“And when shall we make Springer’s Key, captain?”
“To-morrow, some time, sir. But we’ll stand in further here, if you don’t mind. There may be some of those friends of ours in the harbour here. A nice little sandy bay in there, sir.”
Soon the hills drew nearer. The line of land became jagged. What had seemed to be the main now showed as islands, a long, low island, dark with mangrove, and to the south of it a sloping peak, wooded to the top, a cone of green, with rocks about it over which the breakers toppled. Margaret could see the line of the breakers advancing towards them, blue and glassy. In the stillness, he could see the curl on the wave, the slow running curl along the line, then the intense brightness of the burst, a momentary marvel of white. He looked at Cammock, who was looking at the wooded hill, full of memories. A few of the men of war, faking a hawser in the waist, stopped their work to look with him. One or two of them, raising their caps, waved to the island. “Good old Golden Island,” they cried. “The good old Golden Island.”
“Yes,” said Captain Cammock to Margaret. “That’s Golden Island. Last time I was ashore there we were three hundred strong, going across the Isthmus. We’d fires on the sands there, I and my brother Bill, roasting crabs together. I remember we chucked pebbles over that palm on the spit there. Queer the palm being there and Bill gone, sir. He could chuck good, too; further’n I could.”
“You were very much attached to your brother, weren’t you?” Margaret asked him.
“I didn’t set much value by him at the time, sir. It’s afterwards one feels it. There’s a little black devil of a reef beyond there, two feet under water at a low spring. You don’t see it, and yet it rips you across all right. Ready oh, Mr. Cottrill. Haul the foot of the mainsail up. Hands about ship. Ease down the hellum.”
They sailed past Golden Island, and past Sasardi, watching the colours of the sunset on the rocks and woods. The brilliant birds flew homing, screaming. A faint smell, sickly sweet, came to them in puffs from the shore. Now and then, in the quiet, they heard the wash of breakers bursting on reefs. The noise kept them company at intervals through the night, as they drove on, under the stars, past Pinos, past Zambo Gandi, towards the Point of San Blas. It burst upon them mournfully, like the blowing of a sea-beast, a wash, a breathing of the sea. When the dawn broke, flashing the flying-fish into silver arrows, they were at their hearts’ desire. The palms on Springer’s Key were trembling, in the light air, before them. The ring of reef on the key’s north side stood up black amid the surf that toppled tirelessly. Pelicans flew past to fish. Macaws screamed from the fruit trees. Two Indians, with gold in their noses, waved to them from their canoe as they paddled softly, to spear cavally. Beyond them, at anchor off the key, was a small sloop. Her men were filling water ashore, wading slowly up the beach with puncheons. The saluting gun, fired by Cammock’s order, made them gather together in a group. One of them waved. Others, still in the boat, rowed out to show the channel. The sun shone bright over the multitude of islands. The sea was so blue that the beauty of her colour was like a truth apprehended. It was so perfect a beauty that Margaret, looking on it, felt that he apprehended the truth.
“Perrin,” he said, “Edward, what do you think of our home?”
“I’m not thinking of that,” he answered. “I think that all these things are images in an intellect. I think, by brooding on them, one passes into that intellect.”
The colours and house-flag blew out clear as the ship came to her berth. The sloop fired a salute; the Broken Heart answered her. Soon she was opposite the little sandy beach in the centre of the key. Her sails drooped, her way checked; then, at Cammock’s shout, the anchor dropped, the cable running with a rattle, making the little fish scurry past, in view, though a fathom down.