CHAPTER VI.
ATTACK ON THE CARIBAS.
What worried me most, as I chafed under the restraint of my narrow quarters was the silence that everywhere existed. Even aboard the Happy Shark, where I was in prison, not a sound was to be heard that night. And yet I knew that the old hulk teemed with human life, and that active preparations were going on throughout the entire community for an attack upon my steamer that meant death to her officers and crew.
There was I, like a rat caught in a trap, unable to aid or give warning.
As before stated, the front of my cell was upon the main deck and faced a hatchway. Through the grated door of my prison I could see the sky, and I was suddenly made conscious of the fact that a bright red light had appeared to the southward.
Any man who has followed the sea for half his life, as I have, never fails to assure himself on the points of the compass. The first fair day in which the sun can be seen to rise and set will give him the data from which he can take his bearings in the absence of a compass.
This strange light that I saw far away to the southward took the form of an immense red ball, far up in the clouds. I did not know then, though I learned afterward, that this is what is known among the Sargassons as “The Sacred Fire.”
As may be readily understood, the keeping of fire aboard all the vessels would be impossible. Therefore, the use of fire is confined exclusively to one great iron hulk, from which everything inflammable has been removed, and which is moored far apart from the rest of the floating ships. The cooking for the entire community is done there, and once a month a crew from each cantonment makes a journey to procure a store of the supplies that are gathered and held in common.
No office among the Sargasson people is more highly honored than that of the Priest of the Sacred Fire, whose duty it is to see that the flame never dies out. There have been years, I am told, when neither matches nor flints were procurable, and when the extinction of the fire would have meant suffering and death to the entire population.
The Priest who is held responsible for the maintenance of this flame gives his life as a bond.