“I never looked at a towing barge in that light before,” said the passenger, and lit a cigar.  He made no offer of one to Kieran, because he had before this learned that Kieran never smoked.

The ship rolled, the barge yawed, the reefs kept sliding by.  The passenger stole a look at the pump-man, and ventured:  “Kieran, there used to be, a few years ago, a sprinter, pole-vaulter, and jumper, competing under the name of Campbell in the Hibernian and Caledonian games up north, and you’re a ringer for him.”

Kieran glanced sidewise at the passenger.  “You must have been in athletics yourself—­seems to me I’ve seen you somewhere too.”

“Maybe.  My name’s Benson.”

“I remember—­a sprinter.  And a good one, too.”

“Good enough—­with no Wefers or Duffey, or somebody like yourself around,” protested the passenger, but immensely pleased nevertheless to be identified after so many years.  And they were both pleased and exchanged rapid comment on a dozen incidents of athletic days; and when two ex-athletes get together they run on interminably.

By and by, but not prematurely, the passenger asked, “But was there a girl at Zanzibar?”

Kieran made no reply.  He seemed to be considering the matter of the barge.  After a time he went to the quarter-rail and gazed forward.  He came back to his bitt.  “I thought so.  There’s one of those wreckers up ahead.  They’re always along here—­standing by or cruising for any loose wreckage.”  He waved his hand toward the reefs.  “Look.  Where their crests don’t pierce the surface you know they’re there by the surf playing over ’em.  Where they lie a little deeper the paler green of the sea shows ’em up.  In the deep pockets in between—­see?—­the sea’s of a beautiful deep blue.  That’s all easy enough, isn’t it, but where the drifting clouds shut out the sunlight, where the shadows fall it’s all of a color, isn’t it?  No saying then where it’s deep water and where it is shoal.  It’s the clouds.  If the light was always good, there’d be few wrecks along here.  And”—­he waved toward the barge astern—­“there she is tied to us.  If this ship piles up on the reefs, she piles up behind us.”

“Couldn’t they cut her adrift?”

“H-m-m—­a drifting barge and the Florida Keys tide-water, where would she fetch up?” And, after a pause, “no fault of hers either, and that seems hard, too.  But there’s that wrecker—­listen.”

A hailing voice came floating aft to them.  “Ain’t seen nothing ’long de way—­nothin’ to th’ east’ard, has you, capt’n?”

“No, I didn’t see nothin’.  And if I did, d’y’ s’pose I’d tell you, you green-sided, patch-sailed whelp’s loafer of a black pirate, do you?”

Without turning their heads Kieran and the passenger could hear their captain’s voice from the bridge, and also without turning their heads they shortly saw the wrecking schooner slide past their quarter.  She was green-painted and her sails were a scandal, and it was a very black and big negro who was standing in her waist to catch the reply, and it was very like their captain to answer as he did.