Garnett grunted out thanks for the chief’s hospitality, but remarked that if the boat could be fixed in time he would rather go aboard the ship. All he wished for was the loan of a few tools and a piece of wood, and he thought the boat could be fixed fast enough. These the missionary lent him; so, after going over the list of goods and testing some of the contents of the kegs and packages, he and Gantline, accompanied by the two sailors, went back to the beach and began work on the boat.
They were soon surrounded by a curious crowd of natives, who squatted around them in a circle and looked on, regardless of the hot sunshine, while the mates and men toiled bravely at their task.
The boat was so badly stove, however, that it was dark before they were half through repairing her; so, when Father Easyman came down on the beach and told them that they would find something to eat at the mission, all hands knocked off and started for it.
Garnett and Gantline had been arguing about the possession of their find of the morning, but had not come to blows; for the mate knew that it would rest with the skipper as to who would have the largest share of it, and that nothing could be settled until they got aboard ship. There was little use, either, in getting the missionary mixed up in the matter, for he would be likely to press the weight of his judgment against him if called upon to help decide the case.
The mission house was a large frame building, built of boards brought ashore from a vessel, and had a sloping thatch roof. It was two stories high, however, the upper one serving as a loft for storing supplies belonging to the missionary. It was now nearly empty; a large, cool room, with a slight opening all around it under the overhanging eaves of the thatch.
In this loft Garnett and his men were left to pass the night, after having partaken of a good meal at the expense of their host, who lived several hundred yards farther back in the village, in a modest little cottage close to the larger abode of Sangaan.
The good chief had offered them shelter under his roof, but as he had a numerous company in his household, and the weather being warm, the mates had expressed a keen desire to sleep alone with their men. The keg containing their prize was also stored away with them for the night, and soon silence settled upon the peaceful village of Sunharon.
The gentle rustle of the trade-wind soothed the ears of the tired men and they slept soundly on.
“By the Holy Smoke! what’s up?” exclaimed Garnett, as he sprang up from the tarpaulin on which he and the men were lying.
There was a tremendous uproar in the room beneath, and the voice of Sangaan could be heard singing lustily. It was a little past midnight, but the chieftain’s voice was thick and husky, and it was evident that he intended celebrating the arrival of the supplies.
Garnett had carefully withdrawn the charges from the brace of huge muzzle-loading pistols he had carried ashore with him, and had managed to get a handful or two of dry powder from the missionary, so he was prepared to defend any attack upon his treasure.
He awaited developments, but as no one appeared on the ladder which led to the loft, he crawled to the opening and looked below.
About twoscore of natives, with Sangaan in their midst, were crowding around a keg which Garnett recognized as one of his own wares, and a smile broke upon his grizzled features.
Gantline had come to his side, and they gazed down upon the mob.
In a moment Sangaan saw their faces and waved his hands, “Come down! come down!” he cried in a thick voice, and the whole assembly took up the cry, laughing and shouting.
“Come, drink health!” bawled Sangaan, as he staggered towards the ladder.
“No, sirree!” roared Garnett. “What! you expect me to come down and drink with a lot o’ niggers like them. No, sirree, not by a darned sight.”
“Go t’ell, then!” bawled Sangaan, and he walked to the keg for another drink, flourishing an empty cocoanut shell as he went.
It was well that the natives could not understand Garnett’s remarks, or there might have been trouble, but, instead of paying any attention whatever to the white men, they shouted, laughed, and sang in the highest good humor.
“Gad, Lord love ye, but what heads you’ll have in the morning,” muttered Gantline, with a grin. “’Tis nearly half Norway tar the devils are pouring into their skins. However, I suppose it’s best, after all, for if ’twas the real stuff, like what we gave the missionary, they would set fire to half the village before morning and probably murder us.”
“By thunder, I’m about tired of the racket as it is,” said Garnett; “let’s see, if we can’t get a move on them anyhow,” and he poked one of his pistols down the opening. “Yell together, Gantline.”
