54 
THE STRAND MAGAZINE. 
a woman here— probably the captain’s wife 
and she was using that machine not long 
before she went wherever she went. Note 
this thimble lying on its side on a corner of 
the machine. There could have been no 
storm at the time the woman separated from 
the ship, for any kind of sea-roll would have 
caused the cotton to tumble off the machine/' 
£t There’s been a child here, too, sir,” put 
in the mate. “ It was a girl, for the thing the 
“ the appearances of thk table showed that four persons 
HAD RISEN FROM a HALF-EATEN MEAL TO T.lvAVE THE CARIN 
FOR KVEk/ 1 
woman was sewing on the machine appears to 
me like a pinafore. The child was possibly 
the skipper’s kiddie. And the woman stopped 
sewing in the middle of stitching a sleeve to 
leave the ship, however she left it/’ 
“ No, she didn’t,” said the captain. u She 
stopped sewing to get her breakfast.” And 
the captain pointed to the table, the 
appearance of which showed that four persons 
had risen from a half-eaten meal to leave the 
cabin lor ever. The four at table were 
accounted for as the captain, his wife and 
little girl, and the mate. That the meal was 
breakfast was indicated by the nature of the 
food — oatmeal, coffee, bacon, and eggs. The 
child had almost finished her porridge At 
the captain’s place at the table lay the two 
halves ol a hard-boiled egg in the shell. It 
was evident that the moment he broke the 
shell he left the cabin never to return. 
At another place at the table 
—probably his wife’s— stood a 
bottle filled with a popular 
brand of cough medicine. It 
looked as if the woman’s last 
act aboard the brig had been 
to remove the cork from the 
bottle, for the cork lay on the 
cloth : and, as an evidence there 
had been nothing but a calm 
sea since the ship was deserted, 
the narrow tall bottle stood 
upright close to the edge of the 
table, not a drop of the medicine 
having escaped from the bottle. 
In the forecastle, too, pans on 
the stove contained a breakfast 
ready cooked, showing that the 
sailors were about to gather for 
the morning meal when they 
went over the side instead. 
Second, as already stated, 
there was a dearth of evidence 
of mutiny or piracy. No sign 
of any kind indicated violence 
or a. struggle. Moreover, the 
money-chest was found to have 
its contents presumably intact. 
Third, how long had the vessel 
been deserted ? The log replied 
to this question, but whether 
truthfully or not there was no 
way of knowing. The last entry 
in the log was made forty odd 
hours before the Marie Celeste 
was sighted by the Dei Gratia . 
'there was no mention of storm. 
The log was found in the mate’s 
room. The entry made at seven 
o'clock on the morning of September 2nd, 
1872, merely gave the latitude and longitude. 
Fourth, there was no sign of any intention to 
leave the ship. That the sailors had no expec- 
tation of abandoning ship, but that, on the 
contrary, all hands left in a great hurry on 
the spur of the moment, was shown by the 
fact that they had washed their underclothing 
before breakfast on the morning of the 
desertion, for, on looking around. Captain 
