CHAPTER V

LOST IN “DELIRIUM TREMENS”

Gough did not wait for signs of dawn. He sailed at two o’clock while we could see the shining head of every nail which held up the blue roof of night.

The sun came up as a fiery frame for the dark silhouette of a graceful barkentine. I chanted:

“If he had seen a barkentine Beating off a blowy head, Or, all a-sheen, a brigantine, Full and free by trade-wind sped, How could Fulton have dared to dream of steam?”

“Or anyone of gasoline,” Spinden tailed onto my song. “’Tis hard enough to roll, I ween, but pois’ning me with kerosene is ultimate insult marine.”

At six o’clock we passed the light on Punta Herrero, at the south side of the entrance to Bahia Espiritu Santo. It is ten and a half miles from there to Fupar Point, the northern tip of Holy Spirit Bay.

There was nothing spiritual in the manner of our attack on the grape fruit, oatmeal and fried stilts which Jake set on the see-sawing house top. Spinden confined himself to oatmeal and coffee, some of the stomachic rehabilitation which he had found at Chinchorro having left him already in the rhythmical lurch of the trading schooner. But with the low coast of Yucatan creeping out on the westward blue like a joyous green snake he kept his morale, and when McClurg and Griscom tried to shake it with insalubrious inquiries too graphically phrased he withered them with his penetrating refrain:

“As the sun gets hotter, the birds get rotter--As the sun gets hotter, the birds get rotter.”

At ten o’clock we anchored half a mile south of the lighthouse on Allen Point. This guards the northern and deeper entrance to Ascension Bay, the mouth of this desolate expanse of water being blocked in the middle by a cluster of islands called Culebra Keys.

By an oversight the authorities of Payo Obispo had neglected to list this bay as one of the places we were entitled to enter en route to Cozumel Island. The light keeper insisted courteously but firmly that he could not permit us to linger here nor to land in the bay’s one “port.” This is Vigia Chico, whose distinguishing clump of tall marine pines we could just distinguish to westward with the most powerful binoculars Zeiss makes.

In an old brief case--for lack of any more suitable covering--I had brought ashore a bottle of rum. When this was opened the manner of the light keeper changed. If we would swear that we had been forced into Ascension Bay by engine trouble and dire need of water he would see what he could do. He would have a paper ready for us to sign by five o’clock. Meanwhile in one of the small boats he would permit us to visit Vigia Chico, the present population of which he put at two. One of these was Pedro Moguel, who spoke English fluently, had just returned from chicle work at Boca de Paila and would know how to guide us to possible ruins in that neighborhood if anyone would. (He himself had never heard of any there, he said discouragingly.) Meanwhile we must leave the ship’s papers here. “_Hasta luego_” (“See you later”).

As we motored back to the _Albert_ McClurg fumed at the ways of Mexico. Who ever heard of a lighthouse man having power to seize a ship’s papers, particularly when she was virtually a yacht and when the light was a big lantern hoisted by a cable to the top of a steel upright which looked like a bone out of the side of an American skyscraper?

“_Costumbre del pais_”--“Custom of the country,” Spinden soothed.

“I don’t believe it. He’s just holding us up for a little graft.”

“Well, he’s got it,” I pointed out, “and if he wants more we can spare another bottle.”

McClurg said he thought my “alcoholic diplomacy” was very undignified.

“It’s blamed poor policy to sprinkle rum on these people,” offered Spinden with impressive conviction.

“You may be right. All I know is that my skin has been saved more than once in this country by a timely use of _aguardiente_.”

“Good for tick-bites, is it?” asked Spinden. “Seriously, I see now why your writings are so colorful.”

The discussion continued, developing three varying points of view found among Americans in Mexico.

McClurg’s attitude is that of most American Army and Navy officers. It is natural and proper in a man who has had to look at many foreign countries down a six inch gun.

Spinden, on the other hand, is disinclined to any bearing suggestive of an assumption of racial superiority. Such an assumption may be well founded, but it may lead to trouble if cherished too conspicuously by men who have landed not from a battleship, but from a homely little schooner armed with gamegetters.

As for my donations of rum, McClurg disapproves of them because he thinks the rum too good for the recipients, Spinden because he thinks it will demoralize them. I am less particular than the Navigator, less considerate than the Archæologist.

Of course, we drifted to the threadbare question as to whether or not it pays to carry a weapon in this sort of country. And if a gun is “toted” should it be worn openly or kept out of sight?

Although having little facility with a pistol I have been persuaded that the open possession of a formidable one sometimes saves the wearer from attack. And certainly the secret hardness of a tiny automatic in a coat pocket enables the naturally timid to meet some difficulties with a desirable degree of assurance.

