An account of the Flying Dutchman, told as accurately as history allows |
Four hundred years hence spun a seagoing tale of a doomed merchant ship falling prey to a gale. According to legend, the phantom appears with an oncoming storm but it fades as it nears. Some count it as truth down to every last word, and this is the way it's most commonly heard: The ship had a vast load of cargo to haul but in rounding Good Hope it ran into a squall. With a sign from the Heavens, the captain was warned if he battled the squall he was soon to be mourned. "We will sail until doomsday", the ship's captain swore, "and if that's what it takes, we will make it to shore!" By those dissident words of the captain's decree, the punishing storm made them ghosts of the sea and for centuries since, came a number of tales of a two-masted ghost ship without any sails. What the lookouts above saw emerge in their scope, was a spectral hull off the Cape of Good Hope. And soon, recognized when it came into view, as the ghost of the Dutchman and skeleton crew. The rueful ghost captain cries out in remorse as his merchantman ship remains doomed on its course. To spot the ghost vessel fortells of one's fate, as once it is seen, it is sadly too late. |