The Iconoclast
The wrecking-sloop Sea-Horse came smashing the seas headlong past Fowey Rocks, heading for the channel over the reef into Bay Biscayne. She had left Nassau the day before, and had made a record run across the Gulf Stream, carrying sail through a heavy head sea, which flew in a storm of white water over her bows and weather-rail all day, making the deck almost uninhabitable. Bahama Bill, otherwise known as Bill Haskins, wrecker and sponger, mate and half-owner, held the wheel-spokes, and sat back upon the edge of the wheel-gear, bracing one foot to leeward. Sam, a Conch, and Heldron, a Dutchman, both sailors and able seamen, lounged in the lee of the cabin-scuttle and smoked, their oilskins streaming water, but loosened on account of the warmth of the air. Captain Smart, late of the Dunn schooner wrecked just below Carysfort Reef, on a cruise to Boca Grande Pass for tarpon, sat in the doorway of the companionway and watched the giant mate of the Sea-Horse hold the flying sloop on her course with one powerful hand, while with the other he shielded his pipe from the spray.
Smart was thinking over the strange events which happened to bring him in contact with the wreckers: the loss of his schooner caused by the leak made by Bahama Bill; the loss of his position as officer on the liner he had left to take command of the yacht, and the strange fight in the saloon at Key West, which ended in his going with the giant black to keep out of trouble.
They had now just ridden out a bad spell of weather in Nassau, where they had laid up with cartridge-cases taken from the brig Bulldog, wrecked on the Great Bahama Bank, and they were hurrying to the nearest American port to discharge them to some dealer, and realize what profits they could. The ammunition was perfectly good and sound, in spite of being submerged under the sea for a long time, for the cases had been put up for tropical weather and made perfectly water-proof. They had several thousand dollars' worth aboard, and it would only be necessary to prove their fitness for use to realize upon them. To Miami they laid their course without delay, to get in touch with the express and railroad.
"Seems like we got to git thar to-night, sure," said the mate, sucking at his pipe.
"Looks like we'll make it easily," assented Smart. "I suppose you know the reef well enough to go in any time, hey?"
"Jest as well at night as daytime," said the mate.
"And when we get in—what then? Do you know any one who'll deal with us? Do you know who'll buy ammunition from you even at a twenty per cent discount?" asked Smart.
"I reckon we won't have to burn any of them ca'tridges, cap; not by a blamed sight. We might have to wait a spell fo' suah, but we kin sell 'em, all right."