hells and seaweeds and
strange things cast up by the tides. For hours he would sit high on the
lighthouse stairway and gaze out over the variegated mosaic of colored
reefs. My bed was a hammock in the loft of the keeper's house and it
hung close to an open door. At night I woke often, and I would look out
upon the lonely beach and sea. When the light flashed its long wheeling
gleam out into the pale obscurity of the night it always showed C.'s
dark figure on the lonely beach. I got into the habit of watching for
him, and never, at any time I happened to awake, did I fail to see him
out there. How strange he looms to me now! But I thought it was natural
then. The loneliness of that coral reef haunted me. The sound of the
sea, eternally slow and sad and moaning, haunted me like a passion. Men
are the better for solitude.

Our bark, the _Xpit_, did not come back for us. Day by day we scanned
the heaving sea, far out beyond the barrier reef, until I began to feel
like Crusoe upon his lonely isle. We had no way to know then that our
crew had sailed twice from Progreso, getting lost the first time, and
getting drunk the second, eventually returning to the home port. Some
misfortunes turn out to be blessings.

What adventures I had at Alacranes! But, alas! I cannot relate a single
story about really catching a fish. There were many and ferocious fish
that would rush any bait I tried, only I could not hold them. My tackle
was not equal to what it is now. Perhaps, however, if it had been it
would have been smashed just the same.

In front of the lighthouse there had been built a little plank dock,
running out twenty yards or so. The water was about six feet deep, and a
channel of varying width meandered between the coral reefs out to the
deep blue sea. This must have been a lane for big fish to come inside
the barrier. Almost always there were great shadows drifting around in
the water. First I tried artificial baits. Some one, hoping to convert
me, had given me a whole box of those ugly, murderous plug-baits made
famous by Robert H. Davis. Whenever I made a cast with one of these a
big fish would hit it and either strip the hooks off or break my tackle.
Some of these fish leaped clear. They looked like barracuda to me, only
they were almost as silvery as a tarpon. One looked ten feet long and as
big around as a telegraph pole. When this one smashed the water white
and leaped, Manuel yelled, "_Pecuda!_" I tried hard to catch a