"Yes, started to leak during the blow, or just before it. A bit of hard luck you may say."
"Well, you'll know more about the reef if you stay here a while."
There was some strange meaning in Stormalong's tone, and it was not lost on Smart.
"You are the second man who has said something to that effect," said the seaman. "Now, what the devil do you mean by it?"
"Oh, nothing much. No use getting worked up by what I said. You don't know much about the ways of folk along the reef and bank. That's all—there goes the whistle of the liner."
A deep-toned siren roared out over the quiet waters of the reef, sounding far away to sea, and seemed to be coming from some distant point to the southward. Smart recognized it as the call of his ship, the ship he had left months before for the sake of a woman.
He drank off his liquor and started for the dock, making his way along the white roadway and joining the throng of Conchs who lazily walked toward the shore to see the great liner make her landing. She was a new ship, a ship of huge tonnage for a Southern liner, and it was a treat to watch her officers dock her. Slowly she came drifting in toward the land, her mighty engines sending the white coral water moving gently from her stern.
Her giant bows came near the landing. A tiny figure flung a filmy line through the air, a line so small in proportion to her great bulk that it seemed but a spider-web. But behind it followed a great hawser, and a dozen lazy black men hauled it ashore and threw the loop over a pile-end.
Then a shrill whistle sounded, and the deep rumble of the engines told of the backing strain. She swung alongside the wharf finally and made fast her stern and spring-lines. Then a gangway shot out, and the captain came quickly down, followed by a swarm of passengers.