Show C it ilic rw W NE EA 1 I tt by hy y 4 l locc exvell 11 conru A C al CHAPTER XIV 19 through rough a sea of floaten Floa tini 9 brimstone to fiji we ite had all along figured that we wi might faveto go to the FIJI islands where a constant stream of sailing ships was always taking aboard copra for the factories tac torlea in the united states but we also were fully fulli aware that sailing balling in a little open opec boat from cook islands to the fidis might easily be a perilous venture our voyage so go tar far had gone fairly smoothly moodily there had been no burrl herrl cones canes and we thanked god for or that but now the weather turned against va us tor for a whole week and we began to think we bad run across st Swi thins day we had forgotten if we bad fever known it that this was the time when the equinoctial storms broke in those waters had we known it we never would have beaded for the for ten days we sailed through a preaching downpour the rainy season phe irbe sea was choppy the wind whipped hipped the spray and the crests of C waves 1 aves over us in driving sheets in lour pur cockleshell things were afloat and it was bitter cold 0 nights we threw fim ur mattresses overboard in their soaked condition they were tar far worse to sleep on than the wet planks and there was no use ose keeping them any longer when the sun occasionally shone our dren drenched clied clothes would dry quickly and stiffen like boards of salt abey rubbed and scratched the skin off our bodies when they got wet again which they promptly did the salt would soak into the raw flesh and inflame it 11 our bodies felt as though they were on fire we had no regular sleep instead a man would doze away suddenly at almost any time irven alie helmsman would drowse off like that and with a free rudder the boat would veer around crazily craz lly one morning when dawn came wt we could hardly believe our eyes the sea bid bad turned froni from its normal blue to yellow on scooping up a pall of if t we found i a scum that we concluded must be brimstone and ash we were palling calling through a field of brimstone for three days we saw from horizon borizo n to horizon this yel yellowish loIsb expanse of volcanic dust it no doubt come came from some submarine eruption perhaps th the one we could thank for the tidal wave that had wrecked the Se eadler endler the waves carried the gritty dust into the boat it penetrated everything ever surface become became like sandpaper our skin elfin grew rough and caked with it IL our oar blankets were like sandpaper and so were our clothes As the voyage grew longer we had bad to be more and more sparing with out oui drinking water the supply began to run low we could no too longer pr colled collect rain water in our ours sails they were coated with ith salt we tried to wash them out in the rain but then flip and thi the waves kept washing in and kept the sails salty and added a further salting to any water we cot col lecter our supply of fruit that we had bad picked ap in the cook conk islands ran out now find and about all we had bad lett left TBS ras T BS hardtack not in itself a thirst kindol kind of food our gums glima dried out and were like dougl 11 iron ron we sucked our fingers and gnawed at our knuckles to bring a flow of saliva and refresh our burning mouths and then come came the sailors worst enemy scurvy our diet of hardtack lack of exercise and general hardships beough bi ought it on oil our knees swelled up so eo badly that we had bad to cut our trousers the rocking of the lie boat knocked them together or against the wooden sides and then the polo pain was wa almost unendurable our lips were black and broken our tongues were swollen and hard it was as it 11 you had bad a stone to in your mouth our gums became anew white and seemed to recede our teeth felt as though they were sticking far out of our jaws they hurt constantly end and were loose and felt as it they were going to drop out with these shaking teeth we WB ate our hardtack I 1 never before knew how bow hard hardtack haid tack wail was we had bad un on ending headaches lies ditches and it seemed as it 11 something were pressing our eyes out of their soc sockets keta we got water in our legs and could hardly stand any more we bad to slide around the slats to do what had find to be dune done ui III DavI navigating gAtIng the boat to in scurvy the blood euins to water first in the legs leg and then upward when it reaches reache the heart beart you lie die where the blood the flesh to Is white and you yon tan can see the line of the white while creep slowly up we wondered who would be the ural first the firby to have the line of white rise to the heart my fity noye diode to show the line clearly and mark its daily progress upward it etwas arwas a kind of sport it wu was keeping in a dally daily to log a log of death par mien as the youngest of us but he be seemed to be on his bis why to win the race the line was higher on him than on the others lie he joked about it IL there was nothing terrible in it we were all to in a deep apathy oui brinins were like balls of cotton noth ing 1139 certainly not death death would come we thought as a COW frow theae sufferings the pros fb hect of its it arrival became more slid and more attractive boys I 1 said let os as take pieces of ballast iron and tle tie them around our necks one plunge and to la a few seconds all of our pains will be gone yes all right there were mut of assent but parmley Parm len the youngest the one who was nearest death picked up the comic volume fritz reuters Re utera trip to cons anti nople 01 and began to read a funny story we all laughed that book had bad eased many a hard hour before on this ghastly voyage and now perhaps it saved our lives and so we continued on oil with but one instinct left in us the sailors instinct to navigate his bis craft mechanically chani cally without tiny any particular hope without any particular thought we trimmed the sails guided the helm belm and calculated our position as best we could nautical science was at a low ebb among us now we ve were too far gone to reckon exactly where we were and were only vague in our steering all we knew was that we should steer to the west where the island groups were I 1 wont try to say how we felt when we saw a speck on the horizon and the speck grew bigger and turned into the familiar green of a tropical island we had been so much like dead men 14 4 1 gwo thousand miles mile in this open boat who had thought that nothing could ever make us glad again by joe tha sight gladdened our hearts though we grew even weaker but it was vi as the w weakness of happiness A ai we drew near we thought thou glit of nothing