“The war will probably be over by then,” Will said, running a comb through his hair. “Anyway, since you’re still zealous to get yourself shot, why don’t I bring up that L. C. Smith and you can do it to yourself. At least then you’ll have been killed by someone you know.”

That evening, they upped anchor, hoisted the jib, and brought Double Eagle further into the harbor, dropping her hook outside the clustered sloops of the sponge fleet. Now they had only a short row to get to work.

Eliot, the first to wake, was on deck, brushing his teeth with baking soda. It was the soft, gray hour seamen call morning nautical twilight. Toward the east, above trees and shingle roofs and the tall brick customs house, a pale glimmering told him to enjoy the moment; the furious sun would rise soon enough. With the ladle, he dipped the bucket of freshwater and rinsed his mouth and spit overboard, into a roil of bar jacks savaging a school of glass minnows. Unbuttoning his drawers, he began to pee, and tightened his groin muscles to squeeze off the flow when he jumped back from the rail, startled to see a tarpon of awesome size rise out of the depths, open a mouth as wide as a barrel, and with a lazy roll of its head, engulf two big jacks at once. Jesus, what a maw, could’ve gulped me down just as easy, he thought, finished pissing, and then heard a man’s voice sing out somewhere in the distance, and several voices answer. Again, a call, a response: a quick and rhythmic chant, faintly drifting over the harbor. He could not make out the words, yet there was something vaguely familiar about the song. Looking south, toward the steam and sailing ships swinging on their anchors, he saw a white-hulled, scum-streaked boat glide out from behind a freighter some hundred yards away. She had the look of a yawl-rigged skipjack, with a pronounced sheer that gave her the appearance of a vessel overloaded by the stern. Three skiffs swam behind her all in a row, like ducklings following their mother. She came on slowly, driven more by the flood than by the wind, of which there was little.

The single, strong voice sang out again, and the others chorused:

Shallow, shallow in de mornin’ …
Shallow, shallow brown!
Just before de day is dawnin’ …
Shallow, shallow brown!

Five brown-skinned men standing or sitting around the deckhouse, keeping time with their hands, either by clapping or drumming on the deckhouse roof. A sixth, darker complected, wearing a wide straw hat and leaning into the tiller.

Thought I heard de Cop’in say …
Shallow, shallow brown!
Tamarra is our sailin’ day …
Shallow, shallow brown!

Eliot went below, into the after stateroom, and shook Nathaniel’s shoulder.

“Hey, Nat. Heave out.”

Nathaniel, turning over, opened his eyes.

“What is it?” His voice thick with sleep.

“Come on deck.”