Page:George Gibbs--Love of Monsieur.djvu/189

 their way to the Florida coast without mishap. There a herikano buffeted them out to sea, and it was with many misgivings that they won their way back to the channels of the Bahamas.

The storm had blown itself out, and the ocean shone translucent as an emerald. Low-hanging overhead, great patches of fleecy white, torn from a heaped-up cloud-bank over the low-lying islands of the eastern horizon, took their wild flight across the deep vault of sky in mad pursuit of their fellows who had gone before and were lost in a shimmer of purple, where the sea met the palm-grown spits of the western main. The cool, pink glow upon the Sally’s starboard beam filled the swell of the top-sails with a soft effulgence which partook of some of the coolness and freshness of the air that drove them. Far down upon the weather bow, first a blur, then a shadow which grew from gray to silver and gold, came the San Isidro. Jacquard sighted her, but it was Bras-de-Fer who proclaimed her identity. She was a fine new galleon, spick and span from the Tagus, with three tiers of guns, and masts of the tallest. Her 177