"Been sponging with a Greek crew. Crew mutinied. We escaped in a diving boat. Got wrecked in the night on the reef out thar," replied Captain Westfield, briefly.
"Sponging with the Greeks!" snarled the Conch with an oath. "Then the Greeks can help yo' out of yo'r fix, by all that's Holy, I won't. Hyah, Sam, jump aboard with yo'."
"You are not agoin' to desert us?" cried the captain in bewildered consternation. "For the love of humanity, man, what do you mean?"
"I mean that I won't raise a finger to help any mons who deals with the Greeks—blast 'em," cried the Conch, fiercely. "They've ruined us an' our people. We used to be a happy an' prosperous race a'fore they came with their diving suits an' tramped all over the bottom of the Gulf. Killing the little baby sponges with their iron shoes, an' stripping the bottom clean as a Conch's floor. We've been run out of the business, an' they did it. We've lost our homes, an' they caused it. Our families don't have enough to eat an' wear any more, an' they are the reason—curse 'em, curse 'em, curse 'em."
"But you are leaving us to certain death, man!" pleaded Captain Westfield, "The water is rising over the marsh, already."
"An' it will be flooded inside of ten hours," declared the Conch with cruel satisfaction. "All aboard mons an' shove off."
Captain Westfield grasped the gunwale of the boat and tried to hold it while he reasoned and argued with the fanatical Conch, but the infuriated man rapped his knuckles with an oar and gave him a shove with the blade that sent him struggling backwards. By the time the old sailor recovered his balance, the boat had been shoved off and was out of his reach. He shook his clenched fist at the Conch's receding figure.
"You'll pay for this," he shouted. "No good will come to you after such a trick." But it is doubtful if the Conch even heard his voice above the roar of the wind.
The captain stood watching grimly until the boat reached the schooner's side, and her close-reefed sails were hoisted, her anchor broke and she headed to the South inside the line of reef. When she had faded away into the night, he turned back for the camp filled with disappointment and dismay.