Lititz Record

              I V / i / * Record
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OFFICE: BBOAD STREET, LITITZ, LANCASTER
COUNTY, PA.
THE LITITZ RECORD. ¡¡¿h$ %ititn Record,
A d v e r t i s i n g H a t e é:
An Independent Family Newspaper, Devoted to Literature, Agriculture, Local and General Intelligence.
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YOL. IT. LITITZ, PA., FRIDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 2. 1881. NO. 52. J
HEADQUARTERS FOR
HOUSE—STIRES
-AT-Keiper's
Great Furniture Warerooms,
45 North QUEEN Street, Lancaster, Pa.
EVERYBODY
In need of FURNITURE should give us a call. Great bargains offered.
Goods sold at lower prices than ever before known. We hava a large
stock from which to make selections, and guarantee to giye satisfaction
to all our patrons, who are cordially invited to call and see for them-
»elves. No trouble to show goods. Buying direct from the manufac-turers,
we are enabled to sell at bottom prices.
ja9 J. M. KEIPER
¥M. H. BOLLINGER
Manuiacturer and Dealer in
CHOICE CONFECTIONERY,
CAKES, FRUITS, NUTS, &C.
gjy3 Cakes for Weddings and Parties a Specialty.
M A I N S T R E E T,
LITITZ, Lancaster Co., Pa.
NEW GOODS
AT TSHUDY'S STORE,
M A I N STREET, LITITZ.
A F U L L L I N E OP
Cloths and Cassimeres for Men's and Boys' wear, Cottonadeu
Cheviots for Shirting, Cal'.coes, Ginghams, Muslins, White
Goods, and everything else in the line of Dry Goods.
U I T D E R W E A K , STOCKINGS, GLOVES, G E N T S ' FURNTLSHUSLG GOODS
N O T I O N S OF E V E R Y D E S C R I P T I O N.
HATS AND CAPS.
Stationery, Queensware and Glassware, Groceries, Hardware, Glass, Paints
and Oils. Ready-Mixed Paints of any make desired. All Goods at Lowest
Market Prices. Give us a call.
ROBERT K W O L L E,
MAIN Street, LITITZ, Pa.
D R Y GOODS,
P A I N T S ,
L I N S E E D OIL,
GLASS,
O I L CLOTHS,
C A R P E T S ,
HARDWARE,
QUEENS WARE,
STONE WARE,
CEDAR WARE,
STATIONERY,
GROCERIES.
Headquarters for Harrison's White Lead and Ready Mixed Paints, all colors.
We are prepared to sell Carpets from one of the largest Carpet houses in th»
country, by means of the wonderful Carpet Exhibitor, which we invite our
friends and neighbors to come and see.
GILL'S CITY GALLERY - PHOTOGRAPHY,
No. 19 EAST KING Street, LANCASTER, PA.
Copying Old P i c t u r e s ft S p e c i a l t y . Landscape Views, Groups and Bnlld-
^ Inst». Pbotograpby in all its Branches. ocl8-l
" Î 3
m WM. H. REGENNAS
Would hereby announce that lie lias opened a
sew store near the'
RAILROAD DEPOT, LITITZ,
where he has on hand and makes to order all
kinds of
Good Tinware,
M the Lowest Prices. All Mods ol work to or-der
and REPAIRING promptly attended to.
Booflnff and Spouting a Specialty.
Also,
PLUMBING, GAS AND STEAM FITTING.
Good Workmanship guaranteed. Give him a
call. ap23
A- B. REUDENBACH,
JUSTICE QF THE PEACE,
S U R V E Y O R A N D C O N V E Y A N C E R,
LITITZ, PA.
I am now prepared to do Surveying- and Con-veyancing
In all its torm. tapers careiully
and neatly drawn.
CLE! KING OF SALES. HEAL AND PEKSONAI,
Houses to Rent and for Sale.
Also,
Agent for First-Class 1.1 fo and Fire
insurance Companies.
SAYE $1.50 PER TON
On your coal, toy buying Stoves, Heaters anil
Ranees with BROWMBACK'S PATENT RE-VBBSIBLE
GRATES. HARDWARE,
IRON, STEEL, OILS,
PAINTS, GLASS,
WOOD AND WILLOWWARE,
BUILDING MATERIAL,
TINWARE and general
House Furnishing Goods,
At prices as low as anywhere else,
we are still selling the
FAMOUS RUBBER PAINT.
