SLICKIlSrG FOR FLYINGFISHES 



valley or two a whale spouted, sighed and sank 

 quietly. We glimpsed the drifting spray in the air 

 on the next rise. The crabs climbed down again, and 

 for many minutes there was unbroken silence. The 

 quiet filled our thoughts ; one of us whispered very 

 low and the other merely nodded in answer. Our 

 ears strained pleasantly and we found vibration 

 only through the eye and the lulling sensation of 

 the rhythmic rise and fall, rise and fall, of the whole 

 visible universe. 



So through the day we put-putted from slick to 

 slick. When our bottles were filled and the gasoline 

 got low, we returned abreast the tug and on ahead, 

 so that if our motor should go dead we could row to 

 our mother ship. We were about twelve miles out, 

 and a tropicbird passed us, flying still farther sea- 

 ward in search of his meal of squids. Then the wave 

 of a hand from one of our crew sent us far out to 

 starboard. Soon we saw a large black bird resting 

 buoyantly on the water. It rose as we approached, 

 and as I did not recognize it I shot it — a pomarine 

 jaeger, a bird of the year, hatched probably in 

 Central Greenland and now wandering southward 

 on the beginning of its migration. 



A pair of whales blew and blew some distance 

 away, tall fountains of spray rising and drifting 

 into invisibility, like some strange geyser from a 

 heaving plain of limpid lava. The idea would not 

 leave us that it was perfectly possible to step over- 

 board, walk off and tow the boat. It seemed as if 

 we almost had sufficient faith. 



67 



