And well I recollect the sad records
of the log-book which was left on board the deserted ship; how she
had been waterlogged for weeks and weeks, buoyed up by her timber
cargo, the crew clinging in the tops, and crawling down, when they
dared, for putrid biscuit-dust and drops of water, till the water was
washed overboard and gone; and then notice after notice, 'On this day
such an one died,' 'On this day such an one was washed away'--the log
kept up to the last, even when there was only that to tell, by the
stern business-like merchant skipper, whoever he was; and how at
last, when there was neither food nor water, the strong man's heart
seemed to have quailed, or perhaps risen, into a prayer, jotted down
in the log--'The Lord have mercy on us!'--and then a blank of several
pages, and, scribbled with a famine-shaken hand, 'Remember thy
Creator in the days of thy youth;'--and so the log and the ship were
left to the rats, which covered the deck when our men boarded her.
And well I remember the last act of that tragedy; for a ship has
really, as sailors feel, a personality, almost a life and soul of her
own; and as long as her timbers hold together, all is not over.
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