To my further surprise, he not only wanted to go, but he was
enthusiastic.

"But it's a hard, wild trip," I protested. "Why, that crew of
barefooted, red-shirted Canary-Islanders have got me scared! Besides,
you don't know me!"

"Well, you don't know me, either," he replied, with his winning smile.

Then I awoke to my own obtuseness and to the fact that here was a real
man, in spite of the significance of a crest upon his linen.

"If you'll take a chance on me I'll certainly take one on you," I
replied, and told him who I was, and that the Ward-line agent and
American consul would vouch for me.

He offered his hand with the simple reply, "My name is C----."

If before I had imagined he was somebody, I now knew it. And that was
how I met the kindest man, the finest philosopher, the most unselfish
comrade, the greatest example and influence that it has ever been my
good fortune to know upon my trips by land or sea. I learned this during
our wonderful trip to the Island of the Dead. He never thought of
himself. Hardship to him was nothing. He had no fear of the sea, nor of
men, nor of death. It seemed he never rested, never slept, never let
anybody 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
Caribbean 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 reac