me nearer to that shore." I thought, "Every shovelful flung into those
white-hot mouths brings me nearer."

* * * * *

It is an absolute fact that, four hours before we could hope to
disembark, ladies in mantles and shore hats (seeming fantastic and
enormous after the sobriety of ship attire), and gentlemen in shore hats
and dark overcoats, were standing in attitudes of expectancy in the
saloon-hall, holding wraps and small bags: some of their faces had never
been seen till then in the public resorts of the ship. Excitement will
indeed take strange forms. For myself, although I was on the threshold
of the greatest adventure of my life, I was unaware of being excited--I
had not even "smelled" land, to say nothing of having seen it--until,
when it was quite dark, I descried a queerly arranged group of
different-colored lights in the distance--yellow, red, green, and what
not. My thoughts ran instantly to Coney Island. I knew that Coney was an
island, and that it was a place where people had to be attracted and
distracted somehow, and I decided that these illuminations were a device
of the pleasure-mongers of Coney. And when the ship began to salute
these illuminations with answering flares I thought the captain was a
rather good-natured man to consent thus to amuse the populace. But when
we slowed, our propellers covering the calm sea with acres of foam, and
the whole entire illuminations began to approach us in a body, I
perceived that my Coney Island was merely another craft, but a very
important and official craft. An extremely small boat soon detached
itself from this pyrotechnical craft and came with a most extraordinary
leisureness toward a white square of light that had somehow broken forth
in the blackness of our side. And looking down from the topmost deck, I
saw, far below, the tiny boat maneuver on the glinting wave into the