Overdue

Overdue The Story of a Missing Ship
By Harry Collingwood
CHAPTER ONE.
THE "MERCURY" APPEARS.
This is a yarn of the days when the clipper sailing-ship was at the
zenith of her glory and renown; when she was the recognised medium
for the transport of passengers--ay, and, very frequently, of mails
between Great Britain and the Colonies; and when steamers were,
comparatively speaking, rare objects on the high seas. True, a few of
the great steamship lines, such as the Cunard and the Peninsular and
Oriental, were already in existence; but their fleets were only just
beginning to compete, and with but a very limited measure of success,
against the superb specimens of marine architecture owned by the
Black Ball and other famous lines of sailing clippers. For the Suez
Canal had not yet been dug, and--apart from the overland journeys to
India--travellers bound to the East were compelled to go south-about
round the Cape of Good Hope, whether they journeyed by steamer or
by sailing-ship; and it was no very uncommon thing for the latter to
beat the former on the passage to India, China, or Australia. Moreover,
the marine steam engine was, at that period, a very expensive piece of
machinery to operate, developing only a very moderate amount of
power upon an exceedingly heavy consumption of coal; hence it was
only the nabobs who could afford to indulge in the then costly luxury
of ocean travel by steam.
The occurrence which I regard as the starting-point of my extraordinary
yarn happened on the 27th day of October, in the year of grace 18--; the
Salamis--which was the ship in which it originated--being, at noon of
that day, in latitude 30 degrees south, and longitude 23 degrees west, or
thereabout; thirty days out from London, on a voyage to Melbourne.

The Salamis, I may explain, was a full-rigged clipper ship of 1497 tons
register, classed 100 A 1; being one of the crack vessels of the
celebrated Gold Star Line, outward bound to Melbourne, as I have said,
with a full complement of saloon and steerage passengers, and a
general cargo that, while it filled her to the hatches, was so largely
composed of light merchandise that it only sank her in the water to her
very finest sailing trim; of which circumstance Captain Martin, her
commander, was taking the fullest possible advantage, by "carrying on"
day and night, in the hope of making a record passage. I, Philip
Troubridge, was one of her midshipman-apprentices, of whom she
carried six, and I was seventeen years of age on the day when the
occurrence happened which I have alluded to above, and which I will
now relate.
The Salamis carried three mates: chief, second, and third; and the
accident happened in the first watch, when Mr Moore, the second mate,
had charge of the deck. The wind was out from about nor'-nor'-west,
and had been blowing very fresh all day, notwithstanding which the
ship was under all three royals, and fore and main topgallant
studdingsails, her course being south-east. There was a heavy and steep
sea following the ship on her port quarter, which not only made her
motions exceedingly uneasy, but also caused her to yaw wildly from
time to time, despite the utmost efforts of two men at the wheel to keep
her true to her course.
It was during one of these wild sheers that the main topgallant
studdingsail-boom snapped short off by the boom-iron; and there was
immediately a tremendous hullabaloo aloft of madly slatting canvas
and threshing boom, as the studdingsail flapped furiously in the
freshening breeze, momentarily threatening to spring the topgallant
yard, if, indeed, it did not whip the topgallant-mast out of the ship.
Then something fouled aloft, rendering it impossible to take in the sail;
and, the skipper being on deck and manifesting some impatience at
what he conceived to be the clumsiness of the men who had gone up on
the topsail yard, Mr Moore, the second mate, sprang into the main
rigging and went aloft to lend a hand. Just precisely what happened
nobody ever knew; one of the men aloft said that the broken boom, in

its wild threshing, struck the mate and knocked him off the yard; but,
be that as it may, one thing certain is, that the poor fellow suddenly
went whirling down, and, without a cry, fell into the boiling smother
raised by the bow wave, and was never seen again! I happened to be on
the poop at the moment, and, despite the darkness, saw the falling body
of the mate just as it flashed down into the water, and guessed what had
happened even before the thrilling cry of "Man overboard!" came
pealing- down from aloft. I therefore made a dash for one of