“I thing do,” answered Arthur, holding his nose.
“Dee! did it worde thad a dead rad.” Ransom had his nostrils closed also, as his manner of speech indicated.
The stench drove the three boys into the cabin, where, with closed doors and hatch, they sweltered until a shift of wind made it possible for them to breathe the outer air again. They looked in the direction from which the odor had come, and saw the anchor light of a vessel swinging, and then, as their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, they made out the deeper shadow of the vessel herself.
Not till morning did they find out that the fragrance came from a sponge schooner. Though they hesitated some time, at last their curiosity overcame their squeamishness, and, after washing down decks, breakfasting, and cleaning up, Arthur and Frank (Kenneth having, as usual, drawn the short yarn) took “His Nibs” and rowed over to the schooner. Kenneth watched his comrades from the “Gazelle,” and saw them row very gingerly up to the trim vessel until the small boat’s stem almost touched the larger boat’s side, when they half turned to go away, but, evidently gathering up their resolution, they hailed a man on deck and went aboard. Later, Ransom, himself, had a chance of investigating the work. As he climbed the schooner’s sides, he found sponges of many sizes and shapes strung around the rigging in various degrees of decomposition. A big West Indian negro explained to him that they were hung up to rot the animal matter out of the fibrous substance which made the home of the multitude of small creatures. A very unsavory occupation, but one that pays quite well, the big fellow told Kenneth, and invited him to go sponge-fishing with him. Ransom accepted, and, getting into a small boat, they rowed some distance from the schooner. Putting a long, slender pine pole with a hook on one end into the boy’s hands, the negro suggested that he try his luck. “This is easy,” Kenneth said to himself, as he slipped it into the water and began to feel about on the bottom. Soon the end struck something soft, and, with a little thrill that always comes to the fisherman when he gets hooked to something, he began to haul up, slowly and carefully. Under instructions from the negro, he pulled up inch by inch. The thing he had on his hook was a dead weight, utterly unlike the active fish, but he thought that he detected a tremor in even this inert mass. Slowly, and more slowly, he raised the pole until he could dimly see a yellow-brown substance through the sunlit water. At last his catch was almost on the surface, when the negro began to laugh loudly. “What’s the joke?” Kenneth began, then he stopped, as he caught a clear glimpse of his treasure trove. An enormous mouth gaped at him, and two protuberant eyes that shone like jewels gleamed in the sunlight, a brown, flat body covered with warts and excrescences of various kinds flopped feebly on the surface. “Holy smoke, what have I struck?” Kenneth exclaimed, feeling that he had a waking nightmare. The thing slid off from the hook, and scaling down through the water was soon lost to view.
“Ugh!” said the boy, shivering in remembrance. “What was that?”
“Angle-fish, I reckon. Scare yer?” the other replied.
Though Kenneth tried again, he could not haul up a sponge. There was a knack to it that completely baffled him.
All through this part of the Gulf, the boys found the sponge fishermen and their crews—many of whom were West Indian negroes—great, big, strong fellows, who seemed to find the odoriferous life healthy. The shallow water, smooth and clear, produced good sponges, and the fishermen came to reap the harvest from all directions.
Even in the town of Cedar Keys, the boys could not get away from the horrid odor. The town, formerly a great cedar-producing place, and the site of a large pencil manufactory, had become the sponge fisherman’s port of call.
“For heaven’s sake, Ken, let’s get our mail, our grub, and our water, and clear out of this place,” Arthur said, the afternoon that they entered Cedar Keys Harbor. “It seems to me that sponge is mixed up with everything I eat, drink, smell, taste, see, and touch. It’s awful!”