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Show "tors could have; discovered any life in me. He was c6nfldent my neck had been broken. F. D. B. in Alta Califor-nian. but weep? Soon I began to feel an intense in-tense hunger. By tho lowest calculation calcula-tion I must have been comatose for three days, so for that time I had had no nourishment, nour-ishment, j The thick mist that suddenly came down satisfied my thirst, but there was nothing to eat, nothing to eat. I nearly went crazy as the day wore on. At last night fell and added the terrors of tho blackness of darkness to tho pangs of hunger. I could never tell the horrors hor-rors of that first night. It was a wonder I was not stark, staring mad when day broke. The second t day passed like the first. Nothing to eat, something to moisten my lips, but no sail in sight. The third day broke with an angry sky and angrier sea, and I saw that before the day closed a Cape Horn gale would be raging, with its attendant sleet and It was soon made known to me. The captain entered my room. I could hear indistinctly, as if it were afar off, his footstep on the deck. Then the Steward also came in. I hoard them consulting together, and both came to the conclusion conclu-sion that I was dead, that my neck was broken by the fall. "Tell Sails to come in and take his measure. We must bury him to-morrow while tho fine weather lasts," I heard the captain say, and presently the snilmaker came in and measured me for the last hammock I should ever sleep in. I could not feel him, but I knew by his motions what he was doing. I will not describe how they laid me out on the cabin table and loft me there, while Sails, close by, made my shroud. Stitch, stitch, stitch went his needle, seeming to enter into my brain every time instead in-stead of the thick canvas. I can distinct- cold. I trembled then, for even though I was almost doad and quite without hope I wanted to live. By noon the sea had rison tremendously, and it was with great difficulty that I managed to keep on my raft.' By nightfall the gale was raging fiercely, and I was expecting every moment to be engulfed in one of the terrible abysses into which my raft slipped constantly. This was the most awful night I ever spent worso even than when I lay to all appearances dead on the cabin table of the Osprey. The flying spoondrift cut me to the bone. The great waves rolled their crested, phosphorescent heads high ly remembor that while 1 lay there the steward tried to close my eyelids, but, thank God, they flew up every time and left me the poor consolation of seeing the preparations for my doom. At last all was finished. The canvas Was spread on the deck and I was laid in it. Thon the sailmaker began to Btitch me up. He had stitched up all but my face when I hoard him iiay he had lost his knife. A rigid searrh was made everywhere, but it could not be found, so Sails returned to work, and all that time I was thinking in my dull way what fools they were for not looking into my shroud for tho lost knife. As I afterward after-ward learned, it was next day at noon that I was carried on dock and laid on a plank preparatory to being shot overboard. over-board. The men one by one took a look at my face, and then it was. covered up forever. The burial service was read by the captain, thoro was a little delay, and then the plank was tilted, and I shot into the bitter cold water off the Diego Ramirez. It must have been the shock that brought me to my senses, for ns I sank down, dragged lower by the shot at my feet, I felt my feeling and action return. At the same moment my right hand, released from its dread inertia, grasped what 1 instantly knew to bo a knife. Mechanically I forced the blade and BTJEIED IN THE OCEAN. It wa in my twenty-sixth year that my ship, tho Osprey, owned by Fowler Brotliers, was chartored to come to San Francisco for wheat. We arrived here safely, loaded wheat, and soon were out-Bide out-Bide of the Golden Gate heading for home. Everything went smoothly, and nothing occurred to forewarn me of the terrible adventure the future had in store for me. We were to the southward of Valparaiso Valpa-raiso when I fell ill. It was a kind of faintness that would suddenly and without with-out warning come upon mo, so that I often fell on the dock and lay there until un-til some one could come to my assistance. assist-ance. This continued without my getting get-ting much worse until we got down off the Magellan straits, in the latitude of Cape Pillar or thereabouts. One day, a gloomy, forbidding day, such as the mariner often moots with down there, I had the afternoon watch, and was superintending one of my men who