HORRIBLE SCENE AT SEA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XXIV, 12 June 1897, Page 746

HORRIBLE SCENE AT SEA.

This is the story of the curious adventures of a sailor (says the Wales Herald). The ship * Tan j ore,' after knocking about the coast for a time, sailed away to Melbourne and loaded wool for London. Among the members of the crew picked up in Melbourne was one Mike Oregon, who declared he was in the ship * Bald Eagle * when she was burned by Chinese coolies, 500 miles east of Manila, on their way to Callao, Peru. It was blowing a good stiff breeze, but the sea had not got np much yet, and she was reeling off ten knots easy enough. About five bells in the afternoon watch the Chinamen, who had been as still as mice, suddenly broke ont in a simultaneous sbont, rose up as one man and pulled down their bnnkboards and made a rush for the hatchway ladders. Fortunately the yell they gave warned the crew, and they slapped the hatch gratings on and fastened them down. Evidently, now, the proper thing to do was to starve the Chinamen into submission, if they would not submit, for, no matter what their grievance might be, the time for considering that had passed, and forcible subjugation was the only remedy for them. But the captain was a Portuguese, and be brought out his revolvers and began shooting them down through the grating, and the mates got theirs out, too. and took a hand. The Chinamen were so frenzied that they would stand out on the open hatchway, apparently cursing and defying the officers to do their worst, until there was a pile of dead bodies under the hatch four or five deep, and somehow, during the fusilade, a spark from a revolver ignited the clothing of one of the dead coolies. The rest saw it and fell over one another, and suffered to get hold of the burning cloth. One fellow grabbed the smoldering part and tore it from the garment, and was about to blow it to keep it alive when he was shot from above; but almost before he fell another had grabbed the burning rag from his hand, only to be shot down in his turn. But there were plenty more, and shoot as fast and accurately as they might, the bit of burning cloth disappeared at last from the hatchway altogether. It had gone forward to the Chinaman's quarters, and in the course of half an hour smoke was reported as coming out of the fore and main hatches. They didn’t dare to lift a hatch, nor would anyone have dared to go down there if they had, so they got the carpenter to chop small holes in the deck, and they put the wash-deck hose through them, connected it to the force pump, and pumped for dear life. Now, chopping holes in the deck is a desperate remedy when there's nothing but fire to fight; but when in addition there are hundreds of maddened Chinamen down there determined to burn the ship it was merely wasting time and strength pumping water in among them. It would seem they had expected that the crew would open the hatches to get down and put ont the fire, and that would be the chance to get on deck and take charge of the ship.

No doubt that was their idea in setting fire to her ; and when it first dawned on them that their plan had miscarried and they were to be left to roast in their own fire, then there was pandemonium. The spaces under the hatches were packed solid with writhing, shrieking humanity ; for the others who were directly exposed to the smoke and fumes, pressed in upon them from all sides, and they could hardly have been rammed in tighter with cotton screws, and the faces of the imprisoned wretches who were visible in the hatchway were a nightmare. Their dirty yellow eomplexijns turned a sickly green; their eyeballs almost burst from their sockets as they glared up at the fast waning daylight which was to be the last they were ever to see ; and their big, ugly months were stretched in a continuous yell, or rather screech, as they squirmed like a nest of eels. Even the Portuguese captain hadn’t the heart to shoot any more of them, but left them to stew in their own juice, while he and the officers gave their attention to saving their own lives After a great deal of trouble they got the ship hove to, for it was now getting quite dark, and the dense smoke which was pouring out of the hatches, and the holes cut by the

carpenters made it impossible to see a thing and hardly possible to breathe. To make matters worse, it now began to rain in torrents, and the cries of the imprisoned Chinamen made it impossible to hear an order five feet from the person giving it. However, about eight bells in the evening, they got their boats over—the long boat and threequarter boats — one of which was stove in in the launching. That left them rather short for boat room. The ship was now a roaring furnace, and the last wail of the dying Chinamen had gone up in smoke. The stench waa horrible, and they naturally got away from the wreck as fast as possible. A little water and some hardtack were stowed in each boat, about enough for one square meal for the crowd there was to go—twentytwo able seamen, six apprentices, the captain and four mates, cook and steward, boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker—-thirty-eight souls all told, to sail 500 miles through stormy seas in three small open boats. The quarter boats could take but ten men apiece, consequently the long boats must take eighteen, and when they were all in her the gunwales were almost awash ; and the other boats were not much better off. For three nights and two days they held their course. The night wore away without serious mishap, but, welcome as the dawn was, it brought a

new terror to the teamen, for not twenty feet away from the boat, and directly abeam, waa the dorsal fin of a huge shark, and thia eacort never left them while they were in the boats. He did not always keep the tame relative position, for two or three times a day he would drop slowly in alongside, and after easting up his evil eye at them, apparently counting them to see if any had got away, he would sink slowly till most out of sight, gradually reappearing on the other side. The * Bald Eagle ’ had been in the coolie trade so long that the original crew had all left her and Portuguese sailors bad taken all their places except that of Mike Cregan. They were all good Catholics, now that they were in danger, and whenever the shark passed under the boat the Portuguese would turn their faces from him, cross themselves piously, and call on San Antonio. But some of them called in vain. But for Mike the greatest terror came. When the men began to grow hungry after the hard tack had all been eaten, it seemed to Mike that the Portuguese regarded him with anything hut pleasant looks, and as they confined their conversation to their own language, of which he understood not a word, his imagination had full play. And then as their hunger increased there appeared a suggestiveness in their glances in his direction, when they were talking in low tones among themselves, and the horrible thought entered his mind that they were consulting over eating him. Quietly drawing his sheath knife, he kept it in readiness, determined that he would not furnish the first or the only contribution to the ship’s stores. After that he never slept a wink on board the boat. Just before dark of the second day the captain ordered Mike, who was in the bow, to keep a good lookout for land, but Mike was so busy watching the dagos that he didn’t bother his head much about it. The time passed very slowly and without incident, save at one time he thought he heard a faint cry astern. As no one else noticed the cry Mike said nothing about it, but kept his watch on his shipmates until near morning, when he happened to see that they were driving into a fog bank. Calling to the boatswain, who had the helm, he suggested rousing the captain, lest the boat be thrown ashore, but the boatswain said that he rather hankered for such an accident as that, and held on his course until the sun rose, and then the fog suddenly disappeared and they found themselves in the harbour they had hoped to reach. Bat as they looked round to congratulate their shipmates, they found that the second mate’s boat, the last, had disappeared. An English gunboat, the * Rattlesnake,' was in port, and her captain sailed out in search of the missing boat. He found it with one side stove in, and afloat, but not a trace of any of her crew. What bad wrecked her will never be known, but the Portuguese insisted that the shark, realizing that they were nearing land, and fearing that they would escape him altogether, breached the boat for a victim, wrecking her in the act.