Down the Western Ocean we ran without further incident, and hove to off the entrance of Antonio, burning flares for the pilot. You know the place. Narrow cut in through the reef, with the harbor lying like a pool of blue water in the surrounding hills. Not a breath of air in the place even when, half a mile distant, just outside, the trade might be blowing a twenty-knot breeze.
The pilot came out at daybreak, and we ran in, tied up to the wharf, and began discharging. My duties were ended for the time, as I thought, and I took a stroll up to the hotel upon the hill. There was no use trying to get any sleep in the watch below while at the dock, for two hundred howling Jamaica blacks roared and surged along the gangways and crowded the winches, handling the cargo ably, while the women came down in swarms to chat with the crew and sell a few grapefruit and oranges. Boldwin let any one come aboard, and as the men were not supposed to handle cargo, they had plenty of time in spite of all we could do to keep them busy.
The skipper reported the damage to the agents, and told of the disaster below. He was honest. He might have saved that bit of knowledge until we reached England again, but he told his tale, and the agents refused to allow him to sail until the pipe was repaired and properly bolted down into the bilge plates as it should be. In the smooth water of that mirror-like harbor it seemed an easy thing to do. All that was necessary was to get a diver to go under the fifteen feet to the outside end and pass up the bolts through the flange.
Mr. Man from Donegal could then get at them with his monkey wrench and screw down the nuts upon them, clamping the pipe as fast as the keel itself.
"You take a look around uptown and try to get hold of a diver," said the old man. "Mr. Sacks, the agent, says he don't know of any nearer than Kingston, and it'll take two days to get the one over there, as he's out on a wreck off the harbor. We can't wait two days. Got to get to Montego Bay and take on a lot of stuff, then get to Kingston for clearing and off we go."
"Why not wait until we get to Kingston to do the trick?" I asked.
Bill Boldwin gazed at me in contempt.
"Say, do you want to advertise the fact that we are on the bum to all the passengers the line'll carry? Think a minute, man, and don't ask fool questions. We got to get that job done right here—see? We don't go outside until there's something more'n a mattress and a bit of fearnaught between us and the bottom of the Caribbean."
"But we carried it the last thousand miles all right," I said.
Bill turned away in disgust.