McClurg sympathizes mildly with these feelings but he seems to regard the question of armament as of little importance. It is chiefly a matter of “custom of the country”--etiquette. The real weapon is the eye.

“More especially the brain and the heart,” says Spinden. “If you look for trouble you’ll find it. If you mind your own business, bear yourself with friendly modesty, few men will bother you. I never carry a gun. If I meet a bandit--well, a robber may not shoot an unarmed man, but when his prey is a man with a gun he’ll shoot before he robs. And I’ve never seen a bandit who could not outshoot me.”

I’m inclined to think Spinden is right. Wearing a bit of hardware on the hip is generally a romantic gesture down here, like wearing a carnation in the buttonhole at home. A gesture aimed at the girls. And if protection against bandits is the motive the man who packs a .45 in Mexico ought to trundle a field piece in New York.

We stopped at the schooner’s side only long enough to take aboard a five gallon can of fuel. When we pointed the _Imp’s_ bow toward Vigia Chico we were turning our backs to the breeze, which was so slow now that at our six-mile clip we felt it not at all. It soon expired entirely and the water became as smooth as polished jade.

Spinden had brought his colored spectacles, but the rest of us squinted like men facing the blast of a foundry. We were all soggy with sleep--the effect of the early start from Chinchorro. Gough, Spinden and I dozed, our heads slumped between our shoulders like three buzzards. Occasionally we emerged from coma to dash brine over our heads, drink tepid water from the canvas bag or examine the shore through marine glasses. Northwest of us were several humpy knolls which may be ruined buildings covered with trees, but are more probably sand dunes or rocky little hills. McClurg repeatedly refused to be relieved at the steering lever though his hand must have grown numb with its vibration.

Under the conspicuous bunch of pines gaunt houses became visible, even with the naked eye. A sort of dock ran out to southward of the town. Suddenly Spinden woke up and exclaimed:

“Here comes half the population without his hat.” Two boys ran out of a building like a warehouse and pursued the bareheaded man down the dock.

“Here come the third and fourth quarters,” said McClurg.

But the lighthouse keeper had libelled Vigia Chico. It now boasts about a dozen human inhabitants of both sexes in addition to chickens, dogs and pigs in generous proportion.

The bareheaded man was Pedro Moguel, the _practico_ or pilot we wanted. This very affable hunter, fisherman, _chiclero_ and parent of locally renowned hunters, fishermen and _chicleros_ is a middle-aged Belize negro who has lived in Mexico a dozen years. If what he and his townsmen say is true few men know the Turtle Coast northward from here to Cape Catoche as he knows it.

Of course our first eager questions were about Chunyaché--but carefully phrased, for if you indicate to a native what answer you hope to get he will give it to you, kindness being esteemed above truth in this amiable country. Moguel’s information was tremendously reassuring. There are “old stone buildings” at Chunyaché although he has never looked at them closely. His carelessness in this seemed criminal to us. But, said he, we ought to run up to Santa Cruz de Bravo first and see General May and _Señor_ Julio Martin. General May (pronounced _My_), who is growing rich from the _chicle_ trade, is recognized as supreme military chief by the Indians of the Chunyaché region and it will be an important stroke of diplomacy to earn his favor before we meet his savage subjects. _Señor_ Martin (Marteen it’s pronounced of course) is the chief chicle buyer in this region, and our letters from the President of the American Chicle Company and the General Manager of the Chicle Development Company will enlist his good offices--perhaps in ways very vital to us, suggests the astute Moguel. His advice seems well put, and we have decided to accept it, though the prospect of a further delay before reaching our coveted ruins is very irritating.

The rusty tracks of a narrow gauge railroad run back from the dock and through what was a booming seaport some twenty years ago when General Bravo was leading his expensive and vain effort to reconquer the Indians of this territory. The tracks end thirty-eight miles inland at the town which is Santa Cruz de Bravo on maps of Mexico but Santa Cruz de May to the modern Indians and Chan Santa Cruz (Big Santa Cruz) to the brown nonagenarians who remember how the Mexican yoke was broken in the bloody rebellion of 1848.

Recently a _Fotingo_ (Ford tractor) has supplanted the mules which formerly drew two or three tiny cars over this narrow road two or three times a week. Vigia Chico is modern--oh yes. Moguel telephoned to _Señor_ Martin and asked him to send the tractor down for us at once. It would come down this same afternoon, said Moguel, and we could go up to Santa Cruz de Bravo in the cool of the morning.

This arranged, the affable African chopped the ends off three coconuts and proffered each of us a drink. He would go back with us to the schooner, he declared, and help fix things with the lighthouse keeper.

