Alcohol -- Physiological effect; Alcoholism; Church and social problems; Temperance
and right the helm as to ride over the swells and drive into port, but
all action for the right government of the ship is ended. Trumpeter
Language mounts the shattered beams of the forecastle, and makes an
oration; it is not necessary to work, he tells the crew, but to hear him
sputter yarns.
It is fearful now to look upon the raging of the black sea. Every moment
the storm increases in fury. As a giant would toss about a straw, so the
waves handle the wrecked timbers. Night gathers her black mists into the
rifted clouds, and the strong moaning sound of the storm is heard on the
dark ocean. By that glare of lightning I saw a sail and a life-boat! Men
from another ship are risking their lives to save the insane crew whose
masts are gone. They come nearer, but the boat bounds and quivers, and
is nearly swamped upon the top of a wave. Jack Courage and Independence
see the boat coming. "Ship ahoy," shout the deliverers. "Life-boat from
the ship Temperance! Quit your wreck and be saved." No reply.
Independence grinds his teeth and growls to Jack Courage that the offer
of help is an insult. "I will tell you how to answer," says Jack, stern
and bloody. There is one cannon left with a dry charge. They wheel that
upon the approaching boat, and Independence holds the linstock over the
fuse-hole. "Life-boat for sailors on the wreck," shouts Philanthropy
from the approaching boat. "What answer, ship Immortal?" Then shoots
from the ringing gun a tongue of flame, and ten pounds of iron are on
their way. The Temperance boat rocks lower from the wave-top, and the
deadly reply just grazes the heads of the astounded philanthropists and
buries itself heavily in their own ship beyond. It was an accident, they
think, and keep on board the ship and stand upon its deck. Then flash
from their scabbards a dozen swords; then click the locks of a dozen
muskets; then double the palms of a dozen fists; then shake the clubs of
a dozen maniac arms, and the unsuspecting deliverers are murdered on the
deck they came to save. As the lightning glares I see them thrown into
the sea, while thunders are the dirge of the dead and the damnation of
the murderers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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