THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
'em! You wouldn't know good coffee from a cup of bilge water, you long-legged giraffe!"
"Think we'll get liberty?" asked Endicott longingly. "I got folks out to Flatbush."
"We won't get that much liberty," replied Lanky, gently. "Maybe we'll get a day. Why don't you telegraph your folks to come half-way and meet you?"
Their dreams of the gayety of New York were doomed, however, to a sad awakening. When the morning watch went on at four the Wanderer was swinging at anchor in a choppy sea with nothing in sight in the gray darkness but a stretch of ghostly breakers a half-mile to the west. As the light grew a beach became visible beyond the surf and, finally, a low island stretched before them. Nelson, coming on deck at eight, viewed it curiously. It appeared to be about a half-mile long and, he guessed, scarcely more than a quarter of that in width. At no place did it rise more than ten feet above the ocean. In the gray, cold light of a cloudy day it was about as desolate and lonely a spot as one could imagine. Not even a hut broke the monotony of the sky-line, but at the farther end a cluster of low, wind-tossed, misshapen trees made a darker blot on the expanse of sand and beach grass. There were low
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