A harrowing adventure that probably will never leave their minds befell
two fishermen of Freeport, L. I., who passed a week in the open sea in
a small motor boat, without water or provisions. Caught in a blizzard
off the Long Island coast, something went wrong with their compass and
they headed out to sea, where they drifted for nearly a week before the
schooner, Catherine M., saw their signals of distress and picked them
up. The two men—Capt. Bergen Smith and Harry Matthews—had only a small
supply of water and a few raw potatoes. On this they lived for the first
two days. Then Matthews lost control of himself, drank sea water and
became delirious. Raving in delirium, he urged Smith to split a bottle of
iodine in a suicide pact. Their boat began to leak, and they ripped the
lining from their overcoats to calk the seams. Finally, after a number of
ships had passed without seeing them, they were rescued, more dead than
alive, by the schooner.
_A Night of Horror in the Mortuary_