Mayflower (Flor de mayo): A Tale of the Valencian Seashore

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

But the night wore on uneventfully, and the dawn came, with a flock of red clouds, and as hot as a mid-summer's morning. The sail now kept flapping like the wing of a great bird in lazy flight. The wind was coming in barely perceptible gusts that tickled the surface of the burnished, prostrate sea, as blue as a Venetian mirror. The mainland was completely down. Away off to port some pink blotches, hardly distinguishable from the mist of sunrise, vaguely dimmed the horizon line. "That's Ibiza off there!" Tonet called to his companions. Slowly the Garbosa crept along over the tranquil, circular immensity, beyond whose rim black lines could occasionally be seen—the smoke of distant steamers. A bare ripple under the vessel's bows marked her virtual immobility. The sail hung lifeless from the mast, sweeping back over the deck at times as a capricious zephyr headed the course. Looking down over the sides, the eye plunged deep into the blue waters, where the sky, the clouds and the boat were mirrored in bottomless mystery. Schools of fish darted by underneath, shining like bits of tin. Dolphins were playing about on the surface close at hand, showing their absurd muzzles and their black sides sprinkled with diamond dust. Flying fish, the butterflies of the sea, came up, flitted along for a distance, and then sank again into the depths. Strange beings of fantastic shapes and indescribable colors, some gayly striped like tigers, others in mournful black, some huge and chubby, others small and wiry, some with cavernous mouths and tiny bellies, others with enormous bodies and ridiculous little snouts, swarmed around the old boat, as though the Garbosa were one of those mythological craft that used to lead processionals of marine divinities.

Tonet and the two sailors were taking advantage of the calm to fish with hand lines. The "cat" was busy forward with the midday meal. The Rector was pacing the narrow deck astern, scanning the horizon and swearing for wind. The Garbosa was eating her way slowly along, but to all appearances she might have been nailed to the surface of that placid sea. Now, in the distance, a schooner was visible, caught in the calm, her sails sagging, east-bound, for Malta or Suez, probably. Great steamers occasionally slipped past along the horizon line, their funnels smoking, their decks almost level with the water from the loads of Russian wheat they were carrying from the Black Sea to the Straits.

And the sun rose high in the heavens. The waters shone with a dazzling glare as though boiling from an infinite conflagration. The decks of the Garbosa grew hot, and her old timbers cracked stridently as they shrank. Captain and crew ate dinner under the shade of the sail, scooping with their spoons in the same spot, drinking deep draughts from the wine jug to cool their parched throats, their shirts open in front, sweating in streams, panting from the lifeless sultry calm, enviously watching the gulls that sailed by just above the water, as though afraid of the stifling muggy air on high. After their meal, the men walked about on deck for a time, lazily, and with heavy eyes, drunk with sunlight rather than with wine; then they went below, one after the other, throwing themselves flat on boards that were wet with bilge-water, and sagged under the slightest weight. So the afternoon, and another night went by.

At dawn the wind freshened, and the Garbosa, like an old war-horse touched with the spur, leapt forward, careering and dancing over the ruffled waters. About noon clouds of smoke began to rise along the horizon ahead, and gradually from the girdling sash of green sky, thick steel masts with battletops, the towers of forts, it seemed, came into view, and under them, floating castles painted white, spotted black with thousands of men, going this way and that through their own smoke, now forming in squares, now stringing out along the whole horizon—a flock of Leviathans, churning the water with invisible fins.

Algiers could not be far away! That was the French Mediterranean squadron, out for practice. God, what big boats people were making nowadays! The smallest of those monsters, the white cruiser, with all those flags and black balls, that kept going in and out among the other ships, signaling and directing the evolutions, would only have to graze the Garbosa to reduce her to kindling wood! And those black pipes sticking out of the turrets! One sneeze from those snouts, and it would be all day with the Rector's outfit and part of to-morrow! The smugglers studied the fleet with the uneasy respect a pickpocket has for a squad of policemen marching by.