“Hooray! Let ’er go slow!” they roared as Garnett fired. “Hooray!” and he banged away with the other, filling the place with smoke and smashing the lantern on the table beneath him.
“Load her up, Gantline,” and he passed one of the pistols to the second mate. There was wildscrambling for the door in the room beneath, but before the frightened natives could get clear the mates had fired again, yelling all the time like madmen, while the two sailors hove everything they could get their hands on down upon the struggling crowd. In a few moments Sangaan had retreated, but, as he carried the keg of rum along with him, he doubtless thought it was not worth while to go back again. The shouting gradually died away in the distance, and only a faint hum from the direction of Sangaan’s abode told that the celebrating natives were still in high good humor.
“After all, Gantline,” said Garnett, “now that these barkers are dry and in good condition, we might decide who’s to be owner of that keg, if we only had a little more light,” and he began to reload one of the pistols.
“You’re the most bloody-minded devil I ever sailed with,” growled Gantline; “but I’ll just go you this time, for there’s light enough for me to see to bore a hole in that stove-in figure-head of yours. Here, give me a bullet and powder and take your place over there by that barrel of rice, and let Jim here give the word.”
“If it’s murder ye’re up to, I’ll be for calling the missionary,” cried the sailor. “Faith, an’ who iver heard ave fi’tin’ a jewel in sich a dark hole. As fer me, I won’t witness it,” and he started for the ladder, closely followed by his shipmate.
“Go, and be hanged,” growled Garnett; “but mark ye, this is a fair fight and don’t you go tryingto make the missionary believe different, for I never struck a sailor or mate under me that couldn’t have a chance to strike back. I don’t belong to that kind o’ crowd.”
“Take your place and stop your jaw tackle; if you don’t hurry they’ll be back with a crowd before we begin,” said Gantline, as the sailors disappeared down the ladder and started off. “We ought to have stopped them.”
“Darnation! but it’s dark. Where are you now?” asked Garnett from his position.
“Ready. Fire!” bawled Gantline, and his pistol lit up the darkness.
Bang went Garnett’s, and then there was a dead silence.
“Garnett,” growled Gantline.
“Blast you! what is it?”
“Did you get a clip?”
“No, you infernal fool; but you came within an inch of my ear, and I fired before I put the ball in my pistol. You owe me a shot.”
“It’ll be a hard debt to collect, mate, for I’ll be stove endways before we try that again. Here comes Easyman with the men now.”
As he spoke there was a rush of feet, and the two sailors, followed by the missionary and a crowd of half-sober natives, burst into the room below.
“Hello aloft, there!” sung out a sailor.
“What’s the matter?” asked Garnett, quietly, from the opening above.
“Have you done him any harm?” asked themissionary, in a voice that showed him to be a man of action when necessary.
“No,” answered Gantline; “there’s nothing happened.”
A lantern flashed in the room, and in a moment Father Easyman was upon the ladder.
In another moment he was in the loft, and the sailors with a crowd of natives followed.
“Now,” said the missionary, “hand over those pistols, or I will have to assert my authority, even as the good King David did of old. I know you, Garnett, a fierce and unholy man, but you have enough sins on your soul now, so don’t force me to set these men upon you.”
“By thunder!” growled the mate, “it’s to protect ourselves we’ve been forced to fire, to scare that drunken Sangaan out of the room below. It’s a pretty mess he’s been making in a decent mission house, coming here drinking that tar—I mean rum, and waking us out of peaceful sleep.”
“Fact, he woke us up with his yelling,” said Gantline, “and we fired down below just to scare the crowd away.”
“But what is this the men say about you two fighting?” asked the missionary.
“Oh, they were as badly frightened as the niggers. Hey, Jim, ain’t that so?” said Garnett, and he gave the sailor so fierce a look that the fellow stammered out, “Faith, an’ it must ’a’ been so; it was so dark we couldn’t see nothing at all.”
