Chapter II: Part 2

It was a strange scene there in the cabin when Gonzales was brought before the captain. The twelve sailors shuffled about uneasily as they stood against the cabin bulkhead, while Enoch Moss sat at the head of the table with his charts and instruments before him. On one side stood the condemned man, who was to be tried again, so that the skipper’s oath to maroon him would be more than a sudden condemnation. It would have the backing of twelve honest sailors in case of further developments. That the twelve honest sailors would agree with the captain was evident by the respectful attitude in which they stood, and the uneasy and fearful glances they cast at him across the cabin table. O’Toole stood in the cabin door, and behind him, looking over his shoulder, stood Moll.

Enoch Moss looked up at the man before him and spoke in his deep, hoarse voice.

“You have fought four times since you’ve been aboard,” said he; “the last time you broke out your irons and nearly killed Davis, and I promised to maroon you. I’ll do it before night.” Then he turned to the men. “We have tried to keep this fellow in irons and he breaks out. He has cut three of you. Do you agree with me that it is best to put him ashore before further trouble, or not?”

“Yes, sir, put him on the beach,” came a hoarse answer from the men that made O’Toole smile.

“Got anything to say before you go?” asked the skipper.

The poor fellow looked across to the door in the bulkhead. His eyes met those of Moll, and he gazed longingly at her a moment while a look of peculiar tenderness spread over his coarse, fierce face. Then he looked at a seam in the cabin floor for an instant and appeared to be thinking.

“Well, speak up,” growled Enoch Moss.

“Yo no hablo Americano. Yo no understand. No, I say nothin’; yes, I say thank you.” And he looked the skipper squarely in the face.

“You can take him forward,” said Enoch Moss.

As they filed out again into the cold and wet, Moll watched them, and after they had gone the skipper called her.

“Do you know Gonzales or Davis?” said he.

“Never saw either of them before they came aboard this ship,” she answered in a steady voice.

The captain looked long and searchingly at the woman before him. She met his gaze fairly for the space of a minute; then her lip trembled slightly.

“That will do. You may go,” said he, and his voice had a peculiar sadness that few people had ever heard.

O’Toole’s step sounded on the deck overhead, and, as the stewardess went forward into the main cabin, the mate’s voice sounded down the companion-way. “It’s hauled to the north’ard, sir. Shall I let her come as high as sou’-sou’west, sir?”

Enoch Moss sat silent at the table. He was thinking of a Spanish crest he had seen tattooed on the white arm of the stewardess. It belonged to her “family,” she had told him, and was tattooed there when she was a child of sixteen.

“Yes, let her head up to the southwest, and call me when we get in close enough to lower a boat,” he replied.

Before dark they were as close in as they dared to go, much closer than one skipper out of ten would take his ship, even in calm weather. Then a boat was lowered and Gonzales was put into it with enough to eat to last him a month. Garnett and two sailors jumped in, and all was ready.

The skipper stood at the break of the poop, and beside him stood O’Toole.

“Ye better not cast th’ raskil adrift till ye get ashore,” said the mate, “for by th’ faith av th’ howly saints, ’twill be himself that will be for coming aboard an’ laving ye to hunt a route from th’ Cape.”

“Trust me to see the pirit landed safely,” replied Garnett. “I’ve handled _men_ before.”

A female head appeared at the door of the forward cabin just beneath the skipper’s feet. He looked down at it unnoticed for a moment. Then he spoke in a low voice, moving away from O’Toole, so he could not hear,--

“Would you like to go with him?”

Moll started as if shot. Then she looked up at the captain with a face pale and drawn into a ghastly smile. She gave a hard laugh, and walked out on the main-deck and looked at the boat as the oars fell across. The condemned man looked up, and his eyes met hers, but she rested her arms on the bulwarks and gazed steadily at him over the top-gallant-rail until he went slowly out of sight.

Two hours later Garnett and the men returned with the empty boat.

The ship was headed away to the southwest, and the struggle to turn the corner began with one man less in the port-watch.

In the dog-watch Garnett met O’Toole on the main-deck.

“We landed him right enough,” he said, “for we just put him ashore, and then only cast off his hands, so we could get into the boat afore he could walk. But what seemed almighty queer was his asking me to give the skipper’s stewardess that ring. Do you suppose they was ever married or knowed each other afore?”

“I don’t suppose nothin’, Garnett; but you better give her the ring. Davis is a good enough man, but one man don’t try to kill another, so strong, for nothin.’ Better give her the ring--and you want to git that chafing-gear on the fore-royal-backstay a little higher up; it’s cuttin’ through against the yard.”

The following night at two bells the wind began to come in puffs, and in less than half an hour afterwards it was snorting away in true Cape Horn style.

It was Garnett’s watch on deck at midnight, and as he came on the poop he saw there was to be some discomfort. Each rope of the standing and running rigging, shroud and backstay, downhaul and clew-line, was piping away with a lively note, and the deep, smothered, booming roar overhead told how the ship stood to it and that the canvas was holding. The three lower storm-topsails and the main spencer were all the sails set, and for a while the ship stood up to it in good shape. At ten minutes past three in the morning she shipped a sea that smothered her. With a rush and thundering shock a hundred tons of water washed over her. The ship was knocked off into the trough of the sea, and hove down on her beam ends. The water poured down her hatch openings in immense volumes; the main-hatch, being a “booby,” was smashed; and all hands were called to save ship.