Fair enough. But when Moguel stepped aboard the _Imp_ he was promptly followed by two other natives. Fearful for the delicate bottom of the little craft we protested forcefully that we were not licensed for passenger service. Moguel, who evidently regarded the two intruders with respect, contended in ingratiating English whispers that they were very important men and must not be insulted.

“They’d better be insulted than drowned,” said McClurg, “the boat won’t hold so many, tell them to get out--vamoose.”

A compromise was possible when the younger of the two intruders stepped ashore with stolid dignity. The other refused to budge. He was a weathered, oldish man who said he was in charge of Customs here and would have to board the _Albert_ before she could move. He didn’t weigh much anyhow. But Moguel is a husky citizen and the water was perilously close to our gunwales as we started. It was also seeping through the rotten bottom with ominous celerity. Had the wind whipped up suddenly as it might well have done the _Imp_ would not have reached the _Albert_.

We gave ourselves the luxury of allowing Moguel and the Collector of Customs to wield coconut shell bailers all the way home.

Now the troublesome lighthouse keeper refused to give us back our amended papers until every member of our crew had signed the “Protest”--as Gough kept calling it, that is, the affirmation that head winds, engine trouble and failing water had forced us to enter Ascension Bay against our wishes.

Dusk was falling like soft gray snow when at last these annoying formalities were concluded. But Griscom, Whiting and Nelson had not yet returned from an exploration of Culebra Keys undertaken in _Delirium Tremens_. An east wind was freshening, and to reach our present anchorage they would have to cross a rather tumultuous piece of water invaded by the ocean rollers which had slipped between the outer reefs which guard the gate of Ascension. Therefore, we ran toward the keys to reduce the trip for our dory. When we had gone a mile we saw her slide out from a little opening between the long westernmost key and a small one which hangs on its heels.

Nelson, who was running the Johnson, killed his motor too soon and missed his landing by thirty feet. As Griscom or Whiting half stood up in the dark to get out the oars the crazy boat wabbled, lurched sideways into a wave, and took aboard two hundred pounds of water. One more blow like that and they would have been swimming. But they clutched a line which Gough threw and were hauled aboard, bringing a dozen large birds, much mud and good humor as products of their hunt. The birds were boobies, cormorants, curious boat-billed herons--which are accurately named, lovely roseate spoonbills and reddish egrets with delicate pink-gray plumes.

Griscom believes this is a “farthest south” for reddish egrets. Moreover, he thinks his two specimens of this feathery tribe may prove to belong to a new sub-species, as they are unusually pale. He has also ventured the opinion that his boat-billed heron will prove to be a new variety. Knowing well now how conservative his nature and professional training make his scientific judgments I am delighted to think that we can count four new species to Griscom’s credit already. It is only a week today since we sailed from Belize.

Several of these big birds were brought down in mid flight at ranges he thought were impossible, Griscom says. Whiting justly remarks that both for the tiny gun and the man behind it this was “some shooting.”

Moguel had the schooner’s wheel as we ran to Vigia. He says that eight feet of water can be carried safely to the spot where we anchored--about five hundred yards south of the dock. On the whole the chart of Ascension Bay is surprisingly accurate considering that it is based on soundings made in 1839. Where the chart errs it is generally on the side of caution; we have found that several spots have a little more water than is shown on paper. Certainly I should not have supposed that an eight-foot vessel could be taken up to within less than half a mile of Vigia Chico, for depths of only eight and nine feet are indicated a full mile offshore. Several of the boats I rejected for this expedition on account of their depth could have come here, the yawl _Tigress_, for instance, and the schooner of adventurous George Woodward, Jr., which he was crazy to have me take when I was contemplating the romantic stunt of sailing all the way to Yucatan from New York.

[Illustration: Griscom’s fortune at Ascension Bay; the two birds at right are a new sub-species of reddish egret, and the third from right is a new sub-species of boat-billed heron]

The buoys which are sprinkled rather generously on the chart are today non-existent, and the “Fishing Huts (large and conspicuous)” which the chart offers as a landmark north of Vigia Chico seem to have crumbled away.

Moguel and the Collector of the Port lingered long with us after supper, as if loth to return to the weather colored board sheds with tin roofs which constitute Vigia Chico. _Vigia_ means “lookout” or “watch.” Being a feminine noun the adjective should agree with it. But it just doesn’t, that’s all. We argued the point with Moguel and the Collector but couldn’t excite them at all. They say the maps are right, the name has always been Vigia Chico, never Vigia Chica, so that’s that.