“Well, come with me, anyway,” said the missionary.“It won’t do for Sangaan to take it into his head to come back here if he gets drunk. He is easy enough to manage sober, but you remember the Petrel affair.”
“Sangaan be blowed,” grunted Garnett. “I can take care of any crowd o’ niggers that ever saw a mission, but if you insist on our cruising with a sky-pilot, why, we’re agreeable. Come on, Gantline.”
They followed the good man down the ladder and up the village street to his house. When they were in the starlight the mates noticed that several of the natives who had followed the men back carried short spears, and one or two had long knives in the belts of their grass cloths. When they saw this they began to realize that perhaps the missionary was right after all, and it was just as well that they changed their sleeping quarters for the remainder of the night.
The next morning they patched the stove-in plank on the boat’s bottom, and after getting all the gear into her, including the keg into which they had put their treasure the day before, they ran her out into the surf and started off. Several natives helped them until they were beyond the first line of breakers, but Garnett was in a bad humor and accepted this favor on their part in very bad grace.
When the men and Gantline put good way on the craft with their oars, the mate swore a great oath and rapped the nearest native, holding to the gunwale, a sharp blow across the head with his boat-hook and bade them get ashore. This fellow gavea yell which was taken up by the crowd on the beach, and instantly several rushed into the surf carrying short spears.
“Give way, bullies,” grunted Garnett, “or the heathen will be aboard of us.” And the men bent to their oars with a hearty good will.
As it was, several managed to get within throwing distance, and a spear passed between the mate’s bow-legs and landed in the bottom of the boat. He instantly picked it up and threw it with such wonderful aim at a native that it cut a scratch in the fellow’s shoulder. This had the effect of stopping the most ambitious of the crowd, and they contented themselves with yelling and brandishing their weapons.
“Steady, bullies,” said Garnett, as they neared the outer line of combing water; “if we miss it this time there’ll be trouble.”
The old mate balanced himself carefully on his bow-legs and grasped the steering oar firmly as they neared the place where the sea fell over the outer barrier.
They went ahead slowly until there came a comparatively smooth spell, then they went for the open water as hard as they could.
As they reached almost clear, a heavy sea rose before them with its crest growing sharper and sharper every moment. Garnett, with set jaw and straining muscles, held her true, and with a “Give way, bullies,” hissed between his teeth, the boat’s head rose almost perpendicular for an instant on theside of the moving wall. Then with a smothering roar it broke under and over her and she fell with a crash into the smooth sea beyond.
“Drive her!” he roared, as the half-swamped craft lay almost motionless; and Gantline, bracing his feet, gave three gigantic strokes and his oar snapped short off at the rowlock.
“Drive her through!” he roared again, as one of the men turned with a scared look at the sea ahead. “Drive her or I’ll drive this boat-hook through you!” and he made a motion towards the bottom of the boat. The two remaining oars bent and strained under the pressure, and in another instant they rose on a smooth crest and went clear, while the sea fell but two fathoms astern.
“Lord love ye, Garnett, but that was a close shave,” panted Gantline; “give us the bailer and let me get some of this water out of her. It’s astonishing how those seas deceive one, for from here it looks as smooth on the reef as the top of Easyman’s head. It’s evident that you calculate to go out of the island trade on the profits of this voyage. They would have handled us rough enough had we been stove down on the reef again.”
Garnett muttered something, as he glared astern at the crowd on the beach, and passed Gantline the bailer from the after-locker.
He then headed the boat for the schooner, which had been working in all the morning, and now lay hove-to about a mile distant.
In a little while they were on board and CaptainForegaff was handed the receipts of his trade, which he carried below and deposited in a strong box; making a note afterwards, in a small book, of the percentage due his mates. Then he came on deck, and as the boat was dropped astern he drew away his head-sheets and stood to the eastward.
On going forward he noticed the keg they had brought back with them and instantly demanded to know its contents.
