"I never was in such a place as this before."

"You've been in many a worse place, though," rejoined Tom. "I never heard
you make half as much fuss, either."

"I think something must be wrong with my head," ventured Harry.

"Undoubtedly," Tom Reade agreed cheerily.

"Hear that water," Harry went on, in a voice scarcely less disconsolate
than before.

"Of course," nodded Tom. "But the water can hardly be termed a surprise.
We both knew that the Gulf of Mexico is here. We saw it several times
to-day."

The two young men stood on a narrow ledge of stone that jutted out of the
water. This wall of stone was the first, outer or retaining wall of
masonry---the first work of constructing a great breakwater. At high tide,
this ledge was just fourteen inches above the level surface of the Gulf of
Mexico, and at the time of the above conversation it was within twenty
minutes of high tide. The top of this wall of masonry was thirty inches
wide, which made but a narrow footway for the two youths who, on a pitch
black night, were more than half a mile out from shore.

On a pleasant night, for a young man with a steady head, the top of this
breakwater wall did not offer a troublesome footpath. In broad daylight
hundreds of laborers and masons swarmed over it, working side by side, or
on scows and dredges alongside.