O’Toole and his watch managed to get the mizzen-trysail on her while Garnett got the clew of the foretop-sail on the yard without bursting it. Then the vessel gradually headed up again to the enormous sea.

The ship sagged off to leeward all the next day and was driven far below the latitude of the Cape; then, as she gradually cleared the storm belt, the wind slacked and top-gallant-sails were put on her to drive her back again.

Five times did she get to the westward of the Cape, only to be driven back again by gales of peculiar violence. She lost three sets of topsails, two staysails, a mizzen-trysail, besides a dozen or more pieces of lighter canvas, before the first day of August.

Part of this day she was in company with the large ship Shenandoah, but as the wind was light she drew away, for in that high rolling sea it is very dangerous for one ship to get close to another, as a sudden calm might bring them in contact, which would prove fatal to one or both.

The night was bitter cold. The canvas rolled on the yards was as hard as iron, and that which was set was as stiff to handle as sheet tin. Old Dan, the quartermaster, and Sadg Bilkidg, the African sailor, were at the wheel; the quartermaster swathed in a scarf and muffled up to the chin, with his long, hooked nose sticking forward, looked as watchful as--and not unlike--the great albatross that soared silently in the wake.

A giant sea began rolling in from the southwest and the wind followed suddenly. The foretop-sail went out of the bolt-ropes, and, as the ship was to the westward of Tierra del Fuego and the wind blowing her almost dead on it, she was hove-to with great difficulty. After a terrible night the wind hauled a little. Not much, but enough to throw her head a couple of points and let the sea come over her.

A huge mass of water fell on deck and washed a man, named Johnson, overboard. He was one of Davis’s friends, and had been cut by Gonzales. He remained within ten fathoms of the plunging ship for fully five minutes, but nothing could be done for him.

Three days passed before the gale eased and swung to the southward, and the high land of Tierra del Fuego was then in plain sight under the lee.

The man Davis was dead, and he was dropped overboard as soon as the gale slacked enough to permit walking on the main-deck. Sail was made, in spite of the heavy sea, and the ship headed away to the northward, at last, with a crew almost dead from exposure. Everything was put on forward, starting at a reefed foresail, until finally on the second day she was tearing along under a maintop-gallant-sail.

The well was then sounded, and it was found she was making water so fast that the pumps could just keep her afloat. Six days after this she came logging into Valparaiso with her decks almost awash. A tug came alongside and relieved a crew of men who looked more like a set of swollen corpses than anything else. Men with arms blue and puffed to bursting from the steady work at the pump-brakes, their jaws set and faces seamed and lined with the strain, dropped where they stood beside the welling pump-lead upon the deck.

They had weathered the Cape and saved the ship with her cargo of railroad iron, for they had stood to it, and steam took the place of brawn just as the water began lapping around the hatch combings. O’Toole approached Garnett as they started to turn in for a rest after the fracas.

“There’s a curse aboard us, Garnett. Come here!” said the mate. He led the way into the cabin, and pointed to the open door of the stewardess’s room.

“It’s a good thing to be a woman,” growled Garnett. “Just think of a man being able to turn in and sleep peaceful-like that way, hey? Stave me, but I’d like to turn in for a week and sleep like that,” and he looked at the quiet form in the bunk.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t a good thing to be a woman,” said O’Toole, quietly. “Faith, it may be a good thing to be woman, but as for me, I’ll take me place as a man, an’ no begrudgin’. Moll is dead, man,--been dead for two days gone. The owld man ain’t said nothin’, for he wanted to bring her ashore, dacent an’ quiet like. She bruk into th’ medicin’-chist off th’ Straits.”

Garnett removed his cap, and wiped the dent in the top of his bald head.

“Ye don’t say!” he said, slowly. Then he was silent a moment while they both looked into the room. Garnett put up his handkerchief and rubbed his head again.

“It was so, then, hey?” he said. “An’ Davis was the man what broke ’em up. Too bad, too bad!”

“By th’ look av th’ matter, it must ha’ been. Yes, ’pon me whurd, for a fact, it must ha’ been.”

The captain’s step sounded in the after-cabin, and the mates went forward to their bunks.

_THE BLACK CREW OF COOPER’S HOLE_

To the southward of Cape Horn, a hundred leagues distant across the Antarctic Ocean, lie the South Orkneys. Sailors seldom see these strange islands more than once. Those who do see them are not always glad of it afterwards, for they usually have done so with storm topsails straining away at the clews and the deep roar of a hurricane making chaos of sound on the ship’s deck. Then those on watch have seen the drift break away to leeward for a few moments, and there, rising like some huge, dark monster from the wild southern ocean, the iron-hard cliffs appear to warn the Cape Horner that his time has come. If they are a lucky crew and go clear, they may live to tell of those black rocks rising to meet the leaden sky. If they are too close to wear ship and make a slant for it, then there is certain to be an overdue vessel at some port, and they go to join the crews of missing ships. The South Orkney ledges tell no tales, for a ship striking upon them with the lift of the Cape Horn sea will grind up like a grain of coffee in a mill.

In the largest of these grim rocks is a gigantic cleft with walls rising a sheer hundred fathoms on either side. The cleft is only a few fathoms across, and lets into the rocky wall until suddenly it opens again into a large, quiet, land-locked harbor. This is the Great Hole of the Orkneys. On all sides of this extinct volcanic crater rise the walls, showing marks of eruptions in past ages, and a lead-line dropped at any point in the water of the hole will show no bottom at a hundred fathoms.

