I roared with laughter.
“That’s good, Sam!” I cried. “But it’s not so strange, after all. We’ve got people in the States that put on just as many airs because their ancestors came over in the Mayflower.”
“Lord! is tha’ so, Chief?” exclaimed Sam. “Ah never did n’ know white folks bothered ’bout such humbuggin’.”
A moment later, Trouble shouted that land was in sight; and, sure enough, straight before the pitching tip of our jib-boom, a tiny opalescent cloud broke the horizon under the setting sun.
Sam’s instinct had not failed him: he had, figuratively, hit the bull’s-eye first shot, and a triumphant grin spread over his face as he stopped and peered ahead beneath the booms.
Rapidly the land rose before us, an indigo patch against the crimson sky, and ere nightfall we were close in to the island, rocking lazily along on an almost calm sea, our sails flapping, half filled, in the rapidly falling wind, and the boom of the surf and a chorus of night insects coming to us mingled with the scent of flowers, the pungent odor of burning canes, and the earthy smell of newly plowed [[170]]fields. With scarcely steerage way, the Vigilant crept on through the night and past the twinkling lights of Christiansted; and, gazing up at the myriad brilliant stars, and lulled by the soft murmur of the rippling water and the gentle creaking of the rigging and spars, I fell asleep. [[171]]
[2] One prize taken by the Trinity, the San Rosario, was laden with over seven hundred “pigs,” or ingots of silver bullion, but the buccaneers, mistaking the precious metal for tin, threw overboard all but one bar which was retained by one of the men for a souvenir. [↑]