Artemis, grinning broadly, his capped tooth like a small ingot set in his jaw, bumped the wheel to keep Double Eagle into the wind. The mainsail shuddered, and Drew hopped to the forepeak halyard, and with Will’s help, raised the fore and foretop sails, then the jib and jibtop. Close-hauled, Double Eagle beat out of the harbor into a moderate southerly breeze in which the palm fronds ashore streamed like feathery green banners. The wind was opposed to the strong harbor ebb, making for a bumpy ride, but the stiff schooner’s decks stayed dry. She slipped by the navy depot, a flag fluttering from its cupola; the customs house, high brick walls rising incongruously above weathered frame houses; the buildings of the naval station, white in the morning sun, and Government Wharf, beside which a frigate was moored, black cannon bristling in the embrasures of her armored casemates.

“Should of seen dis harbor durin’ de war with de Sponnish, boys,” said Artemis. “Hoo-hee! Battleships all over de place! De whole squadron, right here!”

Beyond Government Wharf loomed the massive battlements of Fort Taylor, joined to the island by a causeway. Artemis gestured, telling of the day he saw the U.S.S. Maine anchored off the fort, her stacks smoking as she got up steam for her fateful voyage to Havana. Nathaniel envied him for having witnessed that fragment of history, and watched the great red walls, topped by coastal guns, pass to starboard. The fort fell abaft the beam, and Double Eagle, beating still, entered open water. No longer channeled by the harbor, the tide lost its concentrated force, and the waves grew bigger but less choppy, heaving with wide troughs between them.