But Mokes had never danced the Virginia reel--had seen it once at a servants’ ball, he believed.
“What _are_ you doing, Sara?” I said, sleepily, from the majestic old bed, with its high carved posts and net curtains. “It is after eleven; do put up that pencil, at least for to-night.”
“I am amusing myself writing up the sail this afternoon. Do you want to hear it?”
“Historical! As though I could amuse myself historically!”
“It mustn’t be tragedy either: harrowing up the emotions so late at night is as bad as mince-pie.”
“It is light comedy, I think--possibly farce. Now listen: it begins with an ‘Oh’ on a high note, sliding down this way: ‘Oh-o-o-o-o-h!’
“Oh! rocking on the little blue waves, While, flocking over Huguenot graves, Come the sickle-bill curlews, the wild laughing loons, The heavy old pelicans flying in platoons Low down on the water with their feet out behind, Looking for a sand-bar which is just to their mind, Eying us scornfully, for very great fools, In which view the porpoises, coming up in schools, Agree, and wonder why We neither swim nor fly.
“Oh! sailing on away to the south, There, hailing us at the river’s mouth, Stands the old Spanish look-out, where ages ago A watch was kept, day and night, for the evil foe-- Simple-minded Huguenots fleeing here from France, All carefully massacred by the Spaniard’s lance For the glory of God; we look o’er the side, As if to see their white bones lying ’neath the tide Of the river whose name Is reddened with the shame.
“Oh! beating past Anastasia Isle, Where, greeting us, the light-houses smile, The old coquina beacon, with its wave-washed walls, Where the spray of the breakers ’gainst the low door falls, The new mighty watch-tower all striped in black and white, That looks out to sea every minute of the night, And by day, for a change, doth lazily stand With its eye on the green of the Florida land, And every thing doth spy-- E’en us, as we sail by.
“Oh! scudding up before wind and tide, Where, studding all the coast alongside, Miles of oysters bristling stand, their edges like knives, Million million fiddler-crabs, walking with their wives, At the shadow of our sail climb helter-skelter down In their holes, which are houses of the fiddler-crab town; While the bald-headed eagle, coming in from the sea, Swoops down upon the fish-hawk, fishing patiently, And carries off his spoil, With kingly scorn of toil.