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Evidently the former must be near minimum now and the latter would be scarce, if it is subject to the rule of the decacycle, though it is not at all proven that such is the case. We were still held back by the dilatory ways of our Indian friends, so to lose no time Preble and I determined to investigate a Pelican rookery.
On the 26th of Jury, 1721, at such a sessions, Walter Kennedy and John Bradshaw were tried for piracies committed on the high seas, and both of them convicted. This Walter Kennedy was born at a place called Pelican Stairs in Wapping.
The anchorage was one unbroken mirror, except where its glass like surface was shivered into sparkling ripples by the gambols of a skipjack, or the flashing stoop of his enemy the pelican; and the reflection of the vessel was so clear and steady, that at the distance of a cable's length you could not distinguish the water line, nor tell where the substance ended and shadow began, until the casual dashing of a bucket overboard for a few moments broke up the phantom ship; but the wavering fragments soon reunited, and she again floated double, like the swan of the poet.
Nevertheless, there was a murmur the reverse of delighted, and the feelings of some eminent animals were too strong for them: the Orang-outang's jaw dropped so as seriously to impair the vigour of his expression, the edifying Pelican screamed and flapped her wings, the Owl hissed again, the Macaw became loudly incoherent, and the Gibbon gave his hysterical laugh; while the Hyaena, after indulging in a more splenetic guffaw, agitated the question whether it would not be better to hush up the whole affair, instead of giving public recognition to an insect whose produce, it was now plain, had been much overestimated.
The dark turgid waters the distant fires, surrounded by clouds of white smoke ascending in winding columns to the skies the stillness of the night, interrupted only by the occasional cry of the pelican or the crane, and the monotonous thumping of the steam-boat paddles, formed a strange combination; and had the days of witches and warlocks not long since passed away, one would have sworn that these gentry were performing incantations over the mystic cauldrons, casting "seven bullets," or "raising spirits from the vasty deep."
"How often I think," Euphemia sometimes says, "of that moment of peril, when the only actual bond of union between us was that little pelican!" It was mainly due to Pomona that we went to Europe at all.
At nineteen she had worn in public restaurants a star-sapphire necklace, originally designed by a soap magnate for his wife, of these her birthstones. At twenty her fourteen-room apartment faced the Park, but was on the ground floor because a vice-president of a bank, a black-broadcloth little pelican of a man, who stumped on a cane and had a pink tin roof to his mouth, disliked elevators.
"If we only had a fellow like that for a trophy!" ejaculated Euphemia. "He'd do very well for a trophy," I answered, "but if, in order to get him, I had to hold him by one leg while you held him by another, I should prefer a baby pelican." Our trip down the St. John's met with no obstacles except those occasioned by the Paying Teller's return tickets.
In September, Orange's patience was worn out, and the crown of the Netherlands was definitely offered to Alencon; within a few days Drake and the Pelican were home, and Mendoza was demanding restitution; and again a few days later Spanish and Italian adventurers were fortifying themselves at Smerwick.
But I, supported by Euphemia, remained so firm that we anchored a short distance from Pelican Island. None of the others had any desire to go ashore, and so I, with the gun and Euphemia, took the boat and rowed to the island.
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