“It’s a find o’ grease,” said Garnett, as he picked it up and carried it aft, where he deposited it carefully in the cockpit.
“Find o’ what?” asked Foregaff, as he and Gantline followed hard in his wake.
“Find o’ whale grease,” said the mate. “It’s the stuff that sells so high in the States. I found it in the surf, and Gantline here has been trying to prove half of it his because he was along with me.”
“Well, where, in the name o’ Davy Jones, do I come in on this deal?” bawled Foregaff. “Ain’t we running this business on shares, I want’er know?”
“So far as concerns trade, you’re right; but d’ye mean to say that what I find ain’t my own?” said the mate in a menacing tone.
“Trade be blowed! Gantline and I come in on this, share an’ share alike. Knock in the head o’ the keg an’ let’s have a look at it.” And the skipper’s eyes gleamed with anticipation.
Gantline reached an iron belaying-pin and quickly knocked in the top of the keg and tore off the pieces.
“You see, it’s ill-smellin’ stuff,” grunted Garnett, “and its value is according to its smell.” He bent over the keg and peered into it. “It’s pretty hard,” he continued, “when a man’s been through all the danger and trouble o’ getting a prize to have to divy up with them that ain’t in the contract——”
“Gord A’mighty! Hard down the wheel there! Spring your luff!” he roared, as he sprang to his feet. “Pig grease! s’help me, the scoundrel’s robbed us!”
The men rushed to the sheets as the schooner came up on the wind and headed for the island again, while Gantline and Foregaff bent over the open keg.
“’Tis as good lard as ever fried doughnut,” said the skipper, as he stuck his finger into the mass and then drew it through his lips, while Gantline glared at it as though it was the ghost of Father Tellman’s pig.
“Clear away the gun for’ard, and get——”
“Hello, what’s the matter?” asked the skipper, as Garnett was getting ready for action.
“Why, we can’t get ashore there again. They well-nigh murdered us as it was,” said the mate.
“Well, what good can we do with that gun, then? It won’t throw a ball across the surf, let alone to the village. You must have been up to some deviltry ashore.” And the skipper eyed the mates suspiciously.
“Devil be hanged! We were as soft as you please, but they were for mischief from the timewe rolled over in the surf. I guess, perhaps, you’d better go ashore, though, for old Easyman don’t like me.”
“Not by the holy Pope,” said the skipper, with a grin. “You don’t catch me on that beach for all the whale grease afloat, or ashore either, for that matter. If that’s the game, we might as well stand off again.”
“Let’s at least have a try at that sky-pilot’s house,” growled Garnett. “Give me a couple of charges and I’ll see what I can do, anyhow.”
“As for that, go ahead; but no good’ll come of it,” muttered the skipper.
Garnett was on the forecastle in a few minutes with several cartridges for the old twelve-pounder.
The schooner was rapidly nearing the surf, and Foregaff could see the natives with great distinctness through his glass.
When she was as near as was safe to navigate, she yawed and Garnett fired.
The shot struck the crest of a comber, in spite of all he could do to elevate the gun, and ricochetted on to the sand, where a native picked it up and danced a peculiarly aggressive dance while he held it aloft in his hand.
The flag on the mission dipped gracefully three times while Garnett loaded for a second shot.
“If I only had a shell I’d make those niggers see something,” he muttered, as he rammed home the charge.
“Fire!” And the gun banged again.
The flag dipped again in the breeze, and several natives, joining hands, danced wildly to and fro.
“Keep her off!” bawled the skipper, with a broad smile on his face. “Done by a nigger chief,” he muttered to himself. “I want’er know, I want’er know.”
IT had been calm all day, and the dull light of the overcast sky made the sea have that peculiar black tint seen in this latitude. It rolled silently with the swell, like a heaving world of oily ink, and, although we were almost midway between the Falklands and the Straits of Magellan, Captain Green determined to try a deep-sea sounding. This proved barren of result with a hundred-fathom line on end.
