“Okay, we get to the introducin’ part, then maybe you do what you supposed to be doin’.” He rapped the gunwale of the Euphrenia Mae with the hook and called out to the two men in the hold, “George! Ethan! Come on out deah. Want you to meet somebody.”

Bending double under the low deckhouse hatch, a young man of twenty or twenty-one emerged. Like Corey, he had his father’s stocky build and broad, open face. He was followed by a wiry figure, with smooth skin only a shade or two darker than the sun-bleached butternut of his shirt. They stood leaning their backs into the main boom, around which the grimy sail was furled loosely.

“De first one out be George, my middle boy, and de second, what looks like a Sponnish mon—his mama be a Cuba nigger, with Sponnish blood in her—be Ethan, my oldest. Boys, you remember I told you about my old cop’in, Cy Braithwaite? De one take such good care of your papa after he goin’ half blind, divin’ dot packet?”

“ ’Course we remember,” said Ethan. “Reckon you tell that story once a year, at least. Like a sermon in church, it is.”

“Dot real funny. You work like you make jokes, maybe you get somewhere in life. Dese here t’ree, Nat, Eliot, Andrew, dey Cop’in Cy’s boys, de second batch. And if you was lissnin’ instead of workin’, like Corey was, den you hear ’em tell me five minutes ago dot dey sail on down to here from Maine all de way. In dot fore-and-after yonder”—pointing—“two thousand mile, dom near. Dey got dere Papa’s blood and dere brudder’s, too. Sailorin’ blood. First rate.”

The two sets of sons nodded to each other, but no one moved to shake hands. Ethan pulled his thick neck into his shoulders and asked, “So how come it is you come so far?”

“Yeah, I forgot to ask dot myself,” said Artemis. “What for you t’ree sailin’ down to dis old rock, middle of no place?”

“It’s about the Annisquam,” Eliot said. He mopped his forehead with the back of his hand. Only seven-thirty and the heat was making itself felt already, the air damp, cloying.

“What about it?”

“We wanted to hear about it,” said Nathaniel.

“Oh, he’ll be happy to tell you,” said Ethan, smirking, while George nodded solemnly. “Tell you about it rill you sick of hearin’ it.”

“None of your sass!” Artemis looked up at Nathaniel, puzzlement creasing his leather-brown face. “I ain’t never heard of nobody sailin’ dom near two thousand mile to hear a story! Dot have to be one helluva story for someone to do dot, and de tale of de Annisquam is a good ’un, but it ain’t dot good. Didn’t your papa never tell you about it?”