A DREARY NIGHT AND A DISMAL STORY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 145, 10 June 1876, Page 4

A DREARY NIGHT AND A DISMAL STORY.

[Contributed to the Evening Mail ] v * (Concluded jffrom dur last) . The night was dark and gloomy/ the coast wbsj as I have said, nothiog but a mangrove swamp, we were too far from it to hear the sound of the waves against the shore, even if it had not been •, a swamp, and altogether there was a kind of weird stillness about the vessel and the scene, which depressed one's spirits. Tbe captain began to talk about the diseases of the country -—and here allow me to ask why everybody will persist in talking to us about disease : do they think we don't get enough of the topic with our patients that ' we like tb discourse about it to others? However, he began— "Very unhealthy sort of place this, I guess?" " Very.?' " Plenty of fever and ague here?" "Too much." " Any. yellow fever here just npw?" " No, not at present." "Dreadful thing yellow fever is." Now I had only been a short time in the colony, and had then never seen a case of yellow fever and knew nothiog, about it except from books, but I looked as wise as I could and replied in the affirrnativo. Then he began slowly and in a monotonous voice 1 to tell me the following dismal etory, and when he had '-concluded I no longer wondered why he had such aa old look in his face*,. • I will tell it as nearly as I can in his own words, and the story made such an impression on me tbat I am quitje sure that the main, facts and details are given as he told them to me. He talked slowly with a Nova Scotian twang, somewhat resembling the Yankee accent, and puffing occasionally at his pips-r-When he was a young man he was befqre the mast in a small barque that was',tra_iing between the West Indieß and; Bristol. They bad a crew of eight men besides tbe oap tain and first and second mates. A few days after Bailing from lhe West Indian island where they had .been taking in oargo, yellow fever broke out among the crew. Tbe captain physicked the sick to the best of his ability, but, in spite of, or perhaps because of, his vigorous treatment one after another died. He gave me full particulars of the cases, which I will spare the reader. Short handed to begin with, the working of the vessel became more and more difficult to the survivors, who also were very naturally depressed by the deaths of their comrades. At length none remained alive but the captain, the first mate, and my host. They divided the day and' night into three watches, and took turn about at the wheel. Then the first mate sickened, and none were left to wait upon him but the captain and my host. After four or five days illness the mate died. But just before he died "the captain he said to me, * Jim,' says he, ' I feel very queer about the head, giddy like, and as if my head was a ball of fire. I bope I ain't sickening with the fever, for your sake my lad. But I'll go and turn in for a spell. may be I shall foel better after I've had some, sleep.' Well, Doctor, he went into his cabin aad lay down, but he didn't get no better, and when the poor mate died, theie was no one to help me to get his body up the companion, so as to bury him. The mate was a very heavy man, and I shall never forget what a job I had to get him on deck. I suppose I must have fainted, for I was pretty well worn out by thiß time, what with want of sleep, overwork, j and waiting on the sick, to say nothing I of the misery, of seeing all tbem poor fellows dying off one after the other, and so I suppose I swooned off or fainted away. Anyhow it was morning when I went down into the cabin to fetch the mate's body up, and the sun had set when I woke up to find myself lying on the deck with the corpse alongside of me — and what a state that corpse was in after lying in the hot sun in the tropics all that day, I need not tell you, sir. Well, I thought I should have fairly gone mad, but I had been religiously brought up, and I knelt dbwn on the deck, and prayed -to the Lord for help and strength. And lie heard me, and gave me strength then and afterwards to bear what I had to go through. ' I rove a line through a pulley and hoisted the body over the side, and then let it go." " But what about the vessel all this time," said I, " where wbb she drifting to?" " Well, before I went below, I had lashed the wheel ; we had brought all the ropes astern" — here he deiciibed how he and the captain bad managed to get as many as possible of the ropes towards the Btern of tbe vessel, so that the sails could be shifted in as short a time as possible. Then he went on to say: that he knew what the vessel's course ought to be — he was in the Atlantic, and he kept her head as nearly as he could in the right direction. " But tiad you no gales, ur unfavorable winds l" " No," ' he said ; "if we had, we must have been lost." " Well," I said, " what did you do when you had buried the mate ?" " I went down below to look after the captain , he was down with the fever, sure enough, bo, as there was no one else to wait on him but me, and to attend to . the navigation of the ship, I took him on deck, and made a bed up for him under an awning, as near the wheel as could be." "And do you mean to say that you steered the ship, aad altered the sails,

and attended to the captain too — why, when did you sleep ?" . " Well, I guess I didn't sleep at all for some days. I found myself often dropping off when I was standing at the; wheel, and, when I oould hold out ne longer, I just lashed the wheel and lay; down and took a spell," *'f And bow did you manage about food ?»>'••■ V There was plenty of food aboard. We had a lot of fowls and ducks, and I used to feed them regular, and kill one or two every day* and make fowl-broth for tbe captain, and then we had a lot of limes, and oranges, and pine apples, and I gave him lime juice and sugar and water— heaps of it, for he seemed to take to take to this more than anything. I gaye him no medicine, for I did not know what to give him, so I just trustep to Providence." " But how did you manage to moke fowl broth, and cook your own food ? " Well, I had the . galley fire, but I hadn't much time to be running forward to the galley; so I brought a firepot*, which our cook had got in the galley, and kept it- near the wheel, where I could watch the compass and the cooking at the same time." "And how did the captain get on, did he die too ? " "No, sir, he did not. About the fourth day he was awful bad, and then, he took a turn, and the fifth day he like woke up, and said " Jim, where, are we? I feel very weak." The feyer bad left, him, but he was that w^ak he could- not lift his hand to his moutb. I had to feed him like a, baby. Wjell, sir, every day he got better, and then he used to let me have a good spell of sleep as he got stronger, and wake me up aa the wind shifted. At last he took turn about, with me at the wheel, and we got on very well." " But all this time did you meet no vessels,' or did ■ none overtake you that might have assisted you ?" ." Well, you see we were out of our course a long way, and of the few we met some would not stop, two or three sent off a boat to Bee what was the matter, but when tbey heard what it was, they soon shoved off again, though I must B ay they aßked us if we wanted for provisions or water. But we had plenty of them, considering we started with eleven hands all told, and now we had only two." ; " Where did yoa get to at last ? " "That's jnst what I was going to tell you. We had lost our reckoning completely; the chronometer had run down, so that when the captain recovered sufficiently to take an observation, he could not do it; besides, I had forgotten even the day of the month. One day, however, we made land, and where do you think we found ourselves ? " "Insight of one of the Shetland Isles." ; ' " Well, I'm " — here ha stopped and checked himself—" How did you know that ? " "Because I know that the gulf stream runs in that direction, and I supposed it would carry you there." "Yes, it was there. We got to a port and shipped some more hands to take us on to Bristol, where we arrived at last." "That's not a very cheerful story of yours, captain 1 " " Np, it is not, but it's a true one, doctor." 'Well," said I, "if you have ne objection, I think I'll turn in." And very glad was I, when after a most uncomfortable night, I reached home in time for breakfast in tbe morning. R. H. B.