The silent calm continued, and the weird, lonesome cry of a penguin greeted our ears for the first time on the voyage.
Late in the afternoon a light breeze sprang up from the westward. As the ship gathered headway, a school of Antarctic porpoises came plunging and jumping after her. The toggle-iron was brought out, and the carpenter tried his luck at harpooning one on the jump. After lacerating the backs of several he gave it up and turned the iron over to Gantline, with the hope that he might do better.
The old mate took the iron in his right hand and balanced it carefully. Then he took several short coils of line in his left hand, and, bracing himself firmly on the backstays just forward of the cathead, waited for a “throw.” Almost instantly a big fellow came jumping and plunging towards the vessel, swerving from side to side with lightning-like rapidity. He passed under the bowsprit end soquickly that Gantline’s half-raised arm was hardly rigid before it was too late to throw. Suddenly back he came like a flash across the ship’s cut-water. There was a sharp “swish,” and the line was trailing taut through the snatch-block with three men heaving on it as hard as they could. It was done so quickly that it seemed less than a second from the time the animal flashed past to when he hung transfixed a few feet above the sea beneath the bowsprit end.
Chips, who had harpooned many a porpoise in the low latitudes, was filled with admiration, and instantly lent a hand to get the striped fellow on deck.
I went aft, for it was my watch on deck, and we expected to sight land before darkness compelled us to stand off to the eastward. At five o’clock a man stationed in the mizzen-top sung out that he could see something on the weather-beam to the westward, and soon by the aid of the glass we made out the high, grim cliffs of Staten Land looming indistinctly through the haze on the horizon. The first land sighted for seventy days.
The ship’s head was again pointed well up to the wind to try and turn the “last corner” of the world,—Cape Horn.
Captain Zack Green stood looking at the land a long time, and then remarked,—
“I would have gone through the Straits ten years ago, but I don’t want to get in there any more.”
“What!” I asked, “would you take a vessel as heavy as we are through the Straits of Magellan?”
“Straits of thunder!” he replied. “Who said anything about going through the Straits of Magellan with a deep loaded clipper ship? Man alive! That’s the way of it. Whenever anybody talks of going through the Straits, every eternal idiot thinks it the Magellan, when he ought to know no sailing ship ever goes through Smith’s Channel. Strait of Le Maire, man, between Staten Land and Tierra del Fuego. It would have saved us thirty miles westing, and thirty miles may be worth thirty days when you are to the s’uth’ard.”
I admitted that what he said was true, but as people knew very little of this part of the world, they usually associated the word “Straits” down here with the Magellan.
“Well,” said he, “they ought to know better, for nothing but small sailing craft and steamers could go through there without standing a good chance of running foul of the rocks. It’s the Le Maire Strait I was thinking of; but even that is dangerous, for there is no light there any more, and the current swirls and cuts through like a tide-race. I’ve been going to the eastward since they had trouble with the light and can’t get any one to stay and tend it.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked; “is it too lonely?”
“No,” he answered, slowly, “it isn’t that altogether, though I reckon it’s lonely enough with nothing but the swirling tide on one side and barren rocks and tussac on the other. I was ashore there once and saw the fellows who ran the light, before they died, and the head man told me some queerthings. It’s a bad place for the falling sickness, too, and that’s against it, but the mystery of the light-keepers was enough to scare a man.
“I knew old Tom Jackson, the skipper of the relief boat, and he asked me to go over to the light with him. It’s only a day’s run from the Falklands, and, as I was laid up with a topmast gone, I went.
“We had a whaling steamer to go over in. A vessel about one hundred tons, with an infernal sort of cannon mounted for’ard which threw a bomb-harpoon big enough to stave the side of a frigate.
“On the way over Jackson told me how hard it was to get any one to stay at the light, and how he came across the two men who were now keepers.
