that went across the watar like music and brought the tears into our eyes. It was nigh on to dus-k by this time, the sun having gone down and the shadows beginning to steal across the sea. This is how matters stood : two boats filled with men, the cap'en in charge of one and the mate of ours, in which the poor lady had been put by mistake, and away to windward our poor old ship burning to the water's edge. But the cap'en wouldn't let us look long at that, fearing, perhaps, we might lose heart for what was before us, and with a heavy heart him-st-lf, I'm sure, sir, he gave U3 the course we were to take. Being in the track of trading vessels, there was a chance of our being picked up afore morning, and even if we weren't, as soon as daylight enabled us to take our bearings we could hope to make ore of the islands to the eastward before night.

The twilight doesn't last long in tropical latitudes, but it gave us time enough to find out that we hadn't a compass aboard. We hailed the skipper to let him know thip, and ho hailed back that they would burn a fUrelight all night, and we were to keep in its wake. Jafct before the darkness fell the cap'en called one "Good-night " to his wife, and st'e sent it back and "God bless you I " too with such love in her voice that we rested on our OBrs, and there wasn't a man could have spoken a word to save his life. Then the night came down, and soon we couldn't see the other boat till they kindled a flare aboard of her (there being no moon, only a black sparkle of stars), and Mrs Blake Bat in the bows straining her eves through the darkness and keeping them fixed on that tiny gleam of light, rising and falling with the waves. And I tbiak we all knew what she was trying to seo. The mate set a watch, and half of us lay down under the thwarts while the others kept the boat's head in a line with the flare. I was in the first watch, and I couldn't help noticing that whenever the light died out, which was when a flare bad burnt down and they were getting another ready, Mrs Blake fell a-sobbii g quietly to herself, and that when it showed up again clear and bright her heart seemed to leap up with the flame, and she sat still and patient. It may have been about two bells (that is, 10 o'clock) that the men in the cap'en's boat set up a song, and it 6truck me as the sound came floating acroHß the water that it had something ghostly about it. Perhaps though it was the cap'en's idea for cheering hiu wife a bit, for presently we beard his deep, full voice joining in with the rest. She heard it too, before we did no doubt, and when the chorus fell away she started to answer it, showing that she heard and understood, by singing " Nancy Lee " in a voice withont a tremble that went right up into the pileut night like the trill of a bird. But when she come to the lines about " A sailor's wife " her voice broke and we had to cover it by taking up the chorus as quick as we could. Soon after this, when the singing stopped and we none of us felt much like keeping it going, she fell asleep, worn out, poor thing, and lay with her hand against the thwart, pillowed on the mate's coat, and all her long, brown bair tumbling about hor face. Tbe breeze, which had been freshening since dark, raised a choppy sea bj midnight, and the spray began to fly over us now and then. We did what we could for the poor lady, covering her over with our coats (nha had been lying down asleep when tbe fchip caught afire and was only lightly dressed), and kept the water off her as best we wc-re able. Just before it was ray turn to "go below" ("below" heirg the stern sheets), we thought we heard a dit-iant hail from the cap'en's boat. I'm afraid we'd dropped astern through not rowing whilf the lady wae singing, and soon after the flare went out, and though we waited a long time for another to be lighted one never was.

We thought afterwards they might have been hailing to let us know they hadn't any more. You see, sir, we had to leave the ship in such a hurry that not a quarter of the thincs were Dutin the boats that should have