Since the days of Drake and Frobisher the hole has been visited at long intervals, but it is safe to say that not more than six white men have visited it since Cook’s Antarctic voyage. To get in and out of the passage safely requires a knowledge of the currents of the locality, and the heavy sea that bursts into a churning caldron of roaring white smother on each side of the entrance would make the most daring sailor hesitate before sending even a whale-boat through those grinding ledges into the dark passage beyond.

To the eastward of the Horn, all along the coast of Tierra del Fuego, the fur seals are plentiful. At the Falklands many men of the colony hunt them for their pelts. The schooners formerly used in this trade were small vessels, ranging from sixty to a hundred tons, and the crews were usually a mixture of English and native.

After working along the southern shore of Tierra del Fuego they often went as far north as the forty-fifth parallel. They then used to rendezvous at the coaling station in the Straits of Magellan, sell out their catch, and afterwards, with enough supplies to carry them home, they would clear for the Falklands or the West Coast.

A rough, savage lot were these sealing crews, but they were well equipped with rifles of the best make and unlimited numbers of cartridges. Sometimes they carried a whale-gun forward and took chances with it at the great fin-backs for a few tons of bone. These cannon threw a heavy exploding harpoon which both killed and secured the whale if struck in a vital part.

The largest schooner of the Falkland fleet, the Lord Hawke, was lying off the coaling station, one day, sending ashore her pelts for shipment to Liverpool. Her skipper, John Nelson, was keeping tally of the load upon a piece of board with the bullet end of a long rifle cartridge. Two other vessels were anchored in the channel, already discharged, and their crews were either getting ready to put to sea or lounging about the station. John Nelson suddenly looked up from his tally and saw a strange figure standing outlined against the sky upon a jagged spur of rock about half a mile distant on the other side of the Strait. The natives to the southward of the Strait are very fierce and dangerous, so Nelson swore at a sailor passing a hide and bade him “avast.” Then he took up his glass and examined the figure closely.

It appeared to be that of a white man clothed in skins, carrying either a staff or gun, upon which he leaned.

“There are no men from the schooner ashore over there; hey, Watkins?” said Nelson.

“Naw,” said his mate, looking at the solitary figure. “It’s one of those cannibals from the s’uth’ard.”

“Pass me a rifle,” said the skipper.

The mate did so, and Nelson slipped in the cartridge he had been using for a pencil.

“Now stand by and see the critter jump,” said he, and his crew of six Fuegians stopped shifting hides and waited.

John Nelson was an Englishman of steady nerves, but he rested his rifle carefully against the topmost backstay and drew the sights fine upon the man on the rock.

It was a useless act of brutality, but John Nelson was a fierce butcher, and the killing of countless seals had hardened him. A man who kills a helpless seal when the poor creature raises its eyes with an imploring half-human appeal for mercy will develop into a vicious butcher if he does it often.

The picture on the schooner’s deck was not very pleasant. Nelson, with his hard, bronzed face pressed to the rifle-stock, and his gleaming eye looking along the sights at the object four hundred fathoms distant. It was a long shot, but the cold gray twilight of the Antarctic spring-time made the mark loom strangely distinct against the lowering evening sky.

There was a sharp report and all hands looked at the figure. Nelson lowered his rifle and peered through the spurt of smoke. The man on the rock gave a spring to one side, then he waved his hand at the schooner and disappeared.

“Bloody good shot, that,” said John Nelson, handing Watkins the rifle. “That’s one for the crew of the Golden Arrow. I guess that fellow won’t care so much about eating sailors as he did when those poor devils went ashore to the s’uth’ard last year.”

“Think you hit him, for sure?” asked the mate.

“Didn’t you see him jump?”

“Oh, yes,” said Watkins. “Here, Sam, go ahead with the skins. Take that pelt--damn!” As he spoke the faint crack of a rifle sounded and Nelson saw his mate clutch his leg.

“Nipped you, by thunder! Now where in the name of Davy Jones did that fellow get a gun? Blow me, but things are coming to a pretty pass when a vessel can’t unload in this blooming Strait without somebody getting shot. I’d lay ten to one it was that Dago the Silver Sea marooned last year.”

Watkins was not badly hurt, however, and after the cut in his leg was tied up he sat about the deck and cursed at the way the British government allowed its stations to be open to the attacks of savages. The station was not well fortified, but the few men there had had little trouble, and the block-house of wood and stone was found to be sufficient shelter. There was little for the natives to steal save coal, so they were left alone. When a few straggling Fuegians crossed the Strait, as they sometimes did, they were peaceful enough, and only traded in skins and rum. Fire-arms they never used and did not care for.

After the last boat-load of hides was sent ashore from the Hawke, the crew went below and began to trim the vessel’s stores for getting under way. They would start for the Falklands at daylight.

It was late when the lookout was set and all hands off watch had turned in.

Nelson and his mate, Watkins, were sleeping in the cabin to starboard while the harpooner and a half-breed hunter occupied the port bunks. The fire burned low in the small stove and the cabin was dark.

About three in the morning several canoes shot out from the southern shore of the Strait and headed rapidly towards the Lord Hawke. It was getting light in the east and the man on the lookout could make out the grim monument of Admiral Drake’s, where that truculent commander had once swung off a mutineer into eternity. The man on the lookout struck off six bells and then went below to get a pipe of tobacco.

