Chapter Seven.
Feeding the Sharks.
It was a wonderful change from the stormy, tossing Atlantic, with its bitter winds and chilling cold, to the calm transparency of the brilliantly-blue tropic waters, where everything looked so unclouded and so bright. When we neared one or other of the islands, everything seemed so fresh that we began to forget the perils and troubles of our long, uneventful, but sufficiently troubled voyage. For there were golden or dazzlingly white sands, upon which the calm sea softly rippled, while close down to the water’s edge we could see what Tom called spike plants and sweep’s-brush trees—these being his names for plants of the Yucca family and lovely slender-tufted palms.
When we gazed down into the clear waters from the deck of our comparatively small steamer, we could see fish in plenty, for the brilliant sun seemed to light up the sea beneath the vessel’s keel, while as the screw churned up the water and the steamer rushed on, the scaly occupants of the deep flashed away to right and left, darting out of sight like so many shafts of silver through the sunny depths.
It was a wonderful change from cold and chill to a delicious atmosphere, where the soft sea-breeze fanned our cheeks, though we soon became aware of the fact that the sun possessed power such as we had never experienced before.
“Why, it’s like as if it came through a burning glass, Mas’r Harry,” said Tom; “and, I say, just you try to touch that copper hood thing that goes over the compass. I did, and it burned my hand just as if it had come out of a hot fire.”
“Well, I don’t want to burn my hands, Tom,” I replied. “I can see how hot it is by the pitch standing up in beads all along the ropes.”
“And it’s making black icicles outside some of the boards, Mas’r Harry, only they’re soft instead of hard. I say, isn’t it jolly?”