In the morning there was no sign of the promised tractor. When the Captain and Whiting went ashore to inquire about it they conceived the bright idea of hunting up a laundress. The Collector’s wife was indicated as such, but she hinted that she would not give up her Sunday leisure to wash for a barefooted sailor and a roustabout in a flannel shirt, soiled khaki trousers and dirty white sneakers.

“But these men are scientists,” said her husband, “and very distinguished.”

“I don’t believe it,” said the stubborn lady, “I saw a scientist once at a _fiesta_ at Vera Cruz. He wore boots.”

Just then Spinden happened along with his soiled clothes rolled up in a shirt. The good woman glanced at his pith helmet and his brown knee boots.

“Here is a gentleman and a scientist,” she snapped at her husband. “He is distinguished, _very distinguished_ (_muy distinguido_). I will wash for him.”

When the _Fotingo_ had not arrived at noon we knew there would be no trip to Santa Cruz de Bravo that day, for it is customary to allow the train crew three or four hours to unload their chicle and rest before starting them on their return voyage. This delay was maddening to us impatient _gringos_. But after all, perhaps in the United States punctuality is over-worshipped. Procrastination is a jolly fat god and his ritual is suited to the lands of the sun. Worrying and fussing fill more tropical graves than malaria.

Griscom planned to spend the afternoon at the great rookeries he had discovered on Culebra Keys--or rather, the keys _are_ rookeries, and nothing else. McClurg, Whiting and I elected to accompany the bird man, leaving Spinden deep in the ramifications of Maya astronomy. We were obliged to take the detested _Delirium Tremens_, that dervish of a boat. The good old _Imp_, stable if sponge-like, was being used to carry water (no pun intended). Before many hours we were to regret this from the bottom of our hearts.

This is how it happened. We laid a course from the schooner for the westernmost key, a low blue blotch from the schooner’s deck but invisible from the dinghy till we had putted along a mile or more. Whiting, who steered, was surrounded by too much racket to converse, but Griscom excited McClurg and me with descriptions of the vastness of the rookeries, the tameness of the birds and their enormous numbers. For more than a mile on the biggest island, the trees were not green, but white--with guano, said he.

When we had been running an hour the big west key was clear of the horizon. Within another half hour we began to meet bird outposts, chiefly cormorants, which were sunning themselves in the water. Griscom put McClurg and me in the bow to give our movie cameras full play.

A sand bar running toward us from this key was black with cormorants. They got up like heavy smoke before we could come within good camera range. We ran down the north side of the island. The branches were bent with the weight of cormorants arrayed in clusters, like great dark fruit, and the more conspicuous for the foliage they had whitewashed about them.

Between this key and the next one is an expanse of mud and lime sand (the insoluble form of lime). This flat stretches seaward some two hundred yards north and south from a line between the islands. It was now partly uncovered and partly submerged at a depth insufficient for _Delirium Tremens_. When we stepped overboard we promptly sank to our knees in the clinging bottom. We floundered a few yards to make long range pictures of reddish egrets, which have a village on this key although their metropolis is on the next islet southeast of it. Being heavier than my fellow flounderers and longer-legged I sank in farther. Soon the bog pulled off my hip rubber boots, quite a feat of strength on the bog’s part, for they clung so--being wet inside, that I had just tried in vain to get them off by my own efforts.

Our particular objective was the colony of roseate spoonbills, of which Griscom wanted more specimens. These birds were beyond the little group of egret nests, that is, they were protected against man by the very softest and stickiest piece of the morass. Griscom and McClurg were wisely trying to find a detour, but I labored straight ahead with Whiting following far behind. Suddenly I was in to mid thigh, and in spite of my utmost efforts could free neither leg. My struggles only made me sink deeper. The situation had lost all its humor. Things I had read about the relentless purpose of quicksands flashed through my mind. By the time that the soft ooze had reached my waist I was on the verge of losing my nerve.

Whiting was approaching by frantic effort, but of course his progress was slow. I shouted a warning to him. He could not help me by getting caught himself, and I pointed to where my last visible leg hole marked the verge of safe territory. It was just out of reach of my hand. I had managed to twist about on first stepping into this soft spot, and at least I was facing safety. By lying forward I managed to work my feet up and backward.

I threw Whiting my two cameras.

“Pass your gun,” he ordered, “but hold the other end.”

I went flat on my face extending the gun, though I confess it was with many misgivings that I presented my whole body to the bog. But the principle was right--it was the principle of the snowshoe.

Whiting got both hands on the gun butt. I clung to the barrels with my right hand and made swimming motions with my left.

My companion put on the power gradually. The ooze began to lose me, with reluctant, sucking noises.

“I’m moving--a steady pull now!”

Slowly gaining speed like a ship gliding down the ways I shot into firmer mud, leaving one stocking behind me.