When he came on deck, five minutes later, he was astonished to meet twenty gigantic Patagonians clad in skins, who were being led towards the hatchway by a dark-faced, heavy built Spaniard.

“_Hace bien tiempo quel a manana_,” observed the leader, nodding and smiling pleasantly.

“What the----”

But before he could finish, a savage struck him a blow on the head with a club, and that ended his interest in things of this world. He was quickly knifed and dropped overboard. Then the Spaniard led the way aft. Nelson and his comrades awoke to find a couple of black giants bending over each of them. Before they could offer any resistance the knives and clubs of the black crew had put an end to any possible discussion. There was an outcry, but even the skipper’s single fierce yell was not heard by the men on the other vessels. The leader grasped Nelson by the throat while four natives held his arms and legs.

“You shot at me yesterday,” said the Spaniard.

“I didn’t know you were a white man. Who are you?” gasped Nelson, in a strangling whisper.

“Gretto Gonzales.”

“The man whose wife was stewardess on the Silver Sea--you were marooned for killing the man who ran off with her?”

“How you hear?”

“Saw it in last year’s newspaper--let go of my throat---- Ah!”

It was all over, and the crew of the sealing schooner were dropped overboard. The men at the station were astonished to find the Lord Hawke standing out to sea so early in the morning without settling for the trade at the company’s store. A few weeks later the crews of the other Falkland schooners were more astonished to find that the Lord Hawke had not returned to the islands. At the end of two months John Nelson and his crew were given up for lost, for the Hawke was seen no more in the sealing fleet. Gretto Gonzales, the Spaniard, held her head straight for the South Orkneys and ran her through the entrance of the Great Hole. Once safe inside, he built huts of stone for his stores, and then stood to sea again to meet the Cape Horn fleet.

As he had by some means--previous to the taking of the Hawke--heard of the death of Davis from the wounds he had given him in the fight on the Silver Sea, he was afraid to set foot in one of the Strait stations. Captain Enoch Moss had marooned him two years ago for his savage conduct aboard his ship, and since then he had become a chief among the fierce eastern natives. These savages were large and active, and unlike the hopeless Fuegians of Smith’s Channel. His life, like theirs, was wild and restless, but it was unbearable for its monotony, so he had picked his crew and determined on this wild plan of piracy. His thoughts also appear to have been often with his wife, whom he believed to be alive, for many of his actions point that this was his chief motive in holding up the vessels of the Cape Horn fleet.

The first vessel he sighted was the Norwegian bark Erik, and he boarded her in his whale-boat during a calm. She was reported as missing.

The next vessel was the large ship James Burk, of San Francisco. He fought her, and followed her for nearly ten days, and finally took her abreast of the Ramirez after having shot half her crew from his own deck. She was also added to the list of missing ships and no one in the civilized world was the wiser.

For over a year and a half Gonzales held up vessels of all kinds, and not a soul escaped to tell a tale. How many ships, still overdue, were taken by him no one will ever know, but it is safe to say they were many. His storehouses at the Orkneys were filled with enough material to supply a colony.

After taking enough supplies to last him for years, Gonzales ceased to attack vessels. This was proved in the case of the Sentinel, whose skipper reported a fast, black sealing schooner, without a name, manned by a crew of Patagonians, having spoken him in south latitude 50°, west longitude 96° 35’. The skipper of the sealing vessel came aboard and asked the captain of the Sentinel to sell him Remington 45-90 cartridges for sealing. After this he asked to see all the passengers, and insisted on talking for some time to the stewardess. Then he left in his boat, calling out a farewell in Spanish.

The English ship Porpoise, a few months later, reported the same strange sealer off Juan Fernandez. He came aboard with a dozen of his giant crew, and asked for rifle cartridges. He also held a long conversation about the different vessels in the Cape Horn trade, and asked many questions in regard to their skippers and after guards.

“I haf a wife; she runs away on ship,--I look for her,” said he to the captain of the Porpoise.

“Hope you will find her,” said the Englishman, with a sneering grin and a glance at the Spaniard’s strange dress.

“You seem amused,” said Gonzales.

“I am,” replied the skipper, laughing.

“Then see I don’t kill you,” said Gonzales, and he left without another word.

The sealing schooner was within fifty fathoms of the ship, and after Gonzales went back aboard the captain watched him. As he looked, he saw the Spaniard raise a gun to his shoulder and the smoke spurt forth. At the same instant a bullet tore its way through the taffrail, within an inch of his waist.

“Sink him, if his wife hasn’t driven him mad,” cried the captain, as he dived below.

Five other vessels reported meeting this strange sealer before the year was out, and each told of a somewhat similar experience in regard to the stranger’s inquiries. As sealers seldom speak deep-water ships, this was thought strange, and when Enoch Moss, of the Yankee clipper Silver Sea, read the latest account at Havre, he called his first mate, Mr. O’Toole, into the after cabin.

“Have you read the _Marine Journal_?” said he, looking up at the big red-headed Irishman.

“No, sir; how is it now?”

“Read that, and tell me what you make of it.”

