Ebook Bahama Bill

The brig lay in four fathoms of water on the edge of the Great Bahama Bank. She had been a solid little vessel, built for the fruit trade, and she was about two hundred tons register. Her master had tried to sight the Isaacs, but owing to the darkness and the drift of the Gulf Stream, he had miscalculated his distance in trying for the New Providence channel. A nig ger-head, a sharp, projecting point of coral, had poked a hole about four feet in diameter through her bottom, and she had gone down before they could run her into the shoal water on the bank. Down to the graveyard of good ships, Key West, the message was hurried, and the wreckers of Florida Reef heard the news. A heavily built sloop of thirty tons, manned by ten Spongers and Conchs, started up the Florida channel and arrived upon the scene two days later.