“Two men had drifted ashore near the settlement lashed to the thwarts of a half-sunken whale-boat. They were all but dead and unable to speak. Finally, after careful nursing, one began to show some life, and he raved about a lost ship and the Cooper’s Hole.
“You see, over there in the South Orkneys there is a hole through the cliffs about a hundred feet wide, with the rocks rising straight up hundreds of feet on both sides. Inside this narrow passage, which is like an open door, is the great hole, miles around inside, with water enough for all the vessels afloat to lie in without fouling.
“This fellow raved about driving a ship through the hole during a storm. He talked of revenge, and would laugh when he raved about the captain of the ship.
“When these men were well again they told a straight story about the loss of the ship Indian. As near as they could make out, they had been fifteen days in that open boat, which they clung to when the vessel foundered off the Horn. They had nothing saved but the rags they came ashore in, so they were glad enough to take Jackson’s offer of two hundred pounds a year to tend the Le Maire light.
“We arrived off the light the next afternoon. There was no place to land except on the rocks, where the heave of the swell made it dangerous. It was dead calm this evening, so we got ashore all right. As we climbed the rocks towards the light the fellows there came out of the small house to meet us.
“The head keeper walked in front, and he was the queerest-looking critter that ever wore breeches. His hair was half a fathom long and the color of rope yarn, and his eye was as green and watery as a cuttlefish’s. The other fellow was somewhat younger, but he seemed taken up with the idea that his feet were the only things in nature worth looking at, so I paid little attention to him.
“The older fellow with long hair grunted something to Jackson and held out his hand, which the skipper shook heartily.
“‘Well,’ he roared, ‘how’s things on the rocks? Damme if I don’t wish I was a light-keeper myself, so’s I could sit around and admire the sun rise and set.’
“‘I wish to blazes you was,’ grunted the long-haired heathen; ‘as for me, I’m about tired of this here job, and you might as well tell the governor that if he gives me the whole East Falkland I wouldn’t stay here through another winter.’
“‘That’s just the way with a man soon as he gets a soft job. Never satisfied. Now, here’s my friend Green just waiting to step into your shoes the minute you think two hundred pounds a year is too infernal much for a gent like you to live on.’
“The old fellow looked hard at me with his fishy eyes, but said nothing.
“‘No,’ went on Jackson, ‘you wouldn’t be satisfied with ten thousand. What’s the matter, anyhow? Have you seen the bird lately?’
“At this the fellow glanced around quickly and took in every point of the compass, but he didn’t answer.
“Finally he mumbled, ‘To-night’s the night.’ Then he turned to me and asked, ‘Be you going to stay ashore to-night?’
“‘No,’ I answered, ‘not if we can get back on board.’
“Then the fellow turned and led the way to the light and Jackson and I followed after him.
“The light-house was built of heavy timber, brought ashore from a vessel, and the lantern was one of those small lenses like what you see in the rivers of the States. It had a small platform around it, guarded by an iron hand-rail, which, I should judge, was about fifty feet above the rocks. Outsidethe lens was the ordinary glass covering, making a small room about the lantern, and outside of all was a heavy wire netting to keep birds from driving through the light during a storm.
“There were some repairs needed, and the lampist had to go back on board the steamer for some tools. He had hardly started before the dull haze settled over the dark water, and in half an hour you couldn’t see ten fathoms in any direction.
“‘By thunder! Green, we are in for a night of it, sure,’ said Jackson to me. ‘There’ll be no chance of that boat coming back while this lasts.’
“‘Let her go,’ I replied; ‘I’d just as soon spend a night in the lantern as in that infernal hooker soaked in sour oil and jammed full of bedbugs. I don’t know but what I’d rather like the change.’
“‘Like it or not, here we are, so we might as well take a look around before dark.’
“We hadn’t gone more than half a mile through the gigantic tussac-grass when I felt a peculiar sensation at my heart. The next moment I was lying flat on my back and Jackson was doing all he could to bring me to. I had the falling sickness, and I realized what the governor meant by the order that no person should be allowed to travel alone on the Falklands.
