"He was pointing to windward, and looking in that direction, we all saw a tremendous wave rolling down upon the ship with the speed of an express train. We stopped where we were, and clung with an intense grip to the rigging. The wave came. It pitched the vessel up as if she were a chip of wood, and flung her over on her beam ends. There was a crashing and rending of wood, and several wild shrieks from the men as the foremast went by the board. There were half a dozen fellows on it, and they were plunged into that raging sea. I never saw them again. The rest of us were hanging on as best we could, when the very next wave that came put out the fire sure enough, for it turned the Ellen Burgee bottom up."
Handsome paused for a moment, as if overcome by the dreadful recollection.
"Well," he continued, "when she went over, I let go of the rigging and threw myself into the sea. I made up my mind it was all over with me, yet it turned out that this was not to be the case. I was buried under a ton or two of foaming water, but I came to the surface again, and found myself a long distance off from the overturned ship, which was fast settling in the water. I struck out, as a man will even when he doesn't know what use it is, and kept myself afloat for several minutes, the waves all the time driving me to leeward. Suddenly I saw a dark mass tumbling on the seas a short distance away. I thought it must be one of our boats that had got loose when the ship went over, and so I struck out for it. I was growing weak, blind, and dazed in the heavy seas, when I was caught up by a wave and flung squarely on top of the floating object. I grabbed wildly, and caught hold of something hard and slimy. I clung to it, though, and to my great amazement I found I was hanging to the flipper of the dead whale. You know they float on their sides when dead, with one flipper up in the air and the other under water. Well, it wasn't much of a life-raft, as you may well suppose, but a man in such a fix as I was will take anything he can get. I hung on there all right, the dead whale jumping and tumbling under me like a live fish. Toward morning the wind shifted, and at sunrise the gale broke. The sea began to go down right away, but a great swell was running. When the sun got fairly up I realized what a terrible position I was in. The heat was intense, and the gases from the carcass nearly overwhelmed me. But that was nothing. The air was filled with the discordant cries of hungry sea-birds. They swooped down from every direction, and pecked at the carcass. They beat at me with their wings, and acted as if they knew I was a doomed man, and the sooner they could drive me into the sea the better for me. But I fought them off, and sitting with one leg on each side of the flipper and clasping it with one arm, I clung to my dreadful life-buoy.
"And now came a new horror. Sharks appeared and began to fight around the whale, snapping and biting and tearing off pieces of the flesh. I realized that if this continued my life-buoy would be destroyed; but I was helpless. Then thirst began to torture me. All day long I tossed on that dead whale, with the birds and the sharks around me. At nightfall a gentle shower came, and by holding my mouth open I managed to relieve my thirst a little. As soon as it became dark the birds and the sharks left me, and presently, utterly exhausted, I fell asleep, leaning against the flipper. I remember that I was quite conscious of the danger of falling off my perch into the sea and drowning; but I didn't care. How long I slept I do not know. It must have been five or six hours. I was awakened by a heavy shock, and I found myself plunged into the sea. Involuntarily I uttered a scream for help.
"'Great Scott! there's a man,' I heard a voice say. 'Hang on there, lad. Catch this.'
"Plump came a circular white life-buoy into the sea, luckily falling within my reach. A few minutes later a boat had been lowered away, and I learned that my dead whale had been run down in the darkness by the ship Full Moon, bound for Liverpool from Hong-Kong. And so I was taken to England, with a pretty clear determination in my head never to go whaling again."
JUNE FLOWERS.
Here and there a daisy?
And now and then a clover?
And once a week a buttercup,
And so the whole land over?
A rose within the garden?
A lily in the sun?
Does dear old Mother Nature
Count flowers one by one?
No; daisies by the acre,
And clovers millionfold,
The meadows pink with blushing,
The pastures white and gold.
And roses, like the children,
Abloom at every door,
And buttercups as countless
As the sand upon the shore.
Dear Mother Nature scatters
Her flowers on road-side edge;
She carpets every forest,
And curtains every ledge.
And then she sets us dancing
To such a merry tune,
For all the world is laughing,
And, darlings, this is June!