The fact that no buoy has ever been recovered bearing any message later than that carried by the solitary homing pigeon would seem also to indicate that death overcame the party soon after the night of July 13th, with the goal of the pole still far beyond the fogs and ice packs of the North.
In some such desolation and bleak disaster one of the most splendid and mad adventures of any time came to its dark and mysterious conclusion, leaving the world an enigma and a legend.
XVII
SPECTRAL SHIPS
We have not yet lost that sense of terror before the vast power and wrath of the waters that wrought strange gods and monsters from the fancy of our ancestors. It is this fright and helplessness in us that gives disappearances at sea their special quality. In spite of all progress, all inventiveness, all the power of man’s engines, every putting forth to sea is still an adventure. The same fate that overcomes the little catboat caught in a squall may overtake the greatest liner—the Titanic to note a trite example.
As a matter of fact, never a year passes without the loss of some ship somewhere in the wild expanse of the world’s waters. Boats go down, leaving usually at least some indirect evidence of their fate. Now and again, as in the case of the Archduke Johann Salvator’s Santa Margarita and Roger Tichborne’s schooner Bella, not a survivor lives to tell the tale nor is any bit of wreckage found to give indication. Here we have the genuine marine mystery. The marvel lies in the number of such completely vanished ships. A most casual survey of the records turns up this generous list, from the American naval records alone:
The brig Reprisal, 1777; the General Gates, 1777; the Saratoga, 1781; the Insurgent, 1800; the Pickering, 1800; the Hamilton, 1813; the Wasp III, 1814; the Epervier, 1815; the Lynx, 1821; the Wildcat, 1829; the Hornet, 1829; the Sylph II and the Seagull, both in 1839; the Grampus, in 1843; the Jefferson, 1850; the Albany, with two hundred and ten men, in 1854; and Levant II, with exactly the same number aboard, in 1860. In 1910 the tug Nina steamed out of Norfolk and was never again heard from, and in 1921 the seagoing tug Conestoga put out from Mare Island, Cal., bound for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with four officers and fifty-two men aboard, and was never again reported. These are not mere marine disasters[13] but complete mysteries. No one knows precisely what happened to any of these ships and their people.
[13] For a handy list of these see The World Almanac, 1927 Edition, pages 691-95.
No account of sea riddles would be complete without mention of the American brigantine Marie Celeste, of New York, Captain Briggs, which was found floating abandoned and in perfect order in the vicinity of Gibraltar on the morning of December 5th, 1872. She had sailed from New York late in October with a cargo of alcohol, bound for Genoa. On the morning mentioned the British bark Dei Gratia, Captain Boyce, found the Marie Celeste in Lat. 38.20 N., Long. 17.15 W. with sails set but acting queerly, yawing and falling up into the wind. Captain Boyce ran up the urgent hoist but got no answer from the brigantine. The day being almost windless and the sea beautifully calm, Captain Boyce put off in a boat with his mate, Mr. Adams, and two sailors, reached the Marie Celeste and managed to board her. There was not a soul to be seen, not the least sign of violence or struggle, no indication of any preparations for abandonment, not a boat gone from the davits.
Captain Boyce and his mate, naturally amazed, made a careful inspection of the ship and wrote full reports of what they had found. In the cabin a breakfast had been laid for four persons and only partly eaten. One of these four was a child, whose half empty bowl of porridge stood on the table. A hard boiled egg, peeled and cut in two but not bitten into, lay near one of the other places. There were biscuits and other food on the table.