Ginnell, as owner of the _Heart of Ireland_, received the whole brunt
of the storm; there was no hearing for him when, true to himself, he
tried to cast the onus of the business on Blood and Harman. He was
told to get out and be thankful he was not brought back to 'Frisco in
irons, and he obeyed instructions, rowing off to the schooner, he and
Harman and Blood, a melancholy party with the exception of Blood, who
was talking to Harman with extreme animation on the subject of beam
engines.
On deck it was Blood who gave orders for hauling up the anchor and
setting sail. He had recaptured the revolver.
THE DERELICT _NEPTUNE_*
From "Spun Gold," BY MORGAN ROBERTSON
*Reprinted by courtesy of Harper & Brothers.
Across the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Guinea to Cape St. Roque
moves a great body of water--the Main Equatorial Current--which can be
considered the motive power, or mainspring, of the whole Atlantic
current system, as it obtains its motion directly from the ever-acting
push of the tradewinds. At Cape St. Roque this broad current splits
into two parts, one turning north, the other south. The northern part
contracts, increases its speed, and, passing up the northern coast of
South America as the Guiana Current, enters through the Caribbean Sea
into the Gulf of Mexico, where it circles around to the northward;
then, colored a deep blue from the fine river silt of the Mississippi,
and heated from its long surface exposure under a tropical sun to an
average temperature of eighty degrees, it emerges into the Florida
Channel as the Gulf Stream.
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