This was too big a price for pictures of birds. I reached the _Imp_ with utterances of unbounded admiration for professional movie camera men.

We four clustered around the boat, pushing and pulling till we reached deeper water, under the shade of mangroves east of the bog. A young cormorant, apparently unable to fly, dove and swam under water faster than we could pursue it.

We rowed around the key to its southern point, where the boat-billed herons were holding a caucus in the thick mangrove. McClurg shot one which fell where branches interlaced over the dark eerie water. Pulling on some branches and severing others with our machetes we worked the boat into the swamp till McClurg could fish the bird alongside with an oar.

There were roseate spoonbills west of the boat-billed herons on this same side of the key, but quicksands protected them here as on the side where I had left my stocking. However, only a fifty foot channel separated this islet from the next one southeast of it, which was the site of the main colony of reddish egrets.

These birds are the tamest of the several varieties on Culebra Keys. No doubt their fatal blend of loveliness and stupidity is one cause of the rarity of reddish egrets in a world overrun by man and his destructive inventions. Fortunately the reefs and shoals and quicksands of Ascension Bay will probably protect this colony for many years, irrespective of what may happen to reddish egrets in more accessible rookeries.

We paddled our boat within ten yards of mother birds, regarding us from their nests with mild surprise.

In the group was a white bird. Griscom explained that the color was a mere idiosyncracy. The bird was an albino form of the reddish egret, being in size between the two varieties of genuine white egrets--those lovely birds which were butchered for their plumes until a law barely saved them from extermination. The tragedy of the egret is that nature has taught it to wear its magnificent gala dress only during the nesting season. The death of every mother at the hands of plume hunters means the loss of its babies as well.

When we had taken all the photographs we wanted Griscom said he would like to get one more skin. Now, although these birds were almost near enough to be killed with stones, they were perched over the very thickest part of the mangrove.

“Push around into the little bay and see if we can’t pot a straggler where we won’t lose him,” directed the ornithologist.

“We’ve lost an oar,” exclaimed Whiting.

“We may need it,” I said, “pole her back the way we came.”

“We’ve got an engine,” urged McClurg, “now that we’re here let’s get the bird and then go after the oar. It may be way around the island.”

“No, I bet we lost it right over there where you shot this heron,” said the junior member of the expedition.

“Yes, let’s look for it now,” said Griscom, “we may need it yet.”

Just as we had crossed the shoal channel and were pushing our bow through the thick branches, I saw an egret alighting on an outer branch of the clump we had left. If shot there he ought to fall where we could easily reach him.

“Look out, fellows,” I cried, and shot, like an utter fool, with the end of my gun not two feet from Griscom’s right ear.

The poor chap thought that his ear drum had been broken. He said he could hear nothing on that side. I was plunged into depths of dejection at my criminal stupidity, realizing that the “I-didn’t-know-it-was-loaded” jackass was only one degree worse than I, realizing how futile was my regret. McClurg and Whiting cursed me for the idiot I was, then we sat there in the gloom for an awful minute, while Griscom held his head in his hands.

At last he raised his head and said through his teeth:

“Let’s get the oar.”

We pushed and pulled a few feet further, and McClurg sighted it. Luckily the mangroves had prevented the slow current carrying it away.

Whiting said that the egret which had offered the occasion for my asininity to be exercised at Griscom’s expense had used its last strength to flop into the heart of the maze of bow-legged mangrove roots.

But Griscom jumped overboard and gave an extraordinary exhibition of retrieving. After splashing through water and mud to his waist he climbed a mangrove and went from tree to tree like an ape till we lost sight of him. To our surprise he returned immediately--with the egret.

It was now quarter past six--fifteen minutes after supper time on the _Albert_, which was eleven miles away.

I refilled the fuel tank, wrapped the cord around the nickel top of the motor, and gave a sharp pull. No start. A dozen repetitions, with the spark indicator in different positions, gave no livelier result. The little float showed the carburetor was full, everything was in order so far as I could see. After struggling vainly for ten minutes I let Whiting try it, for he had been running the little outboards more than the rest of us.

I took up the oars, to save what time I could. Whiting tried various experiments without improving on my failures.

“How’s your ear, old man?” I asked Griscom.

“Pretty bad, I can’t hear the engine.”

Whiting removed a spark plug and began cleaning it with his handkerchief.

I had rowed perhaps half a mile. The sun had set, and already Whiting’s face was dim under his wide sombrero.

Suddenly he uttered a groan, and looked over the side. He had dropped the spark plug!

“Back her,” he pleaded, “back her quick and I’ll dive.”

