Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

The following tale, which appeared in the "North Nebraska Eagle," August 1, 1895, may well be one of those old newspapers stories that are colorful, but probably having only the barest acquaintance with reality.  Still, it's a nifty little sea mystery, so let's go for it:

One of the strangest stories about an abandoned ship comes from the Indian Ocean.  In 1822 the British corvette Lizard was cruising off Ceylon. A ship came in sight with all sail set, and making good speed through the water. The officers took a long look and one said:  "There is something wrong about that vessel. Her crojack is loose and flapping and there is no man at the wheel. We had better run down to her."

This was done, and when near it was seen that the ship had no crew, as there was no answer to the hail. When boarded there were no marks of trouble until on raising a nail that was spread over the main hatch the body of a man was found. He had been ironed to the lock-bars of the hatch-cover and had apparently been dead a week. 

On going into the cabin, the body of an elderly man was found. He had been stabbed to death. On examining the log-book it was on record that the ship was Spanish, from the Philippines, and named El Frey Antonio, but, strangely, the last entry was six weeks past and spoke of abandoning the ship at a point 1,000 miles away, bound for Malaga, Spain. She was left on the road to China. A pitcher of water on the table was intact. Could the vessel hare come this long journey without meeting a storm, and how had the dead men got here? They had not been dead six weeks and both were Lascars. 

The Frey Antonio was taken into Madras, the Spanish government notified, and their answer only made tho mystery deeper. The ship had sailed from Celebes more than a year before with six Roman Catholic priests as passengers, bound for Spain, and had no Lascars among her crew. And this was all.  And from that faraway time until now the story of El Frey Antonio is one of the secrets of the deep.