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Show 17, Jeffries, Islamorada [Section 2] Stephen. The early popes. This pleasing rote effort was interrupted by a hand on the neck from Captain Jorge. Pablo turned to note a formal detail in his appearance. The helmet. A golden helmet. The coming Rembrandt would cull the fading light of this scene, the shadows gathered, the yellow casque, golden evening. On the square-masted vessels riding heavy in the shallow water off the reef. "Cerveza?" Pablo couldn't help feasting his eyes on the headpiece. "Vino?" Pablo took the gaze of the agent from the Escorial. He frowned. "Why do you wear this?" "Look." No martyrs to be discerned. But a longer strip of land. "La Florida?" Pablo wondered. "No," the civil servant made reply. "There must be many more islands, north and east, to the island called Largo." And with these words a chain of fires were struck on sinister Matecumbe Key. "Mata-hombre," Jorge whispered. More of those curious Indies-men. On a spit of coral and jungle. Evidently people will live anywhere. "If we were to sink," Jorge imagined, peering anxiously at the misdirection of those night fires, "--and fall into |