Читать книгу The Color of a Great City онлайн

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The sailors in the forecastle told stories. The pilots in the rear talked New York politics and criminal mysteries. The cook brewed and baked. Night fell upon one of the fairest skies that it is given us earthlings to behold. Stars came out and blinked. The lightship at Sandy Hook cast a far beacon, but no steamer took another pilot that day.

Once during the watch that night it seemed that a steamer far off to the southeastward was burning a blue light, the signal for a pilot. The man at the wheel scanned the point closely, then took a lighted torch made of cotton and alcohol and circled it slowly three times in the air. No answering blue light rewarded him. Another time there grew upon the stillness the far-off muffled sound of a steamer’s engine. You could hear it distinctly, a faint “Pump, pump, pump, pump, pump.” But no light could be seen. The signal torch was again waved, but without result. The distinct throb grew less and less, and finally died away. Some of the pilots commented as to this but could not explain it. They could not say why a vessel should travel without lights at night.