By the time the
last comers arrived on the fishing-ground, one who had spoken the
"Miranda" some days before, anchored and fishing away, reported that
they had, indeed, nearly _wet her salt_,--by which is meant that she
was nearly filled with good, sound codfish. The men were singing as
they dressed their fish, and Captain Elijah, sitting high up on the
schooner's quarter, took his pipe out of his mouth, and asked, as the
vessel rose on the sea, if they had any news to send home, for three
days more like that would fill him up.
That was the last word of Captain Elijah Nickerson's ever heard by men
now living. Whether the "Miranda" was sunk by an iceberg; whether run
down in the dark and silent watches of the night by some monster packet
or swift hurling steamer, little recking the pale fisher's light feebly
glimmering up from the surface of the deep; or whether they went down
at their anchors, in the great gale which set in on the third night, as
many brave men have done before, looking their fate steadfastly in the
face for long hours, and taking time to bid each other farewell ere the
great sea swallowed them;--the particulars of their hapless fate no man
may know, till the dread day when the sea shall give up its dead.
Pages:
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228