I looked around me and realized that Captain Briggs hadn't changed history. He'd made it! Slowly the barges emptied, the spectators returned to their own time and place among the Centuries. Sorrowfully I pressed my button and went home. My fame would never be, my fortune would never start. My book would remain unwritten, for I knew full well that potential customer for this historic event had been here as an eye-witness. After seeing it, who'd bother to buy my book? * * * * * On 4 December, 1872, Captain Morehouse of _Die Gratia_ sighted _Mary Celeste_ yawing in a mild sea with jib and fore-topmast sails set, no one at the helm and no one aboard. The binnacle was knocked out of place, the compass was broken. The sextant, the chronometer, ship's register and navigation books were missing. The ship's yawl, lashed to the main hatch was missing. The fore hatch and lazarette were open and about a dozen of the ship's cargo of 1701 barrels of alcohol were broken or leaking badly. The last notation in the ship's deck log had been made early in the morning of 25 November 1872, and the account of the previous hours indicated that _Mary Celeste_ had come through a severe storm on the previous day and most of the night. Accounts that include half-eaten plates of food, half-packed bags and other evidences of an abrupt interruption and panicky flight for safety are false. No survivors have ever turned up, no explanation can be given. Researchers in the "Mystery of _Mary Celeste_" suggest that the storm, the leaking alcohol, combined to frighten Captain Briggs with a threat of fire or explosion and that they all took off in the ship's yawl, which floundered. We will not know the truth until someone invents the Time Machine.