The White Squall: A Story of the Sargasso Sea

by John C. Hutcheson

Jake met us at the jetty with the horses, which he had put up in the stables of the adjoining plantation during our absence; and as we rode along the shore of the bay homeward, the sun was just setting, while a nice cool wind came down from the mountains, making it much nicer than it had been in the earlier part of the day. Skirting the bay, we could see the Josephine in the distance gradually being shut in by a halo of haze, a thick mist generally rising up from the sea at nightfall in the tropics through the evaporation of the water or the difference of temperature between it and the atmospheric air.

If our ride out to Grenville Bay had been jolly in the morning, our journey back was simply splendid.

Almost as soon as the solar orb sank down below the horizon, which it did just before we turned away from the shore, the masts and spars of the Josephine, and each rope of her rigging, were all lit up by the sinking rays of light, their last despairing flash before their extinguishment in the ocean. At the same time, the hull of the vessel and every projecting point in the coast-line of the bay stood out in relief against the bright emerald-green tint of the sea. A moment afterwards, the darkness of night descended suddenly upon us like a vast curtain let down from heaven.

But it was not dark long.

As we passed our way up the climbing mountain path that led back to Mount Pleasant, our road—bordered on the one side by the dense vegetation of the forest, which seemed as black as ink now, and hedged in on the other by a precipice—was made clear by the light of the stars. These absolutely came out en masse almost as we looked upwards at them. I noticed, too, that the sky seemed to be of some gauzy transparent material like ethereal azure, and did not exhibit that solid appearance it has in England of a ceiling with gold nails stuck in it here and there at random; for, the “lesser orbs of night” in the tropics look as if they were floating in a sea of vapour. They appear a regular galaxy of beauty and splendour, and so many glorious evidences of the great Creator’s handiwork.

Every now and then, also, the air around us was illuminated with sparks of green-coloured flame, while the woods seemed on fire from a thousand little jets that burst out every second from some new direction, lighting up the sombre gloom beneath the shade of the forest trees.

One could almost imagine that there was a crowd of fairies going before us, each carrying a torch which he waved about, now above his head, and then around lower down, finally dashing it to the ground with those of his comrades, as is the custom at the torchlight processions of the students in Germany on some festal night. As dad and I trotted along towards home, the sparks of flame appeared now rising, now falling, vanishing here, reappearing there, finally converging into a globe, or “set piece,” as at a pyrotechnic display, and then dispersing in spangles of coruscation like a fizzed-out firework.

This beautiful effect, one of the wonders of a night in the West Indies, was caused by the fireflies. Of these insects there are two distinct species, one really a small fly which seems to be perpetually on the wing, flitting in and out in the air always, and never at rest; while the other is a species of beetle that is only seen in woody regions, where it takes up a more stationary position, like the glowworm over here. This latter has two large eyes at the back of its head, instead of in front in their more natural place; and these eyes, when the insect is touched, shoot forth two strong streams of greenish light, something like that produced by an electric dynamo, while, at the same time, the entire body of the “firefly,” or beetle, becomes as incandescent as a live coal.

The light which even one of these little creatures will give out is so great that I have often seen dad, just for the sake of the experiment, read a bit out of a newspaper on a dark evening with a firefly stuck in a wine-glass for a candle!

For some time we jogged along silently; but just when we were nearing Mount Pleasant I could not help asking dad what Captain Miles had meant by that question he had asked him about taking me for a voyage.