The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 129, December, 1908 — John Shaqi
The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 129, December, 1908Various
History
The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 129, December, 1908
Various
Adventure stories -- Periodicals; English periodicals; History, Modern -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Voyages and travels -- Periodicals
“I am now writing in the chart-room. If we sink, I don’t want to be
caught like a rat down in my cabin, although there will be no chance for
life in any case if we go down.
“To make our terror worse the Austrian firemen have mutinied. They heard
that the captain had given up the ship. They were right, for he told us to
prepare for the worst. Think of knowing that we have got to drown! Our
boats are all smashed and hanging in bits at the davits. The firemen
tumbled up on the deck looking like demons from the underworld. Then
Captain O’Neil showed his true nature. He became the hard, steel-like
soldier. He sternly ordered them below, but the men did not move. The
cowboys knew instinctively that without steam to turn the engines we must
surely founder. Two of the cowboys seized the ringleader, and, placing the
ends of a lasso about his wrists and thumbs, started to draw the rope over
a guy wire, threatening to string him up by the thumbs. Captain O’Neil had
turned away when these men took the prisoner in charge. Immediately the
frightened crew turned and fled down to the stokehold.
“Who can blame the poor beggars? Life is as sweet to them as to us. Two
hours later they came up again, but the display of an army revolver in
Captain O’Neil’s hand caused them to retreat.
“The chief engineer, an Englishman, has gone insane. Thirty-three years at
sea, and now he has gone to pieces! The terror of the long vigils at the
throttle unnerved him. I passed him a little while ago; he was sitting in
his cabin wailing piteously, his face blanched with terror. The little
Scotch second engineer has been on duty almost every hour since the night
of the 30th. His whole back was scalded by steam. Dr. Calkins bound it up
in cotton and oil, and he is working as if nothing had happened, brave
little fellow.
“6 a.m., Tuesday morning, October 3rd.--Another chapter in my experience
of Hades. No one is on duty except the ship’s officers. It is a ship of
the dead. I have just taken a look down the upper stable division, and the
sight sickened me. The poor brutes of horses and mules, mangled and torn,
lay in heaps, the live ones trying to extricate themselves from the dead.
“At last the typhoon has spent itself, and by to-morrow morning we shall
probably be able to get back on our course and make a fresh start for
Manila. Nearly all the horses and about two hundred mules are wounded as
far as we can ascertain. Soon the hatches will be taken off, and we can
learn the horrible truth.
“October 4th.--All morning long the dead animals have been hoisted out and
thrown overboard. How horrible it all is! The men working in the lower
holds are overpowered and compelled to come up on deck every few minutes.
We have three steam-winches going. We found only one live mule in the
lower hold. Captain O’Neil has been shooting most of the live animals, for
they are beyond hope in their terrible condition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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