She went down
easy and slow, with all I had and owned sticking in her. It's bad
luck to give a ship an outlandish name.
There were two large boats and a small one, and trouble came from
Kreps' tin cans of specimens, for the captain wouldn't take them in
his boat, nor the first mate in his, so Kreps wanted to put them in
the small boat. He shed tears and got low in his mind.
"Dey are von der sciences ignorant, obtuse," he says.
I says, "So's the Pacific Ocean."
"But you, so young, so intelligent! Not as de Pacific Ocean, hein?"
I allowed there was difference between me and the Pacific. Kreps got
his tin cans in, and I put the boat off. Kamelillo was spreading the
cat-sail and had no opinion. Veronica came flapping over the rail
with a squawk, and lit on Kamelillo, and fell into the bottom of the
boat. We got away after the other boats, the night coming on clear,
and Kamelillo talked island dialects at Veronica for scratching him
when he wanted to be let alone. Kreps sat over his specimens,
innocent and happy and singing German lullabies.
The next morning the other boats were not in sight. We steered
north, for there were odd islands in that direction by the chart,
without names enough to go around them; and on the second morning we
saw a high shore to port, with surf like a white rag sewed along the
bottom, and rags of mist sticking to the black bluffs.
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