Many wrecks well
known to the captain were visited and worked successfully.
Anchors, chains, windlasses, etc., were found in abundance until the
"Foam" was well loaded and sail was made for Kingston, Jamaica. Off
Morant Point they picked up a negro pilot in his little canoe far out
at sea. The pilot wore a pair of blue pants, white shirt and stove-pipe
hat, given him no doubt by some passenger or captain of a merchantman.
He gravely saluted all on deck as he passed his bare feet over the
bulwarks and turning to the captain said in the peculiar dialect of the
Jamaica negro:
"Does yo want er pilot, sah?"
"No," responded the captain, "Oi know this coast well enough, but Oi
think ye had bother hoist that craft av yure's on boord an' come wid
us into Port Royal. There is signs av a cyclone if Oi'm not mishtaken;"
an invitation which the pilot gladly accepted. His outlandish attire
and quaint English greatly amused Paul, who after supper, sat beside him
on the deck and plied him with questions about Jamaica. The pilot told
him many interesting tales, among them one of a famous shark known as
"Port Royal Tom" who was supposed to inhabit the waters of
Kingston's beautiful bay. "Tom, sah, was a pow'ful shahk, 'bout thirty
feet long; but nobody know how ole he was.
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