“In a little while I grew better, and with Jackson’s help managed to get back to the light, faint and weak.
“That old long-haired fellow was there waiting for us, and he expressed about as much surprise andfeeling at my mishap as if I had been an old penguin come ashore to die. However, after I had a glass of spirits and eaten some of the truck he had cooked for supper, I felt better. Then the old fellow went into the lantern and lit up for the night. He then came back and joined us in the house, where we sat talking.
“‘It’s the first quarter o’ the moon an’ third day,’ said he, coming in and sitting down at the table and lighting his pipe from the sperm-oil lamp.
“‘I never made any remarks to the contrary,’ said Jackson.
“‘It’s this night, sure, and the Strait will be crowded before morning; then he’ll be here.’
“‘Who?’ I asked.
“Old man Jackson laughed. ‘That’s his friend the bird,’ he said, looking towards me. ‘He has a visitor every now and then, you see, so it isn’t so blooming lonesome here after all.’
“The keeper looked hard at me with his fishy eyes, and then continued.
“‘He has been here twice before,’ he said.
“‘Well, suppose he has,’ snapped Jackson.
“‘If you can get another man, get him. I don’t want to be here when he comes again.’
“I looked at Jackson and saw his face contracted into a frown. ‘It’s some sailor’s joke,’ said he. ‘Nobody but a fool would send a message tied to the leg of an albatross.’
“‘It’s a joke I don’t like, an’ I’d like you to take us away.’
“‘Well, joke or no joke, you’ll have to stay until I get some one to take your place,’ and Jackson filled his pipe and smoked vigorously.
“I must have been dozing in my chair, for it was quite late and the fire in the stove almost out, when I was aroused by a peculiar sound.
“I noticed Jackson start up from the table and then stand rigid in the centre of the room.
“There was a deep moaning coming from the water that sounded like wind rushing through the rigging of a ship. Then I heard cries of men and the tumbling rush of water, as if a vessel were tearing through it like mad. Jackson sprang to the door and was outside in an instant. I followed, but the old keeper sat quietly smoking.
“Outside, the light from the tower shone like a huge eye through the gloom, and as the fog was thick, it lit up the calm sea only a few fathoms beyond the ledge. This made the blackness beyond all the more intense.
“‘That vessel will be on the rocks if they don’t look sharp,’ said Jackson. ‘Ship ahoy!’ he bawled in his deep base voice, but the sound died away in the vast stillness about us.
“‘There’s no wind,’ said I; ‘but I distinctly heard the rattle of blocks and snaps of slatting canvas as she came about.’
“We stood there staring into the night, and were aware of the presence of the old keeper, who had joined us. Suddenly we heard the rushing sound again, and it seemed as if a mighty wind was blowingthrough the Strait. There were faint cries as if at a great distance. Then the noise of waring braces coupled with the sharp snapping of slatting canvas.
“Jackson looked at me, and there was a strange look in his eyes.
“‘They’ll pass through all night,’ said the old keeper, ‘and in the morning there won’t be a sail in sight, calm or storm.’
“We stood in the fog for half an hour listening to the noises in the Strait, while the glare from the light made the mist-drifts form into gigantic shapes which came and melted again into the darkness. Once again Jackson went to the water’s edge and bawled into the blackness. The long-haired keeper smiled at his attempts, and his eyes had a strange glow in them like the phosphor flares in water of the tropics.
“‘The devil take this infernal place!’ said Jackson. ‘I never heard of so many vessels passing through here in a whole season. The whole Cape Horn fleet are standing to the s’uth’ard to-night.’
“I felt a little creepy up the back as we went into the house. Jackson made up the fire, while I lay in a bunk.
“‘It’s been so since the light went out last winter; but it was the fault of the oil, not me,’ said the old keeper.
“‘Why didn’t you stay awake and look to it?’ asked Jackson.