been, if there'd been more time to look to it. We knew already that the cap'en's boat was better provided than we were in manj ways, but it wasn'c till next day that wo found out the troth about that matter. When we saw that the light wasn't showing any more aboard the skipper's boat I think we were all thankful to sco that Mrs Blf»ke was sleepirg. I aren't exactly what you call a prayerful man, bnt I prayed then that Bhe mightn't wake till daybreak, and then, being dog- tired, I turnedin, and was fust asleep in two minutes. I was woke up it seemed no more than five minutes after, though it must have been a couple of hour?, by the wavas breaking across our bowa. One o£ thoss endden storms that come up all in a breath on the Equator was driving everything before it, and we had to keep a sharp look-out that the boat didn't broach to. And right in the thick of it we osuight pight of a ship's lights to leeward. We jent up a mighty shout., and commenced rowing like mad. But tho wind was too strong, or ahe too far off to hear up, for after a while we saw it was no good rowing — the lights were getting dimmer and dimmer, till at last they went out of sight altogether. Wo lay on cur oais and yelled like madmen when we Baw this, and then we gave it up. Shipping a sea or two, and tho mate's voice, brought us to our senses, and then for the '*,•' i :^ic i 4"i 4 " "! r ""^'" " n "" n "»'in° Ihf'' w e Li 'i » , -' >'■ '.' i', i i ' i , • " ii ; „, ... „ 't > -,n- .'. -" J 1 . ■ , if >- 1 ' ■ ■ ' i' . hi > '• „- /_ >u /',.■'. -. ':V~ ' " '•'■' v/,*> saw her peering into tne aa.rkne.ss, and meu in a moment it waa all over, sir. The storm passed away as quickly as it came, the clouds broke adrift, and the new-risen moon Bhone out over the sea ; and when we looked around there wasn't a sign of the cap'en's boat anywhere to be seen. And Mrs Blake fell a-crying as if her heart was breaking, as I think it was, sir — as I think it was. We tried by way of comfort to tell her that the wind had driven the boat out of sight, and that we should catch up to it later on, and we tried to believe it, too, ourselves; but we didn't any more than she did, only she hoped to the last, poor thing, and our hearts were as heavy as lead while we were Baying the words. With the first twinkls of daylight we got another blow, for when the mate started to serve out rations he found there was hardly enough to last us one day, and only a bag of biscuits and a tin of pressed beef in the locker at that. I remembared seeing the steward carrying some stores to the boats by the cap'en's orders before we quitted the Bhip; but being a creature easily Jluiried at the best of times, he must have lost hi.s head and put 'em all in the skipper's boat. But, worse than that, there was only a small keg of fresh water, three parts empty. . . . I don't know, sir, as I could describs to you in words you'd understand, or that I could put my tongue to, the passing of the next two days. The sea was like a sheet of glass, and the sun just pouring heat out of the heavens on to our heads. Not a sail or a speck of land from horizon to horizon, and no sign of the cap'en's boat. From the moment &ha realised it had disappeared Mrs Blake never rallied. She just sat the whole day long with her hands clasped over her kneee, gazing across the sea with a wistful look in her eyes that wa3 tne saddest I ever saw, sir, in any no man face. She answered us sometimes when we spoke to her and tried to cheer her, and the mate got her to nibble a bit of biscuit and drink a little water, but she never rallied or took any part in anything that W3B going on around her. We were very gentle and tender with her, all of us, though we were only rough men, and sometimes when she would lay her arm along the gunwale and lean her head on it, crying softly to herself, we turned our faces the other way, and made as if we cidn't see.

So the night came again, and the starlight and the ripple of the ocean.

The next was Christmas Day. And about noon ray mate turns to me, and says he, in a whisper, "They're a-gorging of themselves on roast goose and plum pudding ashore now, mate I " An' I told him to shut up and be hanged to him. Tho water was all gone, except a drain that the mate had put by for the lady, and we none of us wanted to touch that. We had a couple of dry biscuits apiece, and that was our Christmas dinner. The sun being awful hot, and streaming down on us beyond bearing, we b&gan to be parched with thirst, and one of the men got light-headed and said he could hear the bells ringing, and wished us all a Merry Christmas. This made Mrs Blake look up, and she asked for some water. The mate poured out all* that remained into a tin pannikin and handed it to her, and before we could stop hor she had given it to the poor fellow, and he drank it off at a gulp, being mad with thirst and not thinking what he was doing. That set me pondering on what the cap'en must have felt —supposing it true that the boat was driven away by the wind and she was still above water — when he found all the stores in his own boat and thought of his wife wanting food and water, while he had plenty of both.

It was horrible to think of then, bnt afterall it didn't much matter. No, sir, it may sonnd heartless to say so, but I'll tell you why it ain't. Mrs Blake being very down at heart, and only a delicate, fragile little creature at the best o' times, we could see she was sinking under the strain, getting into the habit o£ trailing her hand in th« water, and not earing when her sleeve got wetted. A bad sign, sir, in a woman, in or out of a boat. And still no sail, and no sign of the cap'en's boat. And our hearts felt as if thoy were going to burst. It was close on sunset of thit day when we heyrd Mrs Blake call out suddenly, " Richard, dear Iticl<ard I " And we knew she was calUng hur husband, thecap'en'a name being Richard. She waa leaning over the side, stretching her hands out, as if she saw something coming to her across the water. The sea was very calm and beautiful and all streaked with purple, the sun just setting, cut in half by a bank of clouds. And as I looked, I give you my word of honour, sir, as I'm a living m^n, I saw the caj/en's tout with the cap'en Jiimself sitting in the stern sheets laying alongside of us. It was only a moment, and then it was gone, but there was

more saw it than me, for the mate's face went pale aa death, and every man in our boat gave a shiver, though the heat was BtifliDg üb. And Mrs Blake saw it, for she gave a cry, and the mate caught her in his arms as she fell baok.

There was a light cat!s paw of wind stealing over the water, and as it cooled our burning faces we saw the mate fanning her with his hat. Tho boat was lying quite still, and maybe we were watching the twilight creeping up, and thinking of Christmas at home, when the mate lays h«r head down very gently, and says softly, " My lads, Bho's gone to the cap'en."

The survivora of the Jaaon's crew were picked up on the 2(?th by a trader. Of *ihe fate of the captain's boat no man knows to this day, But he who told me this oliegs to the belief that, she broached to ia t.lie st.orm aud want down, and that t.he capt-vn eauie in Ijcr to fetch his wife in the twilight :<f olnt O'iris'.mas D »y.

Now you who reirl will understand what i mean when I say that I am haunted by the ghost of a Christmas. Aud it haunts me now.