282 Big Game Fishes 
through the scuppers did not even harden the tar 
which oozed up from every seam. 
For twenty-four hours we drifted, the clear rich 
blue of the Gulf Stream offering every invitation ; 
but the dusky shapes of a number of “ man- 
eaters” barred even this solace. It was while 
thus adrift, thirty miles east of East Key, that 
Paublo bethought him of a wind-raiser, and forth- 
with taking a belaying-pin, hammered vigorously 
on the foremast. I learned later that this was 
generally infallible; this day it failed, failed to 
raise the wind, but as the captain of the galley 
and clever boatman replaced the pin, the smooth 
water of the Gulf broke into foam not two hun- 
dred yards away: he had “conjured” up the king- 
fish. The dinghy was drifting astern, and it took 
but a moment to grasp rod and tumble in. Under 
Paublo’s strong strokes we were presently in the 
heart of the school from which I took my first 
kingfish. The rod was so well fitted for the 
work that Ican but commend it. It was of green- 
heart, eight feet in length, of two joints, and 
weighed about twenty ounces. The line was a 
fine linen, number twelve cuttyhunk—a mere 
thread to be broken at the slightest mistake ; the 
hook, a 6/o Limerick, with a long copper wire 