“No use,” said McClurg cheerfully, “you haven’t a chance. We’d just lose precious time. We must get clear of this key before the last glimmer has gone.”

We all knew that he meant it would be easy to lose our way on this wide eerie bay with a current of unknown strength setting toward its unexplored head, toward the region of those wavy lines on the chart which had fascinated me a hundred times at home. Much depended on reaching the end of the veiling key and getting a landmark before night made that impossible. It was a race between oars and darkness.

“Let me spell you, Mason,” offered Griscom, sitting on the floor between me and Whiting.

“Wait till he’s pulled out,” said McClurg, “we’ll need all your muscle before we reach our rice and beans.”

Whiting had been slumped dejectedly in the stern since his accident with the spark plug. We were all sorry for him, especially I, whose blundering shot at that egret had been a thousand times less excusable than his error. Now, however, he sat up to direct the steering.

We kept her close to the island, as the shortest course. I peeked over my shoulder occasionally, and a dozen times a vague little promontory dashed my hopes that it was the last one.

But we were clear finally, and just in time. Of course we could not see the schooner or the buildings of Vigia Chico. But we did distinguish the faint blur of that bunch of high marine palms which make the location of Vigia the most conspicuous spot on the lonely shores of this bay except for the lighthouse on Allen Point, somewhere northeast of us. That we could not see at all. But Griscom and I were pretty sure of that clump of pines.

McClurg spotted a few stars to steer by, the most conspicuous one behind us.

“Keep her stern under that,” he directed, “of course it will move, but keep it dead astern now.”

Neglecting what was ahead of us in our attention on that star we ran aground. We were on the long bar where we had seen the cormorants this afternoon. We stepped overboard and dragged the dory into deeper water. When I took up the oars again the star had disappeared. In a few minutes the clouds which were sailing in from the east would cover the whole sky.

I suggested that we go ashore and build a big fire on the west point of this key where there was a piece of solid ground a few feet above the sea level. The men on the schooner might see our fire and come to pick us up. If not we could camp here till morning. It would be uncomfortable, for though we had water we had no food, and the key was cloudy with mosquitoes. But it would avoid the risk of spending the night in a cranky open boat, no slight risk now that the stars were gone and that current pulling us toward the remote head of the bay.

But the others were for pushing on, and pride kept me from pressing the point. I did not want to seem more timid than my shipmates. Yet I confess to a qualm of regret when the utmost effort of my eyes could no longer distinguish the dark bulk of the island behind us and we had nothing to steer by but instinct.

When I had rowed an hour I changed places with Griscom. He crawled forward on the bottom, then lay still while I crawled over his back. The others crouched low and held their breath. Even so there were two horrid lurches which brought our hearts into our mouths.

* * * * *

Now I am enjoying the warmth of my sweater and pipe. My feet are under Griscom’s seat, my head against Whiting’s knees.

We shall very likely miss the schooner on one side or the other. All agree it would be better to make too much allowance for the current and find ourselves eventually to northward of the _Albert_, rather than to be carried up to the mysterious head of the bay. For if we come out north of the schooner we shall be between Vigia Chico and the lighthouse, and with any luck by daylight can reach food before we are too weak to row.

The real danger lies in the crankiness of this damnable dervish of boats. McClurg mistrusts the dory more than any of us because his wider experience with dinghies enables him to realize more acutely than we just how untrustworthy this one is. Each time one of us makes but the slightest sudden move--a quick reach for matches in a side pocket, _Delirium Tremens_ gives way on that side as if a ton of rock had fallen on her gunwale. We throw our weight to the other side and she careens that way with greater haste--and further.

The bay is very still now, but it is an unnatural stillness. And those clouds look like wind. We all know that even a moderate wind would kick up a sea in which the survival of this cranky and overloaded coracle would be entirely subject to the whim of fate. Rowing would be out of the question, it would be a case of all hugging the bottom of the boat to reduce her instability as much as we could while each man prayed to whatever God he worships.

This is the chief danger. That each of us knows it is not inconsiderable the avoidance of open allusion to it testifies eloquently.

For the first time the expedition is face to face with peril. And it is a pleasure to watch the unanimous reaction. The men joke and they sing, but there is nothing forced about it, no nugatory strained quality. Each is relishing the spice of insecurity and offering silent thanks that he has been given companions who can share the rare sharp taste. It takes no psychologist or sensitive adept in human relationships to realize that bonds are forming which will endure though we live fifty years and separate tonight. No matter what the years may do--or petty circumstances of more immediate days, between any two of us there will be something--call it reciprocal respect or what you like, but a stable, foundational something which did not exist two hours ago for all our joshing amity together. Indeed the upgrowth of hatreds would only throw into greater relief this tested thing. “He’s a pig,” one may say (or a cad or what-you-will), “but that night on Ascension Bay he came through with the _Stuff_, he showed he _Had It_.”