BOMBERGER & CO.,
successors t o J . A Buch & Bro.,
J e u UTITZ, PA,
BARGAINS ! BARGAINS !
AT
. 0 . W I T T E R S '.
BROAD Street, LITITZ.
A Large and Fashionable stock of
BOOTS, SHOES
AND
RUBBER GOODS.
I believe I carry a larger stock of Boots and
Shoss t h a n any other house In t h e country, anf
can sell as cheap or cheaper for cash t h a n a r /
other house for t h e same quality of goods.
Also,
SHOE LEATHER AND FINDINGS,
and flrst quality Shoe Dressing for sale. Mea-sures
taken and all kinds or
BOOTS AND SHOES MADE TO ORDER.
Repairing done with neatness and dispatch.
Dealer In three kinds of flrst-dass Sewing
Machines, viz: the Howe NEW B, the NEW
HOME a n d the HOUSEHOLD.
Please call and examine these Machines be-fore
purchasing from any traveling agent. You
can save f r om ¡§5 to $14, according to style and
finish, on each machine, as 1 have no expenses
on them. Traveling agents have big expenses,
and those who buy of such agents must help to
pay such expenses. If you desire any other
make t h a n those mentioned above, I c an fur-nish
you whatever machine you wish at the
same low rates.
A full line of standard Sewing Machine Nee-dles
and the best Hefined Sperm Oil, prepared
expressly for Sewing Machine use, lor sale.
Don't forget t h e name and place.
J . WITTERS,
nlS BROAD s t r e e t , LITITZ.
SCHOOL BOOKS,
SLATES,
COPY BOOKS.
HANDY TABLETS,
PAPER, PENS,
PENCILS, INK.
AND A GENERAL ASSORTMENT OF
STATIONERY
At Lsweat Prices, at
TSHUDY'S STORE.
BY THE BANKS OF THE MOHAWK.
O dark rolling river, so rapid and free,
You bring back the brightness of boyhood to me,
When gayly I wandered, along your wild shore,
With one I loved fondly, who loves me no more.
By the banks of the Mohawk
The cataract's roar,
Where we wandered in childhood
Along the wild shore,
The song-birds have vanished; the summer is o'er;
The roses have faded that bloomed by her door;
The elms and the maples stand leafless and drear;
The snowllakes are falling; the Winter is here.
By the banks of the Mohawk
The cataract's roar,
Where we wandered in childhood
Along the wild shore.
The hopes of her girlhood have flown far away;
Her bright auburn tresees are faded and gray;
Her beauty has vanished; her features, once fail-
Are saddened by sorrow and furrowed by care.
By the banks of the Mohawk
The cataract's roar,
Where'we wandered in childhood
Along the wild shore.
Our childhood Is gone; we are drifting to-day,
Like leaves on the river, forever away,
We are leaving the years; we are nearing the shore
Where storms never beat and no cataracts roar.
By the banks of the Mohawk
The waters may roar
Forever and ever
Along the wild shore!
A DREADFUL CASE.
"Gems!" he excl>)imed,tlie expression
of his countenance changing from that
of the reflective sage, I was going to
say, to one that was almost miserly.
"Ah, now you talk of something I un-derstand.
They are not watching us,
are they?" he broke off,looking nervous-ly
in the direction of the house.
"No, no," said I, with subdued ex-citement,
wondering whs,t was to hap-pen
next.
He deliberately unbuttoned his long
ulster coat, shivered in the cold winter
air as he did so, then he began to fum-ble
at a belt which he wore. Several
diamonds of great value, as I judged, in
a moment more sparkled before my as-tonished
eyes. He had apparently drawn
them from a little leather pocket, curi-ously
concealed beneath this belt.
"Ah! those are gems, if you like, sir,"
he exclaimed, with an exulting chuckle,
which brought to my mind the impres-sion
created at our first interview, that
he was not quite right in his head.
"They are splendid," I said, "but
why do you carry tnem about with you?
Suppose any one, dishonestly inclined,
were to learn that an elderly man had
property of such value upon him? The
thought of it makes me tremble, sir."
