OMETIMES a vessel comes in from sea with a tale of fire and death that brings the quick breath from even the most hardened.

One winter night, a few years ago, First Officer Nelson, standing his watch on the swaying bridge of the British tramp Hector, rolling her way through the heavy midnight seas from Liverpool for New York, saw away off on the horizon a flare of light. A lancelike pillar of flame it was, the top of which was torn off by the wind when it reached its height and carried across the heavens for several hundred feet. Then the light faded away, and the darkness which had framed the spectacle seemed more intense than ever. But only for a second. For as Nelson strained his eyes to pierce the blackness, a red glow began to rise out of the sea. Steadily it grew in stature and in intensity, until the sea was no longer dark-until the skies glowed like a furnace door.

The cry of "Fire" rang through the wallowing tramp, carrying with it all the emotions which that cry ever arouses in those who fare upon the deep.

The course of the Hector was altered to the southward, and in the space of an hour

she was within several hundred yards of the burning vessel, the oil-ship Loodiana. She was on fire from stem to stern. Great gusts of flame were rolling out amidships and being hurled high in the air. The masts were fiery pillars, and the water on all sides was filled with floating masses of burning oil. The crew of the Hector gathered in the bow. It was an interesting, a picturesque, a magnificent spectacle-until one of the crew gave a sharp cry and stretched out his arm in the direction of the bow. Then the scene was changed from the picturesque to the frightful. Following the line of his arm, every eye made out two figures crouched under the bowsprit, standing on the bobstay-a man and a woman. The man's arms were about the woman. He was shielding her as best he might from the heat and the flames.

A high wind was blowing, fortunately bow on, which tended to retard the forward advance of the flames. But as the crew stood watching with dazed fascination, the oil-ship yawed and a great rush of flames licked greedily at the two figures. Then the vessel rounded to again and the flames were beaten back-two elements, one fighting save life, the other to destroy it. Again the vessel fell off, and again the

to

the rail. The end of the tragedy was at hand. With a rush and a roar the flames covered the bow, they burst from all sections of the forepeak, they ran out along the bowsprit, they shrouded the two figures, which disappeared for a second. Then they appeared again, this time cleaving the red glare and sinking in the waters.

That was all. The Hector came to New York and the captain gave out the above report. The underwriters paid their loss. The tragedy was closed.

Ideal North Atlantic Christmas weather. The sky was a cold, even grey, there were high combing head seas, and the wind whipped flurries of snow against the sails and through the rigging of the great four-masted ship Marpesia, bound from New York for Cette, naphtha laden.

Captain Jensen smiled as he bent over his log to record the seasonable Yule-tide conditions; for the holiday spirit thrills Jack at

[George K. Seymour.

shifted sails with right good will, and laughed and joked in happy anticipation.

Strange it was that death should have taken its toll of the Marpesia on Christmas Day. The starboard watch, eleven men, went below shortly after daybreak-they were never to come up again alive-and their comrades worked merrily above.

The morning waned. The boatswain was about to pipe all hands on deck when suddenly a sort of a quiver ran through the ship. There was a low rumbling-low at first, but rapidly increasing in intensity, and then at pause, broken suddenly by a frightful roar. Beginning a few feet in front of the mainmast, the entire forward section of the Marpesia-foremast, decks, cargo, and interior fittings-shot a hundred feet in the air, and against the red background that framed them could be seen the forms of the starboard watch. The debris rained into the sea, and then, sweeping aft, came a roaring wall of flame.

Fed by the terrible naphtha, the flames belched upward with a ferocity and volume that gave not the slightest doubt of the futility of combating them. Literally, they were devouring the vessel as though it were made of cardboard. And yet there was no alternative but to fight-the small boats had gone up with the forward section, and it was too rough to think of launching a raft. Then, too, it is a part of a sailor's instinct to fight for his vessel to the last foothold, and so the survivors rigged lines of hose and poured pitiful streams into the fiery crater with as little effect as though the water was so much air. Step by step the men were forced back, until at the last they were obliged to drop their hose and run as far aft as they could go. It was quickly seen that if the vessel were to last half an hour her head must be thrown off the wind, the flames in her present position being fanned sternwards. Captain

could get, waiting the turn of Fate with the stolidity of men accustomed to danger in every form. A merciful vessel might come

to the rescue-but on all the horizon not a sail, not a string of smoke, was seen. It was but a faint hope, and the evil possibilities greatly outnumbered the hopeful ones.

Twelve hours the crew stayed behind the little house on the poop deck and watched the devouring element advance upon them foot by foot. By nightfall it had worked past the midship section. At times red tongues almost licked their faces. The smoke, too, was stifling, and the flames mounting skyward were so furious that there was no darkness within two miles of the ship.

Before dawn the heat was so intense that any place on the vessel was untenable, and so the sailors, with hair singeing and faces and hands blistering, set to work building a plank extension out over the stern.

into the sea, and there they fought for life until small boats from the succouring steamship picked them up.

And so that was the end of the good ship Marpesia and of her starboard watch. The seventeen survivors were landed at Bermuda and shipped thence to New York. No doubt they are now serving on other oil-ships, for oil-ship sailors take into account just such things as happened to the Marpesia on Christmas Day. It is one of the risks of the trade; and, of course, every trade has its special dangers.

Last spring the steamship Luckenback, laden with oil in bulk, and a crew of twenty-seven men, set out from Sabine Pass, Texas, for New York City. She never reached her destination. She was never spoken by any vessel, and not a splinter of her, nor a sign of her crew, was ever found to give hint as to her fate. Shipping circles had but one comment -fire. Certainly; when an oil-ship does not come home, then there is but one logical explanation.

Fire is frequent on all vessels, from the proudest greyhound to the humblest tramp,

cases, and the tank steamships, which carry oil in bulk. It might be remarked that the word "oil" is used in a generic sense, and may mean petroleum, naphtha, or other liquids of kindred nature. In the old pioneer days of carrying oil in bulk, tank steamships went up in puffs of flame with alarming frequency. Generating gases would cause an explosion, as was the case with the Marpesia, or a trickle of oil would leak through the tank compartments into the engine-room. In either case the complete destruction of the vessel was a question of but a short time.

In these days of porcelain tanks, improved bulkheads, and patent valves, which allow gases to escape without harm to the vessel, oil-carrying steamships are not so liable to destruction; but still these improvements did not save the Luckenback, which was on her maiden trip at the time of her disappearance.

The last oil-ship to burn in the vicinity of the Middle Atlantic coast was the Commodore T. H. Allen, which took fire off Fire Island on the morning of July 8th, 1901.