O’Toole looked hard at the page for some moments, and then replied,--

“’Pon me whurd, for a fact, it’s him, Gonzales, th’ very man we marooned off th’ Cape for knifin’ Davis. Now, what in th’ name av th’ saints is he doin’ aboard a sealer with a native crew? He don’t know poor Moll is dead, for sure, but he’s heard av th’ man he knifed.”

“Maybe he will visit us to the s’uth’ard,” said Enoch Moss.

“In that case, ’twill be as well to have a few rifles aboard, for a fact. Shall I see to it?”

“Yes; we clear to-morrow at noon.”

And O’Toole went forward.

At the main-hatch he met Garnett, the second mate, and he asked,--

“D’ye mind Gonzales? Th’ same as ye put off on th’ rocks av Hermite Isle?”

“The Dago who killed Davis for his wife’s sake?”

“Th’ same.”

“Well, I reckon I do, but what of him? He won’t turn up as long as there’s danger of swinging.”

“He’s sealin’ to th’ s’uth’ard av th’ Cape, an’ speakin’ vessels what carry stewardesses. He shot at th’ skipper av th’ Porpoise for no more than a joke.”

“Stave me! You don’t mean it. He’s looking for Moll, then. Suppose he meets us?”

“’Pon me whurd, I feel sorry for ye if he does, Garnett. Ye are an owld villain, an’ ye haven’t much chance if he sees ye. Now, for a fact, ye’ll be in a bad way.” And O’Toole grinned hopefully.

“Bah!” said Garnett, and he went on with his work.

Ten weeks later the Silver Sea raised Cape St. John, and stood away for the Horn under top-gallant-sails. It was mid-summer, and Christmas day was daylight twenty hours out of the twenty-four. There was little difficulty in seeing anything that might rise above the horizon. It came on to blow very hard from the northwest during the day, and the ship, being quite deep, was snugged down to her single lower maintop-sail. She lay to on the starboard tack, and made heavy weather of the high, rolling sea.

“’Tis a bad spell for th’ ‘wind-jammers,’” said O’Toole, as he stood under the lee of the mizzen, where he had just come to relieve Garnett.

“Divil av a thing have we sighted but a blooming owld penguin this blessed week.”

“It’s a most ornery live sea rolling,” said Garnett, removing his sou’wester, and mopping the dent in the top of his bald head. “I wonder how that Dago would like to board us to-day?”

“He was good enough sailor; but, say, Garnett, what d’ye make av that white t’ the west’ard? ’Pon me whurd, for a fact, ’tis a small vessel comin’ afore it.”

Garnett looked to windward. There, coming out of the thick haze of the flying drift, appeared a small black schooner running before the storm, with nothing but a small trysail on the foremast. She rode the giant seas like an albatross, and bore down on the Silver Sea at a tremendous pace. Several figures appeared upon her dripping deck, and several more appeared aft at her helm. The white foam dripped from her black sides at each roll, and was flung far to either side of her shearing bows, leaving a broad, white road on the following sea to mark her wake.

From the time O’Toole first saw her outlined against the blue steel-colored sky through the flying spray and spume drift to that when she came abreast the Silver Sea was but a few minutes. But it was long enough for Garnett to call the skipper, who came on deck and examined her through his glass.

“Gonzales and his black crew, by all that’s holy,” said Enoch Moss, quietly.

“’Pon me whurd it is, an’ he’s going to kape us company. Look!” said O’Toole.

As he spoke, the little vessel began to broach to on the weather-beam. As she bore up in the trough, a tremendous comber struck her and laid her flat on her beam ends, so that for several minutes she was quite out of sight in the smother. Then her masts were seen to rise again out of that storm-torn sea, and she was taking the weight of it forward of her starboard beam. It was an interesting sight to see that little craft rise like a live thing and throw her dripping forefoot high in the air until her keel was visible clear back to her foremast. Great splashes of snowy white foam, dripping from her black sides, were blown into long streamers by the gale, and everything alow and aloft glistened with salt water. Then she would descend with a wild plunge and bury herself almost out of sight in the sea, only to rise again in a perfect storm of flying spray. She was heading well and making good weather of it, half a mile off the Silver Sea’s weather-quarter.

Enoch Moss watched her through his glass.

“It’s Gonzales, and he has a gun. I reckon he will signal us,” said he. “No,” he continued; “he has raised it and put it down again. Sink him; I believe he has fired at us.”

There was no report heard above the deep booming roar of the gale, but instantly after the skipper spoke a small hole appeared in the maintop-sail. The hole grew in size every moment as the pressure of the gale tore the parting canvas. Then, with a loud crack, the sail split from head to foot and began to thrash to ribbons from the yard.

“Stave me, but he has the range of us all right,” said Garnett, and the next instant he was plunging forward bawling for the watch to lay aft and secure the remains of the storm-topsail.

“Shall we put the spencer on her?” bawled O’Toole to the skipper, who had sprung to the wheel.

“No use,” roared Enoch Moss. “Trim the yards sharp and let her hold on the best she can. If she pays off put a tarpaulin in the mizzen.”

The Silver Sea did hold her head up to the sea without any canvas, for she was very deep, and she sagged off to leeward less than the Hawke.

Enoch Moss went below and came on deck again with a Winchester rifle. Then he seated himself comfortably near the wheel and fired cartridge after cartridge at the trysail of the schooner. After half an hour’s sport there was nothing to indicate that his shots had taken effect, so he desisted. All Christmas day the vessels were within sight of each other and towards evening the wind began to slack up.