" I am not in the habit of exhibiting
the treasures which it has taken my life-time
to amass. I dare not. But I trust
you, sir."
As a man of business I thought there
was here another proof of mental weak-ness,
in the fact that he should confide
in one of whose antecedents he knew
nothing, and of whose honesty he had no
further proof than a love of nature might
But I chanced at this moment to look
u.p at the flrst floor window of our neigh-bor's
house: and there, watching with a
strange and, as I thought, scornful
smile, stood the tall, shallow man of
whom both my wife's and my own im-pression
was so distinctly unfavorable.
I mentioned to the old » a n to put
away his jewels, for the German servant
was approaching again; most likely sent
by her master.
My strange acquaintance did not ap-pear
in the garden any more.
I have an innate horror of eavesdrop-ping,
and, as I have repeatedly said to
my dear wife, whose feminine curiosity
tempts her to attach far too little atten-tion
to this evil. "Conversation not in-tended
for her ears ought to be regarded
with the same feelings as a letter not
written for her perusal. She would feel
deeply insulted did any one suggest that
she would be capable of reading another
person's letter simply because the seal
happened to be broken, and could there-fore
do so without the fear of detection."
But women, alas! are never logical; and
she will not see, or, perhaps cannot, that
her conduct is no less culpable when she
greedily listens to the private conversa-tion
of others, just because accident or
carelessness on their part has placed her
within earshot.
"Well, a few days after that we sat in
our cheerful, cosy front parlor; we were
sitting, I say, in our cosy parlor; iny
wife, with her knitting in her hands, on
an ottoman, which was drawn close into
a recess by the fire-place; I, m my good
old arm chair, by the table in the middle
of the room, and reading the last num-ber
of the Gardener's Magazine. The
entrance of Ann with our customary
"night cap" of weak toddy and thin
bread and butter, interrupted my study
of an article on "Trenching," and caused
me to look up at my wife.
"Eavesdropping!" I was about to ex-claim,
when my speech was arrested by
observing the strange look of horror on
Polly's face. She had dropped her knit-ting,
and sat with hands clasped across
her breast, and head pressed closely
against the wall.
•'My dear girl, whatever is the matter
with you?" I said.
"Oh! it is dreadful," she whispered,
holding up her fingers to check me.
"Pray come and hear what they are
saying."
Exalted though my principles were
about listening, I could not resist the
impulse of the moment, but hastily rose
from my seat and placed my ear against
the wall likewise. Ann Lightbody, too,
forgetting our relative positions, drop-pad
the tray of toddy on the table as if
it were a hot coal, and rushed to the op-posite
side of the mantlepiece to imitate
our example. To any one entering the
room at that moment the scene present-ed,
must have been absurd beyond de-scription.
But we were earnest enough,
for what we heard seemed to freeze our
very blood.
" I s he dead yet?" we heard Mrs.
Maiden ask her husband, with a low,
musical laugh that seemed to us like the
mirth of a fiend.
"Thoroughly," responded he in a deep
voice, which betrayed no sign of remorse
or agitation; "your hint, that I should
dispose of him in his sleep,like Hamlet's
uncle did his troublesome brother, was
capital."
There was silence for several minutes.
Then we heard Mrs. Maiden ask grave-ly,
"What shall you do with the body?"
"Oh, that is just the difficulty, As
the neighbors must not have their sus-picion
roused,it must be buried at night
and a report put about that the silly old
man has gone into the country."
"Oh, dear! there is the property to
dispose of, is there not?"
"Uncut diamonds tell no tale," said
this sallow neighbor of mine,in his deep
voice, laughing loudly. "Nothing could
have been luckier than my witnessing
that little scene between my uncle and
our fat neighbor over the garden wall.''
In an ordinary moment I should have
felt keenly the insult conveyed in his
remark, but my feelings were too highly
wrought for it to touch me then.
But Polly pressed my hand and mur-mured.
"The horrid villain!"
We listened painfully for several min-utes
more. We heard Maiden's wife
heave a deep sigh. She was human,
then. I had scarcely thought it.
" I can't bear to think—it is too dread-ful!"
she said her voice trembling for
the first time during the conversation.
