"When the _Mailfast_ burned the sea was calm; but in six hours a sudden gale came up and drove the two boats into the southwest. They wasn't provisioned or watered for a long v'y'ge, and they had to run for it a full week, ev'ry mile reeled off takin' them further an' further from the islands, and further and further off the reg'lar course of shipping." "Where'd they wind up at, Cap'n Am'zon?" asked Milt. "Couldn't hit nothin' nearer'n the Guineas on that course," growled Cap'n Joab. "There you're wrong," the substitute storekeeper said. "They struck seaweed--acres an' acres of it--square miles of it--everlastin' seaweed!" "Sargasso Sea!" exploded Washy Gallup, wagging his toothless jaw. "I swanny!" "I've heard about that place, but never seen it," said Cap'n Joab. "And you don't want to," declared the narrator of the incident. "It ain't a place into which no sailorman wants to venture. The _Mailfast's_ comp'ny--so 'tis said--was driven far into the pulpy, grassy sea. The miles of weed wrapped 'em around like a blanket. They couldn't row because the weed fouled the oars; and they couldn't sail 'cause the weed was so heavy. But there's a drift they say, or a suction, or something that gradually draws a boat toward the middle of the field." "Then, by golly!" exclaimed Milt Baker, "how in tarnation did they git aout? I sh'd think anybody that every drifted into the Sargasso Sea would be there yit." "P'r'aps many a ship an' many a ship's company _have_ found their grave there," said Cap'n Amazon solemnly. "'Tis called the graveyard of derelicts. But there's the chance of counter-storms. Before the two boats from the _Mailfast_ were sucked down, and 'fore the crew was fair starved, a sudden shift of wind broke up the seaweed field and they escaped and were picked up. "The danger of the Sargasso threatens all sailin' ships in them seas. Steam vessels have a better chance; but many a craft that's turned up missin' has undoubtedly been swallowed by the Sargasso." Louise, who heard this discussion from the doorway of the store, could not fail to be impressed by it. Could the _Curlew_, with her father and Cap'n Abe aboard, have suffered such a fate? There was an element of probability in this tale of Cap'n Amazon's that entangled the girl's fancy. However, the idea colored the old man's further imagination in another way. "Sargasso Sea," he said reflectively, between puffs of his pipe, after the idlers had left the store. "Yes, 'tis a fact, Niece Louise. That's what Abe drifted in for years--a mort of seaweed and pulp." "What _do_ you mean, Uncle Amazon?" gasped the girl, shocked by his words. "This," the master mariner said, with a wide sweep of his arm taking in the cluttered store. "This was Abe's Sargasso Sea--and it come nigh to smotherin' him and bearin' him down by the head." "Oh! you mean his life was so confined here?" Cap'n Amazon nodded, "I wonder he bore it so long."