201 The flamingo quadrille 



mention anywhere of the palm-fringed tropical setting that had 

 waved languorously through my boyhood dreams. 



Far ahead, hazy in the heat waves and elongated out of all 

 proportion, lay a gray smudge that Sam announced was Cotton 

 Cay. "When we get there/' said he, pointing with his pole, "we 

 maybe hear the fillymingos." "And see them, too?" I asked. Sam 

 scratched his head beneath the band of his well-ventilated Ba- 

 hamian straw, as if invoking deep thought. "Maybe yes, maybe 

 no/' he said doubtfully. "Ah hopes an' prays th' Lord yes," he 

 added with his usual piety, gazing at the enigma of the distant 

 horizon. 



Not long after this we sighted a few small and far-off files of 

 flamingos, outriders of the colony, flying one behind another in 

 an easterly direction. As the numbers of these increased Sam could 

 scarcely contain himself. "Them is sure 'nuff goin' straight into 

 the nestes!" he exclaimed, nearly dancing with excitement. "We 

 find 'em sure, we find 'em sure!" The lake had narrowed, and as 

 we approached Cotton Cay, the outline of the horizon to the 

 east was broken by the tops of black mangroves and tropical but- 

 tonwoods on Long Cay and the unnamed spits and shorelines of 

 the Upper Lakes region beyond. Then, about eight o'clock, as we 

 were wading laboriously, pushing and shoving our way through 

 jagged coral rocks close to Cotton Cay, Sam heard a new sound 

 and raised his arm for silence. We stood as we were, poised like a 

 pair of sun-blasted statues. In a moment I, too, could hear it, a 

 rumble of distant sound, low and high at once pulsating rising 

 until it was clearly audible, then falling until the ear almost lost 



(its vibrations in the murmur of the wind. His broad face turned 

 toward me, radiant with pleasure, Sam anticipated my own words. 

 "That's 'em!" he cried. "The Lord be praised! That's th' filly- 

 mingos!" Hauling the now useless skiff up on a dry rock, hastily 

 securing its painter and grabbing the water jug, he started walking 

 rapidly toward the east, his muscular legs swishing and splashing 

 through the warm, salty water. Equally excited, I scrambled along 

 in his wake. 



Now and again we stopped to listen. The sound soon became 

 a distant uproar a din, a clamor, a constant and prolonged up- 



