Ghostly Doirgs on a Mysterious Craft: Dogged by Il-lack and a Bringer of Disaster to her Crew At the bottom of San Francisco harbour there lies the wreck of an ancient Chinese junk. She is not of much value, she is quite safe where she lies and it would appear to be a certain method of suicide for anyone to attempt to raise her, for there is not a chapter in her history with which death and calamity is not associated. It is an old story, but it has never been fully told yet in print and probably never will be unless Captain F. Scurr, a well-known skipper out here, elects some day.to write one of the most exciting tales of the sea, for he and one other are believed to be the only white men now alive who have been associated with the sinister craft. It was the recent return of Captain Scurr to Shanghai which recalled the story, but even now the full details cannot be obtained, for he is not one who seeks publicity.
The junk was launched probably at least half a century ago—one of those clumsy-looking Foochow pole junks, but, despite her appearance, she could sail like a witch under favourable conditions. Presumably she was on the Chinese trade routes for many years, but eventually she was run on to the mud here and Jeff for 11 years. Then there arrived in Shanghai an American interested in the San Francisco exhibition and he bought her for show purposes there; he had Soanoed similar venture once before.
Tue Junk was a Devit, Captain Scurr happened at that time to be due for Home leave and was asked if he would care to sail her over. He accepted the offer and went down to look the boat over, Near by was an ancient Chinese junk skipper, who had got wind of the scheme and his sailor instinct prompted him to warn Captain Scurr. The junk was a devil, said he, and she was full of other devils. Her wake was just a line of dead men.. As a young man he saw her launched and she killed two men then; since then many more lives had been sacrificed to her. If the Captain doubted hiv, let him go to a certain spot in her hold and he would see a black fish nailed up, which was the best thing Chinese sailors could do to keep the devils more or less in check. Captain Scurr went and he did see the black fish.
As to the devils inside the boat, the Captain narrates that every night at sea, in the same place on decx' every time, an animated game of dominoes used to be played and the click and shuffling of the pieces was as plain as anyone could wish for. Though a long way from being superstitious -himself, he could not help being interested and-repeatedly endeavoured to trace the cause, playing at the bottom of San Francisco harbour.
Well, the Captain gathered together a white crew to help him sail the junk over and assuredly no crew like it has ever before or since sailed from the Huangpu. One would not exactly describe them as bad men, but a police officer tells us that the police were not displeased at hearing of the departure of most of them. Like the junk herself, troubles seemed to be specially made for them. There were something like a score of them and they included one who had been a Captain in the Indian Army, a former tea planter, and two Russians who could not speak English, one of them a_ house painter and the other an engine driver.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.