In another half-hour the pilot was gone, and they were fairly cut off from the world till they reached the coast of Yucatan. The Atlantic Highlands loomed up, and Seabright, and Long Branch, and so many more places on the New Jersey coast, that it looked to Kit as if it must be one continuous town. When darkness came they could still see the lights on shore.
An hour after supper the Captain went into his stateroom, sat down at his desk that had a bookcase over the top, and called Kit. He had a bundle of very large sheets closely written in columns before him, and more sheets of the same paper, blank.
“Can you read writing, my boy?” he asked. “Oh, yes, I know you can,” he added, “for you read a letter to me. See whether you can read this writing to me while I copy it,” and he handed Kit one of the big sheets.
Kit took it and began with the first line across the broad page:—
“‘Hernandez & Co., Merida,’” he read; “‘1 case dry goods; weight 168 pounds;’ then here’s some sort of a mark—a square with an H inside of it.”
“That’s what we call a diamond H,” the Captain explained; “when it’s in a circle, we call it a circle H. Now go on.”
Kit read several more of the lines without difficulty, till the Captain stopped him.
“You’ve been to school, then, have you?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, sir!” Kit answered. “I always went to school till about six months ago. Since then I’ve been doing whatever work I could get.”
“Study geography?” the Captain asked.