'But I saw it. It was as bluff as that one yonder.'
'Just about. Run over it!'
'Do you give it as an order?'
'Yes. Run over it.'
'If I don't, I wish I may die.'
'All right; I am taking the responsibility.' I was just as anxious to
kill the boat, now, as I had been to save her before. I impressed my
orders upon my memory, to be used at the inquest, and made a straight
break for the reef. As it disappeared under our bows I held my breath;
but we slid over it like oil.
'Now don't you see the difference? It wasn't anything but a WIND reef.
The wind does that.'
'So I see. But it is exactly like a bluff reef. How am I ever going to
tell them apart?'
'I can't tell you. It is an instinct. By and by you will just
naturally KNOW one from the other, but you never will be able to explain
why or how you know them apart'
It turned out to be true. The face of the water, in time, became a
wonderful book - a book that was a dead language to the uneducated
passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its
most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice.
And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new
story to tell every day.