Gonzales was first to take advantage of the lull. He put a close-reefed mainsail on his little vessel, and, with a bonneted jib hoisted high above the sea-washed forecastle, he sent the Hawke reaching through it like mad.

He came close under the Silver Sea’s lee-quarter, and fired his whale-gun slap into the ship’s cabin. The shell burst and scattered the skipper’s charts all over the deck and set fire to the bulkhead. Then began the most novel fight that ever occurred on deep water.

Enoch Moss, O’Toole, and Garnett kept up a rapid fire with their rifles upon the schooner’s deck, but, although the range was not great, the motion of the plunging vessels made it almost impossible to hit even a good-sized mark. Gonzales, in turn, fired his whale-gun as long as he was close enough to use it, and he made the splinters fly from the deck-house and cabin. Then he and his fellows took to their sealing rifles and kept up a hot fire until the Hawke passed ahead out of range. Three times did the Spaniard go to windward and run down on the heavily loaded ship, while all hands worked to get canvas on her. Finally, when the Silver Sea hoisted topsails, fore and aft, she began to drive ahead at a reasonable rate, but with dangerous force, into the heavy sea. Even then Gonzales could outpoint her, and had no difficulty in keeping within easy rifle range. From there he kept up a slow but steady fire upon everything that had the appearance of life on the Silver Sea’s deck.

Late in the evening it was still quite light, and he drew closer. A huge Patagonian was seen upon the schooner’s forecastle, firing slowly and carefully. Soon after this a sailor was struck and badly injured. The faint crack of the sealing rifle continued to sound at regular intervals, and Enoch Moss began to get desperate. He stood behind the mizzen, watching the Hawke following him as a dog follows a boar.

“This can’t keep up forever,” he said to O’Toole. “He’ll wear us out before we make port. I reckon we might as well stand away for the Falklands.”

“’Tis no use; I can’t hit him,” said O’Toole, jamming his rifle into the furled spanker. “Th’ men are all scared half mad, an’ if it falls calm he’ll board us certain; ’pon me whurd he will.”

“We must chance it, then,” said Enoch Moss. “Hoist away the fore-and main-t’gallant-sails. We’ll run for it.”

In ten minutes the Silver Sea was standing away to the eastward, with half a gale on her quarter. She hoisted sail after sail, until she drove along fully twelve knots an hour, leaving a wide, white wake into which Gonzales squared away. But he could not overhaul her. He shook out his reefs and hoisted a foresail, burying his little vessel’s head in a wild smother of foam.

Enoch Moss stood aft looking at him, and, as his ship flew along with top-gallant-masts bending like whips, his spirits rose.

“He’ll spring something yet, if he holds on,” he cried to O’Toole and Garnett, who stood near.

“’Pon me whurd he will,” said the mate.

“Look!” bawled Garnett.

As he spoke, a huge sea, following in the Spaniard’s wake, began its combing rush. It struck the little schooner full upon her weather-quarter, and rolled over her stern, swinging her broadside to. As it did so the mainsail caught the weight of the flying crest, and the mast went over the side. The next instant it carried the foremast with it. Then the Hawke lay a complete and helpless wreck upon the high, rolling seas of the Horn.

“We’ve got him,” bawled Enoch Moss, springing upon the poop. “Fore-and main-t’gallant-sails, quick!” And the mates dashed forward, bawling for all hands to secure the canvas. Jennings and Bilkidg stood at the wheel, and steadied the heavy ship as she came on the wind, and the way she tore along gave them all they could do.

Everything held, and they were soon several miles to windward of the Lord Hawke. Then Enoch Moss wore ship, and stood for the schooner close hauled. There was still a stiff gale blowing, and the heavy ship tore her way through the high sea with a lurch and tremble that bade fair to take her topmasts out of her. But Enoch Moss held on.

“Point her head for him,” he bawled to the men at the wheel. “Hold her tight and hit him fair; we’ll smash him under this time.”

Garnett stood on the forecastle-head and watched the Spaniard giving directions to the helmsmen by waving his hands. He saw a dozen or more natives launch their whale-boat and try to clear the schooner just as the Silver Sea came rushing down upon them, with a roaring waste of snowy surge under her forefoot, fifty fathoms distant.

Gonzales stood on the schooner’s deck, rifle in hand, and he fired at Enoch Moss as the Silver Sea towered over his doomed vessel. The next instant the heavy ship rose on the sea, and, with her great sloping cut-water storming through it at ten knots an hour, swooped downwards. There was a heavy jar that almost knocked Garnett overboard, but Enoch Moss, gripping his arm where the rifle-shot had passed through, rushed to the side and peered over in time to see the forward half of the Lord Hawke sink from view. The native crew barely got clear, and, as the Silver Sea passed on, they and their boat were the only objects left floating in her wake.

“Now for the rest,” roared the skipper, smarting from his wound. “Stand by to wear ship.”

“We’ll never touch them,” said O’Toole. “They’ve picked up Gonzales and are heading dead to windward, rowing six oars double banked.”

The Silver Sea bore up again to the northward, but the black crew of the Hawke were then a good mile in the wind’s eye, pulling with giant strokes. She wore again after jamming for an hour, but when she crossed their wake the whale-boat was a tiny speck in the distance.

“’Tis a long row home they’ll have,” said O’Toole, looking after them.