About three o'clock, a dark irregularity, something like the arched back of a whale, rose on the horizon ahead! Land! And Tonet, who remembered having seen it before, called it the Cabo de la Mala Dona, the farthest outpost of the coast. Algiers was more to port! The breeze was freshening every moment. The swelling lateen sail, as the boat heeled, described a saucy curve on the tilted mast The prow went merrily up and down, throwing a lively spray from the chop. The Garbosa, old horse, was smelling her oats, and bolting along the last lap to the stable, though every bone in her strained!

They were heading East-Southeast now; and by evening-fall, on the flanks of the Mala Dona, indistinct still in the haze to starboard, could nevertheless be seen the rolling tops of hills, and white blotches that meant villages. Then, as the boat continued its rapid flight, these faded from view, but the coast itself was up, ahead. The Garbosa hugged the shore. With night, the saw-toothed crest of a ridge of mountains, climbed up against the sky; and the wind veered to southward, blowing off the land, warm, and fragrant with the perfume of an enchanted country. Low in the west hung the new moon, a real Oriental crescent, fine drawn with curving points—just as you saw it embroidered on the standards of the Prophet, or shining from the weathervanes of Mahometan minarets! That was what you called being in Africa! The beat of the surf was audible from the Garbosa's decks, and even calls from Moors ashore there in the fields. Clusters of lights could be made out along the coast—towns off there! Then, the sky above the end of the mountain chain to the Eastward began to grow ruddy; the sea broke inland in a capricious curve; and soon many, many lights began to glow. Algiers!

In three hours they were in the roadstead. Now there were lights, of varied grouping and intensity, everywhere, hundreds of them, winding along in a serpentine course to mark a seashore boulevard. The Garbosa, luffing slightly, shot round a promontory, and the city itself, in all the splendor of a Levantine port, was before them. Cristo, never mind flor de mayo and alguilla! It was worth the trip to see just that! And folks bragged about the harbor at the Grao! The humble fishermen stood there mouths agape; with the exception of Tonet, of course, who had seen many better things in his trip around the world! The water of the great bay was absolutely calm. A red and green beacon marked the entrance to the basin. The city climbed a hill in the background, the houses shining white even in the dark, from the millions of lights that suggested a festival. What a waste of gas! Long snaky stripes of color came out over the surface of the water, flecked here with the harbor lights of a merchant vessel, there with the distinguishing marks of a man-o'-war. Off in this direction was the European city—the brightest section, the restaurants and bazaars all lighted up, while the black ant-like forms of people, and the canvas-tops of swiftly moving vehicles, could be seen on the streets. And what a strange mixture of sounds! Music from the cafés, trumpet calls from the barracks, talking and shouting from the boulevards, cries from boatmen on the water—the blended murmurings of a cosmopolitan city of trade, cheating all day long for the money it wastes in pleasure after sundown.

The Rector could not indulge in the ecstasies of wonderment too long. His mind went back to business. The men of the crew were gathering in the sail preparatory to lying to. Faithful to tio Mariano's instructions, Pascualo took a piece of tarred cable, set fire to it, and began to describe circles above his head, in series of threes, marked off by hiding the torch behind a piece of canvas which the "cat" held up in front of it. The signal was repeated many many times, the Rector meanwhile gazing steadily at the darkest part of the water-front. Tonet and the others stood around watching the operations curiously. Finally a red lantern gleamed on shore. The "market" had understood the message. They would soon be off with the cargo.

The Rector explained the fine points of all this signaling. It wasn't wise to take on a load inside the basin. Tio Mariano knew, from experience, that detectives were always on the watch there, ready to telegraph the name and description of any boat likely to be smuggling. These spies got a percentage on the profits of the confiscation. It was better to load up outside, and at night. By morning they would be off again, with absolutely no one the wiser. Then they could make Valencia without any trouble at all. For, who the devil would ever guess, at home, what they had on board? And the good-natured fisherman laughed at his own shrewdness, though, inside, he rather admired the wily uncle who had given him all this good advice.