Again her husband laughed loudly,
and said, in a theatrical toue, "What,
my Lady Macbeth trembling! "Come,
we'll go to sleep. We are yet young in-deed."
In a moment more we heard the door
of the apartment closed. We three sat
and looked at each other—blanched and
speechless with horror.
Ann was the first to cover her pres-ence
of mind. ' Shall I go and fetch
the perlese, sir?" she said in a subdued
voice.
"Oh, don't leave me, Ann!" sobbed
my poor wife, yielding to her pent up
emotions and clasping our servant
around the waist. This was the first
time in her life that she had been so
undignified,
"You go, Joram," she continued.
Then a sudden fear seized her. "But
we shall both be murdered while you
are gone." The poor soul wrung her
hands and began to laugh hysterically.
I felt that everything depended upon
my controlling my nervous system.
Polly was beginning to get silly, and
Ann might at any moment break down,
too. I took out my pipe, and slowly
filled and lit it, in order both to steady
myself and to impress these women with
my self-command.
"I'll telegraph to Chittick—that will
be best," I said, after pacing the room
once or twice.
"You can't telegraph to-night, sir;
the office 'nil be shut," said the practi-cal
Ann.
Mr. Chittick was an inspector in the
detective force at Scotland Yard. After
some internal debating I decided it
would be better to vf.it till the morning
and then telegraph than to go off to the
local police station that night. I have
often since wondered at my courage and
calmness. The wife and servant seem-ed
to catch something of my spirit. We
were unanimous that to go to bed was
impossible, so Mrs. Frogg lay on the
sofa, Ann in the sofa chair, which we
wheeled out of the next room, and I sat
up in my good arm chair prepared to
watch the night through.
Happily nothing transpired during
that tedious night to create further
alarm. In the morning when the post-ma
J called, I got him to take a tele-graphic
message, which simply urged
my friend the inspector to come as early
in the day as he possibly could, as I
wanted to see him on business of a very
pressing and extraordinary character.
About noon he came. Not a soul had
stirred f r o n the neighboring house, and
I iiad therefore the satisfaction of feel-ing
that the delay would not frustrate
the ends of justice.
^ h e n we were alone, I "told the- story
of Mr. Lea's eccentric conduct; his dis-appearance
after his nephew had seen
him show me the diamonds in'the gar-den;
and finally the strange conversa-tion
we had overheard the night before.
At first my friend was merely politely
attentive; but, as I went on, he took out
his note book and carefully wrote down
the words we had overheard. He asked
for particulars, too, of the appearance
of Maiden and his wife, and of the mur-dered
man.
"Do you know anything of the busi-ness
or profession of Maiden?" he then
asked.
I could only admit that on this point
I was entirely in the dark.
"But has not your maid learned any-thing
on this subject from your neigh-bor's
servant?" he inquired; "servants
gossiping, ysu know."
"The woman next door is a foreigner
—a German—I think."
Inspector Chittick pursed up his
mouth and tapped his note book with
his pencil.
"Thatlooks like a plan," he remarked
after a moment's meditation. "That
fact is the strongest point in the case.
I t seems as though it were designed that
nothing should transpire through the
clatter of servants."
"Yet surely the real point is the con-fession
of murder which we overheard?"
I urged deferentially.
'»'That has to be proved," he replied.
" I n the meanwhile, I must compliment
you on your shrewdness in sending for
me in this quiet way. I shall at once
telegraph for one of our men to stay with
you here, and for another to be posted
within a convenient distance of the
house,"
Day after day passed and nothing
transpired'to clear up this mjstery. At
length, after &n interval of nearly a fort-night,
we had, for the first time, a com-munication
from Inspector Chittick in
the shape of a telegram:
" I have made an unexpected and
startling discovery in re Maiden. I will
call this afternoon, and hope to do busi-ness.
Maiden is at home; intends leav-ing
home to-morrow with wife and Ger-man
servant."
I did not show this message to Polly,
for I knew it would upset her. My
nerves, too, were a little unstrung, and
I actually trembled when Ann ushered
Mr. Chittick into the front room. After
greeting me, he gravely took a news-paper
from his pocket and passed it to
me.
