The Wreck

As the violent storm of the other night has thrown us on the Corsican coast, let me teil you a terrible story of tho sea, of which the flshermen of the place often speak at eventide, and about which chance has enabled me to learn strange particulars. It was thiee years ago. I was sailing the Sardiniaii sea with seven or eight sailors of the coast survey. It was a rough voyage for a novice; we did not have one good day through March. The wind was furious, and the waves never calmed. One evening as we were flying before the tempest our vessel came for refuge to the mouth of the strait of Bonifacio, among some little islands. Their aspect was not alluring. They were great bald rocks, covered withbirds, some bnshes of lentisk, a few tufts of absinthe and here and there in the slime decaying pieces of wood. But, my soul! it was better to pass the night among these sinister rocks than to be on a frail old bark, half decked, where the blast came in as though it were quite at home. So we contented ourselves. No sooner had we disembarked than the sailors lighted a fire for the fish soup, and the captain called me, pointing to a little inclosure surrounded by a white wall almost lost in the mist at the end of the island. "Will you come to the cemetery?" 3aid he. "A cemetery, captain! Where are we?" "On the Lavezzi islands, monsieur. The 600 men of the frigate Semillante are buried here at the spot where she was lost 10 years ago. Puorfellows! As they don't receive many visits, the least we can do is to go and say 'bonjour' to them, so long as we are here. ' ' "With all my heart, captain. " How sad it was, the cemetery of the Semillante ! I see it still, with its little, low wall; its iron door, rusty and hard to open; its silent chapel, the hundreds of black crosses hidden by the weeds. Not one wreath of immortelles, not one souvenir - nothing! Ah, thepoor, abandoned dead! How cold they must be in their chance toinbs! We staid a moment kneeling. The captain prayed aloud. Enormous gulls, the only guardians of the cemetery, cled over our beads, mingling their hoarse cries with the wailing of the sea. The prayer finished, we came sadly back to the corner of the island where the bark was aiichored. No time had been lost during our absence. We f ound a great fire flarniug in the shelter of a rock and the soup smoking. Sitting down in a circle, with our feet to the flames, soon each had on his knees a bowl of red pottery, in which were two slices of black bread covered plentifully with the broth. The repast was a silent one. We were wet, we were hungry, and then the nearnese of the graveyard! However, when the bowls were emptied, we lighted our pipes and talked a little - naturally of the Semillante. "Teil me, how did it happen?" 1 asked the captain, who, with his head on his hands, stared at the flames with a thoughtful air. "How did it happen?" said the good Liouetti, with a heavy sigh. "Alas, no human being can teil ! All we know is that the Semillante, laden with troops, left Toulon the evening before in bad weather. During the night it grew worse - wind, rain and a terrible sea, the like of which was never seen before. In the morning the wind feil a little, j but the sea was worse, if possible, and with it the devil's own fog, so that one j oould not have distinguished a beacou light four feet away. Those fogs, monsieur! You have no idea how deceitful they are. But I also have an idea that the Semillante must have lost her helm in the morning, for the captain even in a heavy fog could hardly have made snch a mistake. He was a well tried mariner. We all knew him. He had commanded the Corsican station for three years and knew the coast as well as I, who know nothing else. ' ' "At what time do they think the Semillante perished?" "It must have been at noon - yes, monsieur, noon - but, forsooth, with that fog that noon was worth uo more than a night as black as the jaws of a i wolf. A life" saver of the coast told me that the same day toward half past 1 1, having goue out of his cabin to fasten his shutters, the wind whirled away his cap, and at the risk of being carried off himself by the blast he cominenced to crawl along the beach on all fours after it. You see the douaniers aren't rich. and a cap costs. Well, it seems that oor man, lifting his head, saw right near him through the fog a great ship scudding along under bare poles toward the Lavezzi islands. This ship went very fast, so fast that he had hardly time for a good look. Everything leads to the belief that it was the Semillante, because a half hour later the shepherd of the island heard - Why, here comes the shepherd himself. He will teil you. Bonjour, Palombo. Come, warm thyself. Have no f ear. ' ' A muffled man, whom I had seen for some minutes prowliug around our fire, and whom I had taken for one of the crew, because I did not know that there was a shepherd on the islánd, approached us timidly. He was an old leper, three-quarters an idiot and a prey tó I know not what other scorbutic evil, which made his lips horrible to behold, so swollen were they. They explained to hira at length what we were talking about. Then, lifting his dreadful lipa with his finger, the oíd man said that on the day iu question, abont noon, he heard from his hut a írightful crash on the rocks, but as the island was covered with water he could not get out to see. 16 was not until the next morning