"Where'd they wind up at, Cap'n Am'zon?" asked Milt.
"Couldn't hit nothin' nearer'n the Guineas on that course," growled
Cap'n Joab.
"There you're wrong," the substitute storekeeper said. "They struck seaweed—acres an' acres of it—square miles of it—everlastin' seaweed!"
"Sargasso Sea!" exploded Washy Gallup, wagging his toothless jaw. "I swanny!"
"I've heard about that place, but never seen it," said Cap'n Joab.
"And you don't want to," declared the narrator of the incident. "It ain't a place into which no sailorman wants to venture. The Mailfast's comp'ny—so 'tis said—was driven far into the pulpy, grassy sea. The miles of weed wrapped 'em around like a blanket. They couldn't row because the weed fouled the oars; and they couldn't sail 'cause the weed was so heavy. But there's a drift they say, or a suction, or something that gradually draws a boat toward the middle of the field."
"Then, by golly!" exclaimed Milt Baker, "how in tarnation did they git aout? I sh'd think anybody that every drifted into the Sargasso Sea would be there yit."
"P'r'aps many a ship an' many a ship's company have found their grave there," said Cap'n Amazon solemnly. "'Tis called the graveyard of derelicts. But there's the chance of counter-storms. Before the two boats from the Mailfast were sucked down, and 'fore the crew was fair starved, a sudden shift of wind broke up the seaweed field and they escaped and were picked up.
"The danger of the Sargasso threatens all sailin' ships in them seas. Steam vessels have a better chance; but many a craft that's turned up missin' has undoubtedly been swallowed by the Sargasso."
Louise, who heard this discussion from the doorway of the store, could not fail to be impressed by it. Could the Curlew, with her father and Cap'n Abe aboard, have suffered such a fate? There was an element of probability in this tale of Cap'n Amazon's that entangled the girl's fancy. However, the idea colored the old man's further imagination in another way.