"Read that," said he, pointing to a
portion marked at the top and bottom
with ink. In a mechanical fashion I
took the paper and began to read. I t
was part of an article on the ' 'Magazines
of the Month," and Tyburnia was the
periodical, the criticism of which he had
marked. It read;
"Tyburnia, as usual, is very strong
in fiction. But it scarcely sustains its
reputation by inserting the highly mel-odramatic
tale, "The Cap of Midas."
The hero-villain of this story is a young
Greek who is assistant to an aged dia<-
mond merchant in Syracuse,"
My heart began to beat as I read the
first few words.
"This young gentleman is fired by an
ambition to play an important part in
the political life of the coming Greek
federation. To obtain wealth, and with
it influence, he murders his aged mas-ter
for the sake of certain priceless gems
which the old fellow had concealed in a
velvet nightcap he is in the habit of
wearing. This is the cap of Midas, we
presume. Justin Corgialegno—the mur-derer—
had read "Hamlet," and drops
poison into his master's ear, and steals
the nightcap. This poison, however>
fails to do its work, so the assistant at
once stabs the old man and begins to
feel the first difficulties of his lot, name-ly,
how to dispose of the body of the
murdered man."
I looked up at Inspector Chittick
sheepishly. A mocking smile lurked in
the corners of his mouth, I thought.
Well, the hero buries his master in
the garden of his house and starts off
with this cap, which contains the wealth
that is to give him political power.
Here comes the melodramatic point of
the story. The diamonds m this cap
are of such enormous value that the
murderer dare not attempt to sell them,
feeling sure that inquiries will be made
as to how he became possessed of such
precious gems. Tortured by fear and
desperate with hunger, he at length
commits suicide with his cap of Midas
placed mockingly upon his own head.
The story is ingenious in some of its
parts, but is really, to speak plainly un-worthy
of the reputation of that pro-mising
young novelist, Mr. Ernest Mai-den.
"
"Mr. Ernest Maiden," I muttered va-cant^
r, "a—a novelist!"
Tba inspector rose from his chair and
slapped me on the back, and poked me
in the ribs, and shook me by the shoul-ders
laughing the while with such tre-mendous
boisterousness that Mrs. Frogg
and Ann burst into the room in a state
of speechless amazement which I shall
never forget. Their appearance gave
gave the finishing touch of absurdity to
the situation, and as the grotesqueness
of the blunder which we had one and all
made dawned upon me, I, too, began to
laugh until the tears rolled down my
ftheeks.
"Polly," I gasped as soon as I could
speak. "Mr. Maiden is a novelist, and
oh ! such a vile murderer—on paper !
Ha, ha, ha ! oh, oh, he, he ! ha, ha, ha,
h a !"
We really never saw poor old Mr. Lea
again, for he died at Brighton of soften-ing
of the brain a few weeks after his
nephew and niece joined him. Their
leaving town—referred to in the inspec-tor's
telegram—was with this object.
The old gentleman, as we afterwards
learned, was taken away from next door
in a cab one evening when we must have
been at the back of the house. Had we
but seen him go, we should have been
spared a great deal of terror and inany
unjust suspicions of our neighbors' char-acters.
He that has no inclination to learn
more, will be very apt to think he knows
enough.
A Rescue at Sea,
The Cunard steamship Parthia was
between 400 and 500 miles distant from
the west coast of Ireland. For some
hours a low barometer had given warn-ing
of a coming gale. The breeze was
fresh on the port quarter, with a long
following sea, over which, under the
impulse of propeller and canvas, the
beautifully moulded hull of the great
steamship rushed like a locomotive,
raising a roar of thunder at her bows
and carving out the green, glass-clear
water with her stern into two oil-smooth
combers, which broke just abaft the
fore-rigging and rushed with a swirl
and brilliance of foam to join the long,
glittering snow-line of the wake astern.
There was a piebald sky, the blue in it
tarnished and faint, and under it, like a
scattering of brown smoke, the scud
went floating swiftly. In the south and
west the aspect of the heavens was
portentous enough, with a leaden dead-ness
of color and a line of horizon as
sharply marked as a ruling in ink. The
gale was evidently to come from this
quarter; and, sure enough, before eight
bells in the afternoon watch, it was
blowing a hurricane from the S. S. W.