that om oruing his door he had seen the beach covered with driftwood and corpses, left there by the waves. Insane j with fear, he had fled to his boat to go i to Bonifacio tur heJp. Tired with bavii g said so much, the shepherd sat dowu, and the captain went on with his story. "Yes, monsieur, it was this poor old fellow who came to warn us. He was crazy with fright, and ever since his brain has been off the track. To teil the truth, there was cause enough for it. Imagine 600 hundred corpses in heaps on the sand, mixed with great timbera and strips of sail. Poor Semillante! The sea had crushed her into crumbs with one blow. Palombo with difficulty got enough wood to build a fence around his hut. As for the men, nearly all were horribly disfigured and mutilated. It was pitiful to see them clinging together in bunches. We found the captain in a gala uniform, the chaplain with his stole. In a corner between two rocks there was a little cabin boy with his eyes open. One might have thought him alive; but, no, it had been decreed that not one shonld escape. " Here he stopped. "Careful, Nardi, " said he; "the fire ia going out. " Nardi threw two or three tarred logs on the embers, which quickly blazed again. Lionetti continued: "The saddest part of the story is yet to coma Three weeks before the disaster a little cutter, which was going to the Crimea, like the Semillante, was wrecked in the same way in nearly the same place, only this time we managed to save the crew and 20 soldiers who were on board. We took them to Bonifacio and kept them there at the station with us for two days. "Once thoroughly dry and on foot again, it was goodby, good luck. They returned to Toulon, from which port they embarked again several days later for the Crimea. And imagine on what ' ship! On the Semillante. We found : them all - all 20 - lying among the dead just where we are now. I picked up i myself a handsome brigadier, with a ; long blond mustache, a stripling from Paris, whom ' I had taken to my own house, and who made us laugh all the time with his stories. To see him there i crushed me. O holy mother!" Thereupon the good Lionetti, much moved, shook the einders from his pipe, j and rolling himself in his cape wished me good uight. For sonie time longer the sailors whispered among themselves. Then, oue after the other, the pipes went out. No one spoke. The old shepherd bied away, and I was left alone to dream ! away the hours in the middle of the ! sleeping crew. Still under the influence of the ! brious tale which I had heard, I tried to rebuild in my f ancy the poor departed j ship and the story of this agony of which the sea gulls were the only 1 nesses. Several details which had struck me - the captain in gala dress, the chaplain 's stole, the 20 soldiers - helped rue to imagine all the scènes of the drama. i saw cao rngate leaving Touloa in the night. She loses sight of the port The sea is bad, the wind high. The captain ia a valiant offlcer, and every one on board is undisturbed. In the morning a mist rises from the sea. They commence to be uneasy. All the crew are on deck. The captain does not leave the bridge. Between decks, where the soldiers are shut up, it is dark; the air is close. Some are i 11, lying on their knapsacks. The ship pitches horribly. It is impossible to stand up. Sitting on the floor, talking in groups, they cling to the benches. It i's necessarry to shout to be heard. Some begin to be frightened. Listen, then. Wrecks are frequent in the waters. The sailors are there to say so, and what they say is not reassuring. Their brigadier, too, a Parisian who always talks wildly, makes their flesh creep with his jokes. "A wreek I Oh, a wreek is amusing, very. We will be well out of it after our iced bath. Then they will take us to Bonifacio to eat blackbirds with old Lionetti. " Suddenly a crash. What is it? What can it be? "The helm is gone, " cries a dripping sailor who goes running between decks. "Bou voyage!" shouts that madman, the brigadier. But no one laughs now. A great tumult on the bridge. The fog prevents their seeing one another. The sailors go and come, groping along frightened. The helm is goue. It is impossible to guide the ship. The Semillante, adrif t, flies before the wind. It is at this moment that the douanier sees her pass. It is half after 1 1. Just anead they hear, like the roar of cannon, the breakers! The breakers! It ia flnished. There is no hope. They are going straight on the rocks. The captain goes down to his cabin. He comes up in a moment to take his place on the bridge in his full uniform. He wishes to meet death in brave attire. Between decks the soldiers, in mortal terror, gaze at one another without a word. The sick try to sit up; the little brigadier laughs no longer. Then the door opens, and the cháplain with his stole appears on the threshold. "To your knees, mychildren!" All obey. In a ringing voice the priest begins the prayer for the dying. Suddenly a fearfnl shock, a great cry, upstretched arrus, clinging hands, wild eyes, before which the visión of death has flashed. Miserere I It was thus that I passed the night dreaming, bringing baok through 10 years the souls who had perished in the poor ship whose debris surrounded me. Far away in the strait the tempest ragd. The flame of the fire bent under the blast, and I heard our bark thrashino aud straininir at her moorines at the root of the rocks. ■