A Tale Of The Sea

A Tale of the Sea

Dreadful Experience of a Crew of Shipwrecked Sailors.

How the Survivors Were Rescued After Clinging five Days to the Bottom of an Overturned Vessel.

When the schooner W. S. Fielding made port at Providence a few days ago one of the most grewsome of sea tragedies of recent years was told.

Nearing Port au Prince on her outward voyage the Fielding ran near a dark object bobbing over the seas and, heading up for it, found it to be an overturned boat, with seven men and one woman clinging to it and striving with the little strength that was left in them to hold on to the slippery bottom.

As the schooner drew near the captain saw a boat bottom up and the bleached arms of living persons clinging to it. He distinguished, moreover, the dark hair of a woman floating over the seas as the waves ran and fell along the bobbing keel.

Captain King realized that the shipwrecked persons must be got aboard at once. His own boats were on deck and lashed down, and rather than take any risk by delaying to put a boat overboard he decided to run along close by. He had a life line ready and at the right moment threw it toward the wreck. His hope was that all would get hold of the line and keep it until he could pick them up one by one.

Two men and the woman caught the line and held on. They were dragged aboard like so many fish. Fear of death in the very hour of deliverance impelled them to hold on with so firm a grip that even when they were safely aboard they could hardly be persuaded to relinquish the line.

Captain King decided from the weak and terribly emaciated condition of those whom he had rescued that it would be too great a risk to depend upon the life line to save the other five. The men would surely be drowned if they released their hold upon the wreck. With celerity the Fielding's crew unlashed a boat and put it over board, and the captain in person took the five men into it and carried them aboard ship.

The rescued persons were in a very serious condition. They had been without food or water for four days and nights. Their vessel, a small schooner, had five days before the wreck was sighted left the island of Gonaives, Haiti, for the island of Miragoane, carrying seventeen persons, including the captain.

When a day out from Gonaives the schooner struck a rock. A hole was stove in her, and after she had partly filled she rolled over until her keel was up. All of the schooner's company managed to cling to the wreck.

The first day there were a hot, blinding sun and a choppy sea. Hunger and thirst were bad enough to contend with, but added to these were the terrible pounding and scraping of their bodies on the ship's bottom as the waves lifted and dropped them.

The miserable men began to give out on the second day. One by one they became exhausted and, losing their hold, slipped into the sea. Others became delirious and in their frenzy dropped off to drown.

The company had dwindled to ten on the fourth day, and the next morning only eight survived. These were about to give up the long and bitter fight for life when one of them sighted a sail.

Long before the Fielding was within hailing distance the wretched survivors began to halloo, fearing she would alter her course. When at last their signals of distress were heard and seen they wept for joy.