“I hope the old man won’t ship any more pretty stewardesses,” growled Garnett.

“’Pon me whurd, I don’t belave he will.”

“Let her head her course, west-nor’west,” said Enoch Moss, and he went below holding his bandaged arm.

The last they saw of Gonzales and his crew was the tiny speck appearing and disappearing upon the high rolling seas of the Pacific Antarctic Drift.

_JOHNNIE_

At eight bells, after the dog-watch, I went aft to relieve Gantline, and found him talking to the skipper. It isn’t good ship etiquette to interrupt a superior officer, so I went to leeward along the poop and gained the wheel. There I waited until the discussion ended.

Gantline was somewhat excited at a remark made by the “old man,” and was holding forth in explanation.

“No, sir,” said he; “let the boys come aboard for’ard--through the hawse-pipe, as the saying is--not in the cabin. It’s the little devils who run away and ship that make the sailors. They take to a slush-pot or tar-bucket as if there was honor in getting afoul of them. All the stinks of the fo’castle, all the hard knocks, bad grub, and every mean thing that happens in a sailor’s life--and Lord knows there are lots of them--are all taken as part of that big thing--agoing to sea. I know you want your boys to sign on, regular like. You say it protects them. Maybe it does. But I say, give me the little rascals who are full of the song of the thing. Yes, sir, you may laugh, but that’s it. They go into the thing different, and hard knocks ain’t going to hurt them much.

“You know a man has to be rough on deep water. No matter how easy he is, sometimes he gets a hard crew, and he must know how to handle them when the time comes.”

“But how about that case we were speaking of?” said the skipper; “there was the investigation, and some of the men gave Jensen a pretty rough name, considering he’s a dead man. They didn’t lay any particular blame on you.”

Gantline was somewhat disturbed in mind, and he forthwith went to leeward and spat a stream of tobacco juice into the sea. Then he came back wiping his mouth on the back of his great, horny hand, his face wearing a thoughtful look.

“You see, this is the way the thing was,” said he, stopping and throwing one leg upon the rail near where the skipper sat.

“That little fellow came aboard while we were lying at the dock in the East River. He was a dirty, ragged little rascal. I saw him sneak over the rail and dodge behind the deck-house. When I collared him he began crying, and asked me not to let the ‘cops’ get him. He begged so hard and seemed so thin a little shaver I couldn’t see him run in, so I let him down in the forepeak, and he hid behind some empty harness-casks. We were going out the next day, and I intended to see him ashore all right in the morning, and as it was past six bells then I went uptown to have a last look about.

“Two watchmen stopped me and asked if I had seen a boy come aboard, and when I asked what they wanted him for they were short enough.

“No, I ain’t much but a deep-water mate, but most men are civil enough to me.”

Captain Green smiled, but said nothing.

“A mate ain’t supposed to know much,” continued Gantline, not liking the smile, “but I didn’t have to stand on my head to take the sun the first time I crossed the line,” and he looked meaningly at the skipper, who smoked in silence.

“So when those fellows talked short and big, I just told them to hurry up to the place they were sure to fetch up in some day and went on uptown. You know what a sailor is, so you know how he spends his last night on the beach.

“I got aboard in the morning and was feeling pretty blue. After sticking my head in a pail of water I came on deck just as we got the word to clear. In a few minutes we were towing out, and I never thought of that little shaver until the next day. Then Mr. Jensen dragged him aft to the ‘old man’ by the scruff of his poor little neck.

“Crojack was feeling blue then, and he didn’t want any boys aboard, so he told the mate to flog him and turn him to with his watch.

“The poor little fellow begged hard not to get the rope’s end, but the mate wouldn’t listen.

“I can’t say I was against lamming him, for I felt he had taken advantage of me.

“Jensen went too far, though, and we came near having a set-to over the child before we were off soundings. Johnnie was cast loose and he fell down on deck. Then old Williams, the bos’n, took him into the fo’castle. After that Jensen took him in hand pretty regular.

“‘In my day,’ said he, ‘boys were taught something, and there weren’t no dudes. And the only way to get knowledge into a boy’s hide is to lam it in with a rope’s end. It stays there then.’ So he would lecture Johnnie on the wicked ways of the world, and after the poor little fellow would listen to the rigmarole and gibble gabble he would take him under the t’gallant fo’castle and lam him beyond all reason, just so he wouldn’t forget a word he told him.”

“That’s what the men said,” broke in Zack Green. “He was a ruffian to the little fellow and a d----d coward, and meaner than the wrath of Davy Jones. It’s all because he wasn’t signed on regular.”

Gantline was silent for a time, and then continued:

“He grew fat and strong and in a couple of months could go aloft with the men. He feared nothing but Jensen, and the men used to call out for fun, ‘Here comes the mate, Johnnie,’ just to hear him curse.

“Curse? Lord love ye, he could beat anything I ever heard. Why, I’ve seen the mate go for’ard to see what the men were laughing at, when it was just Johnnie calling Jensen names to them.”

“Shows how the coward was ruining him,” broke in the skipper.

“Well, he did have a queer way of training him,” went on Gantline. “He would ask him questions about navigation, too, and then lam him afterwards. One I remember.

“‘Johnnie,’ said he, ‘if this hooker should be driven clear to the Pole and steered away nor’west, how would she steer to get back, considering she had left something there she wanted to go back for, for instance.’