The fury of the wind raised a tremen-dous
sea. The Parthia ran for a time ;
but running is not the remedy pre-scribed
to captains who are caught in a
circular storm and shortly after 4 o'clock
the helm of the steamer was put down
and her head pointed to the seas. The
passengers were below, considerably
battened down by order of Captain
McKaye, the commander of the vessel,
so that they should not be washed over-board
or drowned in the cabins, for now
that the steamer's bow was pointed at
the sea, she was one smother of froth
from the eyes to the rudder-head. Her
curtseying might have looked graceful
at a distance, but it was a tremendous
experience to those who had to keep
time to her dance. Every now and
again she would "dish" a whole green
sea forward—taking it in just as you
would dip a pail into water—a sea that
immediately turned the decks into a
small raging ocean as high as a man's
waist. As she rolled she shattered the
furious tide against her bulwarks, where
it broke into smoke and was gwept away
in clouds, like volumes of steam, for a
whole cabin-length astern. The grind-ing
and straining of the hull, the
hollow, muffled, vibratory note of the
engines, the booming of the mighty
surges against the resonant. fabric, the
screaming of the wind through the iron-stiff,
standing-rigging, and the enduring
thunder of the tempest hurtling through
the sky, completed to the ear the tre-mendous
scene of warfare submitted to
the eve in the picture of black heavens
and white waters, and struggling,
smothered, goaded ship.
The Parthia lay hove to for six hours.
At 10 o'clock at night the gale broke,
the wind sensibly moderated, the
steamer was brought to her course and
wept rolling heavily over the immense
and powerful sea swell which the cyclone
had left behind it. Sunday morning
came with a benediction in the shape of
a warm, bright sun. But the swell was
still exceedingly heavy. It was shortly
after two bells (9 o'clock) when the
lookout man reported a vessel away on
the lee bow, apparently hull down. As
she was gradually hove up by the ap-proach
of the Parthia, those who had
sailors' eyes in their heads perceived
that she was a vessel in distress, and
that if any human beings were aboard
of her their plight would be miserable.
She was water-logged, and so low in the
water that she buried her bulwarks with
every roll. She had all three masts
standing, but her yards weie boxed
about anyhow, her running rigging in
bights, with ends of it trailing over-board.
Her canvas was rudely furled,
but she had a fragment of a foretop-mast
staysail hoisted, as well as a storm
staysail, and she looked to be hove to.
Her aspect, had she been encountered
as a derelict, was mournful enough to
have set a sailor musing for an hour;
but when it was discovered that there
were living people on her she took an
extraordinary and tragical significance.
No colors were hoisted to express her
oondition; but then no colors were
needful. Her story wanted no better
telling than was found in the suggestion
of the small crowd of human heads; on
her deck watching the Parthia; in the
dull and steady lifting of the dark vol-umes
of water against her sides, in the
gushing of clear cascades from her
scupper-holes as she leaned wearily
over to the fold of the tall swell that
threatened to overwhelm her, and in
the sluggish waving of her naked spars
under the sky. Twenty-two people
could be counted aboard of her. All
these had to be saved, but it was very
well understood by every man belonging
to the Parthia that they could only be
saved at the risk of the lives of the
boat's crew that should put off for them;
the swell was still violent to an extent
beyond anything that can be conveyed
in words. As the Parthia, with her
propeller languidly revolving, sank into
a hollow, a wall of water stood between
her and the bark, and the ill-fated vessel
became invisible, then in another mo-ment
hove high, the people on board
the steamer could look down from their
poised deck upon the half-drowned hull
and the soaked, clinging and pale-faced
crew as you look upon a housetop in a
valley from the side of a hill. The
serious danger lay in lowering a boat.
