8 FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK. 



A Eemarkable Escape, 



Two Fishermen Imprisoned in a Forecastle Eighty-Nine Hours without Light 

 or Water and on Short Allowance of Food — Timely Rescue. 



The Nova Scotian schoonsr Codseeker was capsized off Cape Sable, May 

 9th, 1877, with the supposed loss of all the crew except the captain and two 

 others, who saved themselves in a dory. The schooner was struck under 

 the weather-quarter by a sea at about 11 o'clock, P. M., and gradually 

 careened over on her beam ends, in which position she remained. It was 

 found impossible to clear the boat, and the three men in the dory, while 

 engaged in bailing to keep her afloat, drifted rapidly to leeward, leaving 

 a part of the crew clinging to the weather-side of the vessel, which they 

 were unable to find again when their frail craft became manageable. After 

 great difficulty and danger they effected a landing in the surf on the south 

 side of Cape Sable Island soon after daylight on the morning of the 10th. 

 A schooner was at once fitted away, in the face of a heavy gale, and at 1 1 

 o'clock, A. M., twelve hours after the accident, the Codseeker was sighted on 

 her beam ends, with five of the crew lashed to her side ; one of these was 

 washed off and drowned before he could be reached, and the other four 

 were rescued with great difficulty. The rest of the crew were supposed to 

 have been drowned in the cabin or washed overboard, and the wreck was 

 abandoned to her fate. On Sunday afternoon the wrecked schooner was 

 fallen in with off Seal Island by the schooner Ohio, of Bucksport, Me., and 

 was boarded by the captain and two of the crew, who fancied that they heard 

 sounds proceeding from the forecastle, the gangway leading to which was 

 entirely under water. On pounding on the side of the vessel they were 

 answered by faint tappings from within, and came to the conclusion that some 

 of the crew had been caught in the forecastle and imprisoned when the ves- 

 sel capsized. They at once proceeded to cut a hole in the side of the 

 schooner, by the fore-chains, and ef ected the rescue of two men who had 

 been confined there without light, water or food, with the exception of a few 

 small cakes, from n o'clock on Wednesday night until 4 o'clock on Sun- 

 day afternoon. They were landed at their homes on Monday morning, to 

 the great joy of their friends, who had given them up as lost. The feelings 

 of these men in their long and apparently hopeless confinement, their sensa" 

 tions when their comrades were taken from the wreck on Thursday, leaving 

 them without means of making their presence known, the long, weary hours 

 that followed, and the intense anxiety with which they became aware that 

 the vessel was boarded again on Sunday afternoon, and their great joy when 

 they knew their signals were heard and deliverance was at hand, can neither 

 be imagined nor described. 