wa3 fixing a ratline in the weather mizzen topmast rigging. The follow was very clumsy, to say the least of it. I got annoyed watching his awkwardness; awkward-ness; more annoyed, in fact, than was above me, who, sunk in a black abyss, heard the gale Bhrieking overhead. I felt soon that it could not last much longer. Numbed and weak as I was I clung to my refuge with the enorgy of desperation despera-tion and waited bitterly for death. Finally an immense wave, higher than ftll that had gone before, raised its wild head and rolled down on me. My time had come. I was swept like a child from my raft and carried on the crest of the monster, as I supposed to death. But once again the hand of the Almighty was stretched out to save me. I was dashed with inconceivable violence vio-lence against something solid as a rock. Ropes were floating all around me. I grabbed several and then swooned. I awoke and recognized the old hospital hospi-tal of the Osproy. Then I thought my burial and subsequent adventures were all a wandering fancy, and that I had never left the hospital. But I was soon undeceived. A kind face bent over me and I saw once mere the features of my good captain. Ho would not permit me to speak at all that day, but on the next I was allowed to relate my story, which I did in a weak and quavering voice, 1 ripped my canvas shrond so that the 6hot fell, and I began to rise to the surface. sur-face. In a few seconds, I suppose, although al-though it seemed years, I oiened my eyes for it is a curious fact that while llayinastato of coma they remained open, yet when my feelings returned with the shock I closed them at once and aw once more the light of day, which I had never expected to see aguiu. I was an excellent swimmer, and had warranted, I think, now that I look back. But I was growing more and more Irritable every day, which was probably owing to my fainting spells. Suddenly I became so excited that I jumped into the mizzen rigging, and was into the top in a trice. I was about to pull the fellow away from his job when a fit came on. A sudden mist clouded my eyes. My senses left me; I reeled and fell from the top to fhe deck. In my descent I 6trnck once or twice, which caused me to turn over, with the result that I fell on my head. When I recovered consciousness I was lying in a bunk in the hospital. Still there was a thick mist before my eyes. can assure you. Then the captain told me that, after burying mo, as they thought, they had kept on their course for two days, when they encountered a heavy head g.ile which drovo them back on their course again. They shipped a terrible sea, which carried away boats and houses forward, but it was the last exertion of the gale, for after that it died away. When the waist was sufficiently clear of water to enable the men to walk i there they had discovered my body en- j I tangled in ropes lying in the lee scupper. scup-per. At first they thought my corpse ! had been washed aboard again, as has I been several times done, but on lifting j me up they saw unmistakable signs of ! life, and with great awe and wonder i carried me into the cabin. As to my ' comatose sleep, the captain said he had never seen anything more like death. He had doubted if the most skillful dqc- soon regained my breath, and cast from me the canvas which impeded uiy movements. move-ments. Then I looked around over the waters, and saw that my minculous escape had beenaU for nothing. The ship, looking like a great swai, was several sev-eral miles away, getting smaller and smaller even as I looked. There arose from my lips a frenzied curse against God that had abandoned me thus, but almost immediately afterward, after-ward, as if to rebuke me for my wickedness, wicked-ness, I noticed piece of wreckage floating float-ing toward me. Hope once more filled my breast, and I swam toward the piece of deckhouse, is it proved to be, and clambering on top threw myself on my face and wept for very wretchedness. Alone on the wide ocean, a pioce of wood the only thing between me and death, dazed and weak from my last ter- rible experience, wat else could I do i coma inaeea see everything so as to recognize where I was, but somehow my eyes refused to move about, and I could only stare straight up at the deck. I , tried to turn in my bunk, but I could not. To raise my arm, but I could not. To sit up, but my muscles failed mo. At last the truth struggled into my darkened dark-ened mind. I perceived at last that I was in a perfectly cataleptic trance. The strang3 part of it was that my mind was almost as active as ever. I knew aU that was going on about me, and I felt an overwhelming terror at my pos-1 ible fate. ' 1 |