Unmistakably the gentle zephyr of a few minutes ago has become a breeze. But overhead it skims away one patch of scummy cloud and shows the bright pan of the sky.

“Cap’n,” Griscom addresses McClurg, “Cap’n, Suh, dis nigger an’ me has done passed dat star you give us, could you pick us out anodda, Suh?”

“There she is,” says McClurg, as the sky breaks out behind also. “She’s a little south of your stern now, but that’s all right, she’s moved a bit and we’ve got to allow plenty for this current.”

The breeze keeps freshening. A sizable wave rolling by us pulls down the port oar, Griscom misses with the starboard one and as he falls back against McClurg’s knees _Delirium Tremens_ drops her starboard gunwale and takes a two gallon bite out of the following wave. I bail with a gourd in one hand and a sponge in the other. Griscom recovers himself and rows very warily.

“Let me row,” begs Whiting, for the fifteenth time seeking a chance to make amends for that spark plug. And for the fifteenth time his proposal is voted down, three to one. For the man in the stern to change places with the man on the center seat would be taking too great a risk with the boat’s unstable temperament.

There is irony in the fact that the water is nowhere more than eight to twelve feet deep. Just enough to drown.

“If she sinks at least two of us can keep above water by standing on the other fellows’ shoulders,” grins Griscom, pausing in his labors to wipe the sweat out of his eyes with the back of his hand. “We might draw lots now to see who’ll be the foundations.”

“Mason’s the tallest,” chuckles McClurg, “we’ll unanimously elect him to one of the bottom positions.”

“I can float for an hour,” remarks Whiting.

“With me on your chest?” asks Griscom.

“You can hang on to the engine.”

“Thanks, you can have the anchor.”

“That leaves us an oar apiece, Mason,” observes McClurg. “Say, finding that oar was what you might call luck.”

“Yeh, without it we’d be feeding mosquitoes back there on the key now.” Privately I am half wishing we _were_ back on that key. Mosquitoes and crocodiles are easier to deal with than this rising sea.

“Spinden knew a man on the Mosquito Coast who traded a woman for an oar,” relates Griscom.

“On Ascension Bay he’d throw in his children for good measure”--Whiting.

“If the Queen of Sheba tried to board us now what would you do?”--McClurg.

“I’d give _her_ the oar--the butt of it”--Griscom.

“I’d give a harem for a spark plug”--Whiting.

“Your hour’s up Griscom, my turn now,” says McClurg.

But McClurg has a bad hand, which was operated on just before he left Chicago. For this reason we have forbidden him to do any rowing. He insists, however, that he can row one oar, which will make it easier for me than pulling both of them again.

“Which oar did you row at New York Athletic Club?”

“Port, which did you row at Yale?”

“Starboard; you see it’s just right, and we’ll make much better time that way,” argues the Navigator.

So we try the change. For now it is a race between us and the rising wind, as before it was a race between us and descending night.

The gray scummy clouds have covered the whole sky again. There is nothing to steer by but the feel of the wind. But we are making better time. We should have rowed double like this all along.

McClurg is applying most of his strength through the good hand, using the weak one to help guide the long sweep--both oars are too long for the narrow boat. In spite of his handicap every time I relax vigilance--as when I peer over my shoulder in the hope of seeing a light--he pulls the bow around against me. It is obvious that he rowed in a Yale Varsity eight--even though that was twenty-five years ago.

“Light on the starboard beam,” shouts Griscom.

“It’s the lighthouse, if you really see it,” says the Navigator, whose eyes are not so sharp as the ornithologist’s.

“Yes, I see it,” I put in, “good, that means we’re keeping up against the current!”

We row with new energy. Now McClurg sees the light, too. But in a few minutes the night thickens and we all lose it. However, even that glimpse of it is great encouragement. At least, we are not being taken sideways up the bay where there is no hope of familiar landmarks. Now if we can just keep away from those seas which curl angrily up to our starboard quarter! Oh, if we had only rowed double from the beginning! Such a little mistake may make all the difference between our eating barracuda tonight and being eaten by them.

Warily now we row, spurting when a particularly threatening wave throws its white crest forward with a hiss.

“What do you suppose they’re doing on the schooner?” asks Griscom.

“Studying my library,” suggests McClurg, who brought with him a good deal of reading matter which appeals to Gough and the literate part of the crew.

“I hope they called for my laundry today,” remarks Whiting, “that washerwoman’s husband cast a greedy eye on my shirts.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll take Spinden’s, yours are not distinguished enough,” says McClurg.

