“I want that cabin cleaned before six o’clock in the morning,” he growled. “You needn’t think you’re going to shirk your work because you write for the Captain.”
“Very well, sir,” Kit answered. “I don’t intend to shirk any work.”
It did not seem quite right, on his first voyage, that the sea should be so smooth all the way down the coast. Even when the North Cape passed Hatteras there was no more than a little swell. When she reached the Florida coast, in about four days, she kept so well in shore that the sandy beach could be seen plainly, and the palm trees just as he had seen them in pictures. He learned from Tom Haines that steamers bound for the Gulf always run as close to the Florida coast as they dare, to be inside of the Gulf Stream, which flows northward at the rate of about four miles an hour, and retards a south-bound steamer just that much when she runs against it.
On the seventh day they sighted the eastern cliffs of Yucatan; and after two days of steaming along the coast, but so far out that they could see nothing but the outlines of the low hills, Kit learned that they were approaching Sisal. By that time he had made three copies of the long manifest, working at it a little nearly every evening on the cabin table.
It was early in a hot afternoon that they dropped anchor off Sisal; and nowhere in the world is it more appropriate to say of a ship that she lies “off” a port, for at Sisal a ship of any size must lie at least three miles off. There is no harbor, and the shore slopes off so gradually that no ship can approach the town.
“That must have been as smooth a voyage as ever a ship made,” Kit said to Tom Haines, as they stood by the rail together when the anchor went down. “I didn’t know it ever was so smooth for ten days at a time.”
“The Atlantic is a treacherous old pond,” Tom answered. “To-day it makes you believe it’s only a big lake; to-morrow it knocks you all to pieces. And this is a bad part of the coast we’re on, this south side of the Gulf; when we get any bad weather here, we have to hoist anchor and run to sea. But you want to keep your eyes open now; you’ll see some queer people in a few minutes.”
“What are all those little boats coming out to us?” Kit asked; “lighters to take off the cargo?”
“No indeed!” Tom laughed. “They don’t begin work as fast as that here. Everything is ‘mañana’ here, which means ‘to-morrow’ in Spanish; these people all speak Spanish, you know. That first boat, the one with the flag at the stern and rowed by four men, is the government boat, that brings out the Captain of the port, the health officer, and a lot of custom-house men. After they have examined our papers and found that we’re all well, the other boats will come up. They are what we call ‘bum-boats,’ with things to sell—cigars and tobacco, bead work, canes plated with tortoise-shell, all sorts of nonsense; and they will be on the lookout for passengers who may want to go ashore. But it’s the officers in the first boat I want you to see; they’ll be aboard in a minute.”
The gangway had been lowered, and after a great deal of shouting in Spanish the government boat came up to it and made fast. Then there came up the steps a dozen swarthy men whose appearance gave Kit more surprise than anything else he had seen on the voyage. Each one, as far as he could see, wore nothing but a white shirt and a high black silk hat, with a belt around the waist with a big revolver stuck in each side. They carried themselves with great dignity, which made their costume all the more grotesque; and as they stood on deck shaking hands with Captain Griffith, it was as much as Kit could do to restrain his laughter.