A little later the mate came in—a large, stalwart sailor, seeming a giant in his oilskins and sou’wester. He carefully closed the door, stepped lightly across the cabin floor, ceremoniously removed his hat, and looking into the darkness of the captain’s state-room, said in the most apologetic of tones, “Captain Singer, I’m really afraid the mast will go, if we don’t ease her a point. It works very bad, and the wind’s rising.”
The Captain considered slowly and said, “Ease her.”
The mate said politely, “Yes, sir,” and then backed across the cabin lightly on tip toe, hat in hand, opened the door slowly and noiselessly, and then, without replacing his hat, slipped out into the storm.
The long night wore away and was followed by a longer day. The ship tossed and plunged, rising as though she were mounting from the water to the sky, and then sinking as though she would never stop. At last the gale blew itself out, and then came a calm, when the ship lay like a log on the water, rolling ceaselessly from side to side, and creaked and groaned with every toss and roll. But now there is a cry of land, and the sick drag themselves to the deck and look toward a rocky island of the Bahama group, which is the “land.” How beautiful it seems, hung there on the horizon between the shifting clouds and tossing sea! The breeze is fair, the sea not rough, and we soon draw nearer to this land. On the farther end rises the snowy tower of the light-house, and beside it stands the house of the keeper. No other house, nor field, nor tree, nor blade of grass adorns this huge bare rock. The waves have worn grooves on the steep sides, and up these the water dashes, and runs down in white moving columns. Abreast of us is a strange opening in the wall-like rock, which has given to the island its name of “Hole-in-the-wall.” The spy-glasses disclose a man, a woman, and some children, looking toward the ship. Once in three months the supply ship will visit them, bringing their food, their clothing, their water and the oil: once or twice a year, when the sea is calm and the wind has fallen, the keeper may row out to some ship to beg for newspapers; more often they may gaze, as they are gazing now, at passing vessels; and thus, with such rare intervals, they pass their lonely life, cut off and isolated from all mankind.
The warm temperature and rich blue color of the water tell us that we are in the Gulf Stream. As I lie upon the deck looking upon the mysterious current, a slender bird, eight or ten inches long, shining like silver, flits through the air. “Did you see that bird?” asks more than one voice. “Was it a bird?” “Yes, it flew like one.” “No, it came out of the water and went back there.”
“It’s a flying-fish, gentlemen,” says the mate; “you’ll see plenty of them soon.”
A more beautiful, fairy-like sight than these flying-fish present, I have seldom seen. A delicate creature, bright and silvery, and often beautifully tinged with blue, emerges from the water, and soars just above the waves in a long, graceful, bird-like flight, until striking against the summit of some wave that lifts its white cap higher than the rest, it disappears.
This is called a pleasant voyage from Hole-in-the-wall. We watch the flying-fish, catch Portuguese men-of-war, and bathe in the warm water of the stream, until there appears before us what some at first thought a mud bank, but which now proves to be another ocean of muddy water.
“It is the Mississippi,” says the Captain. “The river must be up, for we’re a hundred miles good from the Sou’west Pass. There’ll be trouble in crossing the bar; when the river’s up the water’s down.”
As we draw nearer, the contrast between the two oceans grows more plain. The line is as distinct as that between land and water on a map. Now the bow of the vessel reaches it—now the line is a midship—now I look down upon it, and now the ship floats wholly in the water of the Mississippi.