32 I N A G U A 



of that gigantic wave, burst forth other porpoises leaping and 

 hurthng toward the ship. There must have been hundreds of 

 them. Sleek black things that surged and dived in effortless 

 gambol, all heading for our bows. There they collected in a 

 heavy muscled swarm, gloriously graceful, active and free. 

 Weary and tired as we were we could not help but feel a tingle 

 of pleasure at the sight. And as mysteriously as they came they 

 disappeared. All vanished as one, as if by given signal they 

 slipped into the depths at the same moment and were gone. 

 There was only the swirl of foam and bubbles where a minute 

 before was activity. 



The porpoises made us feel better, helped to take away some 

 of the lonely feeling that had come over us in our exhaustion. 

 They were the first Hfe that we had seen since leaving the 

 land. Later the same day two petrels swept by, little black 

 things hardly visible through the spray. We could hear them 

 calling, a plaintive whistle that somehow seemed to have a cer- 

 tain sad timbre. How could they live in that chaos of water 

 hundreds of miles from land,— how could they survive days 

 of gale with only the spray-swept water to rest upon? But they 

 do. Mother Carey's chickens! Brave little things, that fly on 

 sickle-shaped wings close to the water's surface, feeding on 

 floating tid-bits, stray things that the sea gives up, subsisting 

 on tiny crustaceans, larval fishes and pelagic eggs. Storm and 

 calm, hurricane and smooth sea, it is all the same to Mother 

 Carey's chickens. Their niche in the scheme of things is not 

 an easy one. 



The gale lasted nearly a week and a half. Ten days of torture 

 and misery. There were hours on end when we thought that 

 every boarding wave would be the one to split us wide open 

 and send us to the bottom. We had taken in hundreds of gal- 

 Ions of water. The cabin floor boards had come up and were 

 sloshing about, mixed with a jumble of wreckage. We were 



