THE ISLAND OF THE DEAD 



seemed he never rested, never slept, never let any- 

 body do what he could do instead. 



That night we sailed for Alacranes. It was a 

 white night of the tropics, with a million stars 

 blinking in the blue dome overhead, and the Carib- 

 bean Sea like a shadowed opal, calm and rippling 

 and shimmering. The Xpit was not a bark of 

 comfort. It had a bare deck and an empty hold. 

 I could not stay below in that gloomy, ill-smelling 

 pit, so I tried to sleep on deck. I lay on a hatch 

 under the great boom, and what with its creaking, 

 and the hollow roar of the sail, and the wash of the 

 waves, and the dazzling starlight, I could not sleep. 

 C. sat on a coil of rope, smoked, and watched in 

 silence. I wondered about him then. 



Sunrise on the Caribbean was glorious to behold 

 — a vast burst of silver and gold over a level and 

 wrinkling blue sea. By day we sailed, tacking here 

 and there, like lost mariners standing for some far- 

 off unknown shore. That night a haze of clouds 

 obscured the stars, and it developed that our red- 

 shirted skipper steered by the stars. We indeed 

 became lost mariners. They sounded with a greased 

 lead and determined our latitude by the color and 

 character of the coral or sand that came up on the 

 lead. Sometimes they knew where we were and at 

 others they did not have any more idea than had I. 



On the second morning out we reached Alacranes 



lighthouse; and when I saw the flat strip of sand, 



without a tree or bush to lend it grace and color, 



the bleak lighthouse, and the long, lonely reaches 



of barren reefs from which there came incessant 



moaning, I did not wonder that two former light- 



11 