But J a c k is not of a deliberative turn of
mind when something that ought to be
done waits for him to do it. Volunteers
were forthcoming. The order wivs
given. Eight hands sprang aft and
seated themselves in the lifeboat, and
the third officer, Mr. William Williams,
took his place in the stern-sheets. It
was one of those moments when the
bravest man in the world will hold his
breath. There swung his boat's -crew
at the devits ; the end of the fall in the
hands of men waiting for the right
second to lower away. One dark-green
foamless swell, in whole, huge moun-tains
of water, rose and sank below ;
too much hurry, the least delay, any
lack of coolness, of judgment, of per-ception
of exactly the right thing to do,
and it was a hundred to one if the next
minute did not see the boat dashed into
staves and her crew squattering and
drowning among the fragments. The
due command was coolly given; the
sheaves of the fall-blocks rattled on
their pins and the boat sank down to.
the water's edge. A vast swell hove
her high, almost to the level of the spot
where she had been hanging, and as
quick as mortal hands can move the
blocks were unhooked—but only just in
time. Then a strong shove drove her
clear, and in a moment she was heading
for the wreck—now vanishing as though
she had been wholly swallowed up by
the tall, green, sparkling ridge that rose
between her and the steamer, then
tossed like a cork upon a mountainous
pinnacle, "Kith keel out of water. She
had been well stocked with lines and
life-buoys, for it was clearly seen that
the pouring waters would never permit
her to come within a pistol-shot of the
bark, and the suspense among the
passengers amounted to an agony as
they wondered within themselves how
those sailors would rescue the poor
creatures who had watched them from
the foamy decks of the almost submerged
wreck. They followed the boat vanish-ing
and reappearing, the very pulsation
of their hearts almost arrested at mo-ments
when the little craft made a head-long,
giddy swoop into a prodigious
hollow and was lost to view, until pre-sently
they perceived that the men had
ceased to row. It was then seen that
fhe third mate was hailing the crew of
the bark. Presently they saw one of
the shipwrecked sailors heave a coil of
line towards the boat; it was caught, a
life-buoy bent on to it and hauled aboard
the wreck. To this life-buoy was
attached a second line, the end of which
was retained by the people in the boat.
One of the men on the wreck put the
life buoy over his shoulders and in an
instant flung himself into the se'a, and
was dragged smartly but carefully into
the boat. The Parthia's passengers
now understood how the men were to be
saved. One by one the ship-wrecked
seamen leaped into the water, until
eleven of them had been dragged into
the Parthia's boat. The number made
a load, and with a cheery call to those
who were to be left behind for a short
while, Mr. Williams headed for the
steamer. The deep boat approached
the Parthia slowly; but, meanwhile
Captain McKaye's foresight had provided
for the perilous and difficult job of get-ting
the rescued men on board the
steamer. A whip was rove at the fore-yardarm,
under which the rising and
falling boat was stationed by means of
her dars, one end of the whip knotted
into a bow-line was overhauled into the
boat and slipped over the shoulders of a
man, and at a signal a dozen or more of
the Parthia's crew ran him up and
ed him in. In this way the eleven
men were safely landed on the deck of
the steamer. The boat then returned
to the wreck, the rest of the crew were
dragged from her by means of the buoys
and life-lines, and hoisted, along with
six of the Parthia's men, out of the boat
by the yardarm whip. But not yet was
this perilous and nobly-executed mission
completed. There was still the boat to
ruD up to the davits. All the old fears
reoccurred as she was brought alongside
with Mr. Williams and two men in her.
But jack has a marvellously quick hand
and a steady pulse. The blocks were
swiftly hooked into, the boat, and soon
she soared like a bird in the davits under
the strong running pull of a number of
men before the swell that followed her
oould rise to the height of the chain-plates.
To appreciate the pathos and pluck of
an adventure of this kind, a man must
have served.as a spectator or actor in
some such a scene: Words have but
little virtue when deeds are' to be told
whose moving powers arid ennobling
inspirations lie in a performance that
may as fitly be described in one as in a
hundred lines. Such as remember the
faces of those shipwrecked Englishmen
and Canadians, the aspect of them-:as
they were hoisted, one by one, over the
Parthia's side ; the bewildered rolling of
their eyes incredulous of their miracu-lous
preservation; their expression of
suffering slowly yielding to perception
of the new lease of life mercifully ac-corded
them, graciously and nobly
earned for them ; their streaming gar-ments,
their hair clotted like seaweed
upon their pale foreheads ; the passion-ate
pressing forward of the crew and
passengers of the Parthia to rejoice with
the poor fellows over their salvation
from one of the most lamentable dooms
to which the sea can sentence, will
wonder at the insufficiency of this record
of as brilliant and hearty, though
simple, a deed as any which makes up
the stirring annals of the maritime life,