“‘Steer away nor’west, sir? Get back, sir? Why, just the opposite direction, southeast’

“‘Now, how in the name of Davy Jones can a vessel get to the Pole steering southeast, hey?’ he would yell. ‘What’s the matter with you? I’ll give you till the watch is called to answer, and if you don’t, I’ll peel you fore an’ aft.’”

“A cowardly, ignorant fool, sure enough,” said the skipper.

Gantline bit off a fresh chew of tobacco and stowed it carefully in his cheek.

“Still,” he went on, slowly, “when the weather got cold he saw the poor boy shivering one day, and he went aft and bought him a new set of slops, good and warm. He must have paid half a month’s wage for them, for the old man never gave things away off the Horn. You may say it wasn’t much, but he did it, anyway.

“It was July when we got off the Cape. You know how it is in that month. Cold, dark, stormy weather, with the giant nor’west sea rolling down from the Pacific. We had been knocking about now, too, for three weeks and were down below 61° south, so it was hard enough. The cold was terrible. Nearly all of us were badly frozen. There wasn’t any floating ice, but the log-line broke from the weight of ice frozen to it as it dipped and rose with the ship.

“It was dark nearly all the time and so gloomy, even when it wasn’t blowing hard; all hands were used up. Jensen kept Johnnie warmed up just the same, and I guess he thought it helped him.

“One day it got still. The wind died away entirely, and the maintop-sail--the only rag we had on her--began to jerk fore and aft, slatting loud as the ship rolled her channels under in a great live sea that came rolling down on us from the north’ard.

“It was so dark at six bells in the afternoon the forms of the men loomed strange like through the gloom as they walked fore and aft in the gangways. It was my watch on deck; but there was nothing to do, so I sat on the step to windward on the poop and smoked to keep warm.

“The mate came on deck after a little while to take a look around, and he called Johnnie to coil down some running rigging at the mizzen.

“‘The bloody glass has fallen an inch since eight bells,” said he, coming to where I sat.

“‘It is sort of bad looking,’ said I, ‘and I don’t quite like the quick run of this sea,--seems to go faster than ever, as if something was behind it.’ And as I spoke the old hooker rammed her nose clear to her knight-heads into a living hill. It rolled under us silently, and the slatting of the topsail and rush of water in the channels were the only sounds it made. The voices of the men jarred on my ears, strange like.

“All of a sudden a long, hoarse cry broke from the gloom and silence to windward.

“‘What’s that?’ asked Johnnie, and he dropped the rope.

“‘That’s the Cape Horn devil,’ said the bos’n, grinning; ‘every time he winks his eye he gives er yell, an’ wice wersa; see?’

“‘Cape Horn thunder,’ growled Jensen; ‘you an’ me will disagree somewhat, Williams, if you try an’ scare the boy like that. Jump, blast you, and lay up on that foreyard an’ see if there ain’t some serving wanted on that weather lift. Git!’

“‘Cape Horn h----,” he went on to Johnnie. ‘That ain’t nothing but a bleeding old penguin, and may the devil take his infernal soul.’

“Johnnie didn’t know any more than he did before he spoke, so he kept looking out of the clew of his eye to windward while he worked. The mate was strange and queer when he heard that cry. I don’t know what it was, but it sounded like some one calling out of that great blackness. Jensen went below, and when he came on deck I smelled rum on his breath.

“Soon the cry was repeated, and I must say it did have a depressing effect.

“‘Sure sign of westerly wind,’ said Jensen, as he lit his pipe and walked fore and aft. ‘Better make all snug for’ard there, for, by hookey, it looks as if we were goin’ to have a fracas.’

“I went for’ard and saw all snug and then came aft again. The old man had come on deck, and I could see on his face the glow of his pipe as he drew it. He was standing close to the rail and looking hard to the north’ard.

“‘I don’t believe a barometer is any good in these here latitudes,’ I heard Jensen say to him. ‘I’ve seen the glass way below the centre of a West India hurricane an’ no more wind than now for days on end.’

“It wasn’t five minutes afterwards that I felt a puff, and the topsail came aback with a crack. The old man was on the break of the poop in a second, bawling, ‘All hands wear ship; hard up the wheel!’

“The men jumped for the braces, but it was nearly ten minutes before we got way on her. The wind came slowly. By the time she paid off it had increased, and came harder and harder at every puff, so before we had her braced around on the port-tack it was snorting away in true Cape Horn style. Soon we were switching into it at a great rate, and the big sea that took us fair on the port-bow made a nasty mess on the main-deck, while the maintop-sail with the sheet slacked off, to spill some of the wind out of it, bellied out like some huge monster in the gloom overhead.

“There was nothing more to do, so when the watch was changed I turned in, and after wedging myself into my bunk I fell asleep.

“It seemed as though I had hardly closed my eyes before there was a sharp banging at my door. I turned out, and opening it found Johnnie standing in the for’ard cabin with the water dripping from his shining oil-skins and blowing his fingers to try and get them warm.

“‘Eight bells, sir,’ said he, ‘an’ the mate wants you, sir.’

“‘All right; how is it now?’ I said.

“‘Bad night, sir, and plenty of water on deck.’

“I buttoned on my sou’wester and followed Johnnie to the cabin door. It was on the lee side, so there was no trouble getting out.

“As I stepped on deck I saw that the gale had increased in force, and the dull booming roar overhead told that the old ship was standing up to it manfully.