Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1894 — CHASING THE DEAD. [ARTICLE]

CHASING THE DEAD.

At 11 o’clock in the forenoon the breeze died quite away and left the big ship lazily .rising and falling on the ground swell of. the South Atlantic. At noon < the captain and mate took their observations and half: an hour later it was written op the log that our position was 400 miles southwest of Tristan da Cunha island. Between 11 and 12 a man aloft reported what he believed to be a small boat under sail to the northeast. When the glass was sent up to him he made her out to be a ship's quarter boat with sail set and Heading down for us. Although there was not wind enough to move us the little fabric was shoved along slowly and soon after the men had eaten their dinners the eraft was in sight from the deck. ” A ship's boat at sea means that disaster has happened and sympathy is at once aroused. The cook was ordered to have an extra dinnei ready. The steward received a bottle of wine to be served out if necessary, and some of the men went intc the deck houseoto overhaul chests and see what they could spare in the way of clothing. The boat came down within a mile of us and then seemed to stand still. Before this it had been made out that she carried only pne person, or at least only one person was in sight. By the aid of the glass it could be seen that he was a coal black negro. He sat in the stern sheets stiff and erect, with a yoke line in either hand, and though he had his face towards us he made no signal nor exhibited impatience when his boat seemed to drift. It was this which awed and mystified us. He must be a castaway, and though be might have plenty of food and water, he would, nevertheless, exhibit some signs of joy at being picked up on tie wide expanse. When an hour had passed away the surface of the sea became ruffled here and there with catspaws. These puffs made lanes and curious figures, and though not strong enough to flap one of our jibs, they caught the quarter boat and moved her all around the compass. The man in the stern sheets lether go as she would, though we fired a gun, waved a flag and raised a shout to attract his attention. By and by, when it was seen that the calm would wear out the sun and that the strange craft would come no nearer, the order was given to lower away a boat and pick him up.

We pulled four oars and had the second mate in command, and on getting away headed at once for the derelict. We had pulled half the distance when the stranger got a catspaw and ran away at a lively puce for half a mile. We preserved our stroke and got within half a cable’s length of her, when another puff struck her sail and she ran to the south across the bows of our ship. We could plainly make out the face and figure of the negro. He was barefooted and bareheaded, and his clothing consisted of a red woollen shirt and a pajr of dungaree trousers. He sat ss stiff as a soldier, never turning his head to the right or left, and, though the mate stood up and shouted at him, he appeared not to see nor hear anything. We had come up within 200 feet of the boat, which had lost her way again, when a puff from the south whirled her about and sent her driving at us as if she would run us down. We backed water to get out of her course, and as she come past one of the men dropped ( his oar and caught .her with the boathook. While he held her thus the mate stepped into her and started aft. but he had not taken three steps when he stopped, threw up his hands, and exclaimed:

“Why, men, it’s a dead man wfe’ve been chasing around! Look at him! He’s been as dead as a marlinspike for the last week!” Tfee man’s eyes were wide open, his jaw down, and it was his clutch on the yoke lines which held the body erect. There was no food, no water, not even an oar or a baler in the boat. In place of a name it bore the initials, “B. W. S.” There was nothing to tell us where it had been launched or how long it had been afloat; whether the dead man was the last of a crew, or had suffered hunger and thirst alone. We shoved his boat away and rowed back to the ship, and an hour later he was out of sight to the south. What mattered it whether we gave the body to the huge sharks cruising, about, dr let it continue to steer its coffin over the wide waste till some howling gale prepared a grave at the bottom of the sea.