but end and fresh water and soft food a sofi bandua tor for our loose slinky shaky teeth never mind ships or capturing ships I 1 never mind being taken prisoners we headed beaded straight toward a crude pier that stuk stuck out into the water A crowd of a hundred natives per naps hops less were gathered at the land ing watching our approach ell they were ferocious looking black warriors we had now passed from the region 0 of f the brown indolent polynesian polynesians to melane those of the black warlike melane slana what ugly customers I 1 said to leudemann l emanu they look like ike cannibals the forbidding battle array on shore stirred a new strength in us it looked like a cannibal island find and miserable us as we were still we could not escape the thought of 0 out our sun skin and bones being fattened up to in preparation for or en an old time soi south jtb sea banquet near clear the boat for action I 1 I 1 ordered een dien in our present straits we could still reme remember niter our old naval was wa S the Ce german flag went jerking to our ma mastead and rues and machine guns were ere displayed A shout went up on shore and a babel of talk voices yelled in english you germans how you get here from roin way oft off come on germans great warriors still wary we drew near the land ing pier and talked with the lie natives they were unmistakably friendly very cordial from what they told us they had in the first place grievances against their basters wasters roa wa the british then quite a number had been re r erupted and sent to the trenches in france Fr itrice there some had been killed and some wounded woun dud und and most lio ho stir had contra contracted cled tuberculosis croul the ivied climate and had bad neen returned to the bland worn out shells of bica they said there were no white whit men inea on the island and we longed leased to go 10 shore ashore with our scurvy curry swollen legs leg we could hardly stand bland however it do to be hauled ashore as a cripples it would not lot increase these warriors respect for germans as fighting men cripples do not fare well among savage ravage peoples and we thought it best not cot to reveal our impotence so we refused the natives invitations invitation to partake of their hospitality told them we must mast hurry on to light fight the british anti and asked for or fresh water and bananas they brought great gourd full fall of water and bunches of bananas banana we drew up to the dock and they handed banded these precious pre clou supplies down tor for us we bad our oil fill of bananas banana and we wa ter ler and with shouts shoots resounding from th the e shore set sail gall again this lucky locky spot was niue an outlying isle of the fiji group the sun blazed down upon us but a fair wind carried os as along briskly the first day after leaving niue we felt better the second day we were on the road to high good health it Is amazing the curative effect ot of fresh fruit especially ba nanas canna when you are suffering from scurvy they seem to put new life and blood into yuu you and draw the sickness right out of the body as though some huge naif e and marvelous poultice had been applied our cure core was completed at the isle of it Is quite a large isle and inhabited by more natives we come came to hie file main body of the fidis and sailed galled into a large gulf surrounded by distant islands it was wag night and we decided to wait till morning to see how bow many ships were passing and what island they were bound tor for we reefed beefed our sails and threw out our sea anchor that drug drag of canvas that keeps a boat from turning broadside to the wind and waves and from drifting too fast we toy lay down tor for a decent nights sleep we would need all our energies tor for the morrow A sudden shout I 1 awakened it was just daybreak straight ahead was a wild white line of surl surf it broke over a long low coral reef and just behind it was a high cliff we had run into a strong current during the night igil krauss had awakened just in time to see that it had carried us perilously near the reef the wind was sweeping us toward the breakers raise sail I 1 shouted we scrambled frantically and raised the canvas the wind was inshore we could not bead into it we were being blown slowly inexorably onto the reef people accustomed to the surfs curfs along ordinary coasts have no idea of what breakers are I 1 like ike off the isla islands n do of the south pacific the surf all over the pacific Is particularly strong but when bell it breaks over a mid oceanic w coral reel reef nothing ran can live in it the strongest swimmer Is sure to be dashed to pieces against the logged lagged coral and there the slightest hope of oar moving against the wind and backing away from the reet reef slowly slowly we vre were nearing hearing it the breakers ro roared ared like thunder in a few moments we would be flung into that death trap of water and coral pistol to in hand I 1 shouted something to the effect that I 1 intend to be ground to death by the break breakers ers on that jagged coral the others looked tor for their pistols one could not find his between the lie pull of the current and the power of our sails we were drifting along the reef edging toward it the wind gave us as an extra push we were to in the backwash bach wash only a few yards away from the breakers and still one man could not find his pistol instinctively we ie all waited and pint tant was what saved our lives suddenly we saw the reef drop away slanting back at a W sharp angle and a moment later inter we were drifting parallel to the coral it was then that I 1 discovered there were two hinds of breathing to in times of terrible danger ding pr the breath comes in short quick puffs the dinger gone you breathe deeply by lie when we gut got clear of thin reel reef I 1 breathed such a breath flint it seemed to go right iowa to my heels I 1 out but looking hoohing at my boys faces when we got our pistols rendy ready their faces hod had set tense as if cost from bronze with the dangel past their faces beld the sonie some set expression it 11 NUs nils RD an leour before their old canie bok again two of my IvI fallows lows fiman patches of gray ray in their lenir after wald maybe they lind been there tor for years only to be discovered bowl now An others leg was absolutely blue in spots in those frightful moments he had without knowing it grasped his tift thigh h in a clutch like a drowning man I 1 tell you by joe it was the hand ol of god that put pill the curve in thal thai reef when one of the hie boys I 1 dont know which sold said in surprise we tire re clear I 1 I 1 knew it 11 was the hand of god TO BE CONTINUED |