Winslow opened it, and read. It contained some odds and ends of items,
with a closing entry which cleared up much of the mystery of the
_Wanderer_:
"At sea, in an open boat," it was dated.
"Two weeks ago the yacht _Wanderer_, when somewhere S.W. from the
Greenland coast, collided in a dense fog with an iceberg. Her bow was
stove in and she began to sink at once. The boats were immediately
lowered and my wife and myself with our little nephew, Robert Winslow,
and a sailor named Magee, succeeded in getting away in one of them,
while the remainder of our party and crew were divided among three other
boats. But in the dense fog we somehow became separated from them.
"Magee as he entered the boat seized my shotgun and a pouch of loaded
shells, the only things within reach, and we saved nothing else.
Fortunately the boats had been used on shore expeditions and ours was
provisioned with a bag of sea biscuits and a quantity of water, and
contained some blankets.
"On the day following the wreck my wife was taken ill, developing, I
believe, pneumonia. On the fifth day she died. I would have kept her
remains with us in the boat, but Magee insisted that she be buried at
sea, claiming that the presence of her body would have a constantly
depressing effect upon us. I offered a prayer and said an improvised
burial service over her, we wrapped her in a blanket, and weighting her
body with an anchor buried her. My heart went into the sea with her, and
but for my young son at home and my little nephew, I would have wished
to follow her.
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