“Or vivid enough,” adds Griscom, “he’ll like those blues and pinks.”

The eastern sky is darker than the rest, an ominous sooty black.

“They may be looking for us in the _Imp_,” I suggest, “we might fire a gun.”

“No harm in trying,” says McClurg.

“Where are your cartridges?” asks Griscom.

“In that _musette_, under Whiting’s feet.”

“Right in the water then. Well, we’ll test ’em.”

Griscom loads my gun, closes the breach with a snap.

“Look out how you take that recoil, _Delirium Tremens_ won’t like it!”

“Here’s where I even up and deafen you, fellah.” Griscom sits up on the floor boards, pointing the gun to starboard and slightly ahead to make the full flash show in that direction.

To avoid the concussion as much as possible I crane my head over my right shoulder.

“Light ahead--on the port bow!” I yell.

“Yes, Sir, I see it! Listen fellahs,” urges Griscom.

Faint, but unmistakable, the even whirr of an engine reaches our grateful ears. Sounds like the other Johnson in the _Imp_.

Forgetting my own advice about taking the recoil I snatch the gun from Griscom, hold it at arm’s length, pull both triggers in quick succession. The gun leaps twice against my right hand, the trigger guard tearing the skin on the middle finger.

_Delirium Tremens_ wobbles, ships another gallon on Griscom’s shoulder.

We fall to the oars with a will.

“How far off are they, do you think?” asks Whiting.

“Bet we reach them in five hundred strokes.” I begin to count aloud, then to myself.

“If it’s the _Imp_ she’d better scoot for the schooner,” laughs McClurg, “look at the east.”

That black wall of cloud is towering up, covering half the ascent of the eastern sky. Perhaps we could transfer one man to the _Imp_ with great care. That would help a little.

“It’ll be something to have companionship in misery, anyway,” jests the bird man. “How many now, Mason?”

“Two hundred and thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight,” I count the sweeps of the long white oar, slippery in my tiring grip.

“Want me to spell you, fellah?”

“Hell, can’t shift now,” sings out McClurg--“_lift her_.”

We lift her, and escape all but the foam of a chief of waves.

I don’t dare take my eyes off those angry rows of white sea horses, running us down as knights would ride down a pedestrian. It’s a case of let ’em come, then jump from the big ones--_lift her_.

But if McClurg and I don’t dare look at the light Whiting and Griscom give frequent bulletins, like coxswains encouraging their spent crews.

“Dead ahead--that’s right--steady now--they’re coming fast.”

Indeed the noise of that engine grows louder every second. Griscom can hear it. Thank Heaven, his ear is all right.

“Hell,” sings out Whiting, and his voice has a sudden jubilation, “if that’s a Johnson I’m Mussolini. That’s a pair of Lathrops!”

“You’re right, it’s the schooner!” yells Griscom, “see there are two lights now, one lower down. She’s a long way off yet, though, or we’d have seen that lower light before. Funny how that racket carries against the wind.”

“No, she’s not so far, they just put up that lower light,” argues Whiting. “Good thing they put that first light in the rigging. Somebody used his bean.”

I venture a quick peek over my shoulder. Good old _Albert_!--the whole blot of her shape is plain now, and the hump on her stern--those absurd shacks.

“Watch it now, Mason, wait till that big one’s past, then pull like hell,” coaches McClurg. The big one sweeps under our lifted stern with the last hiss of the cheated sea. I pull like hell while McClurg eases. Our bow comes around, we run _into_ the chop now--safely.

We row with diminishing force as we range under the schooner’s lee. Eager hands grasp our gunwale, others pull us aboard while one _matchee_ secures our painter and the other leaps into _Delirium Tremens_ to pass out our dunnage.

Spinden used his bean. Gough said we were all right, and the Captain had no light showing except the lantern on the engine room top. Spinden insisted on hoisting it, then insisted on running out to look for us.

We praise his headwork and pour out a round of rum, stripping off our steaming clothes in the cosy hold. We praise it with renewed fervor as the east looses its threat at last.

Outside the wind is a battle.

McClurg looks through a porthole.

“What price _Delirium Tremens_ in that mess!” He chuckles--the unexcitable one.

The schooner is anchoring as we sit down to hot tomato soup, fried barracuda, canned beef stew, yams, rice, beans, cherry tarts and coffee. The curtains laced down the sides of the “Porch” flap and whirr in the wind.

“No wonder da engine wouldn’t run,” says Gough, who has been looking over our Johnson. “Spark plug made no difference--she wouldn’t a run anyhow.”

“Why?”

“Da fuel tank is full o’ kerosene!”

[Illustration]