“‘It was a terrible night, and I got wet. I sat by the stove and fell asleep, and when I woke up itwas daylight, and the light was out. That bird was there on the platform.’
“Jackson talked to the old fellow sharply, but I finally fell asleep. He aroused me at daylight, and I went outside.
“The sun was shining brightly, and the light air had drifted the fog back across the Strait to the ragged shore of Tierra del Fuego, where it hung like a huge gray pall, darkening underneath. To the northward lay the steamer, but besides her there was not a floating thing visible.
“The younger keeper, with the hang-dog look, started up the tower to put out the light, and I followed, taking the telescope to have a look around. We had just reached the platform when there waddled out from behind the lantern the most gigantic albatross I ever saw. The creature gave a hoarse squawk and stretched its wings slowly outward as if about to rise. But instead of going it stood motionless, while the keeper gave a gasp and nearly fell over the rail, his face showing the wildest terror.
“‘That’s him,’ he whispered.
“And I must say I felt startled at seeing a bird four fathoms across the wings. I stood looking at the creature a moment, and was aware of something dangling from its leg. Then I went slowly towards it. It stood still while I bent down and unfastened the piece of canvas hanging to its leg, but it kept its great black eye fixed on me; then it snapped its heavy hooked beak savagely, and I started backward.
“The creature dropped gracefully over the edge of the platform, and, falling in a great circular sweep, rose again and held its way down the Strait. I watched it with the telescope until it disappeared in the distance, and then swept the horizon for signs of a sail. There was nothing in sight, and the sea was like oil as far as the eye could reach. I put down the glass and examined the piece of rag. It was nothing but a bit of tarred canvas, with nothing on it to tell where it came from. The keeper asked to see it, and he could make no more of it than I could. Then we went down, and as we approached the house the old keeper came out of the door and looked around in the air above him. I held out the piece of canvas and he gave a start.
“‘He was there, then?’ he asked.
“‘If you mean that all-fired big albatross, yes,’ I answered. ‘But why the devil are you so scared of him?’
“The old fellow didn’t answer, but stood looking at the piece of canvas, saying, ‘Only one left. This is the third time.’
“‘Only one fool!’ I cried. ‘How, by Davy, can you read anything on that bit of canvas when it’s as blank as a fog-bank?’
“‘And you are that fool,’ he replied, in a low tone, so smoothly that I damned him fore and aft for every kind of idiot I could think of.
“‘Let him alone,’ said Jackson, hearing the rumpus. ‘All these outlying keepers are as crazy asmollyhawks. It’s some joke, or some fellow’s trying to get the place.’
“In a little while we went aboard the steamer and started for the Falklands.
“I was still there three weeks later, when two small sealing schooners came in and unloaded their pelts. The men aboard them told a strange tale of a wreck in the great hole of the Orkneys. They had gone into the crater after seals and had found a large ship driven into a cleft in the rocky wall. Her bow was clear of the water, but her stern was fathoms deep in it, so they couldn’t tell her name. On their way up they had gone to the westward and come through the Le Maire. They had hunted for two days off the rocks and reported the light out both nights.
“Jackson started off in a day or so to see what was the matter, and he took a goose-gun for that albatross. When he reached the light there wasn’t a sign of those keepers. Everything was in its place and the house was open, but there was nothing to tell how the fellows left.
“In a little while he noticed the head of an albatross peering over the platform of the light, and he tried to get a sight at it. But the critter seemed to know better than to show itself.
“He finally started up the ladder and gained the platform. There were the two keepers, stark and stiff, one of them holding an oil-can in his dead grip. The sight gave him such a turn that when the giant bird gave a squawk and started off he missedit clean, although it wasn’t three fathoms from the muzzle of his gun. He yelled to the men below to come up, but by the time they got there the whole top was afire from the spilled oil catching at the flash, or burning wad, from his gun.
“There was no way to put the fire out, so they had the satisfaction of climbing down and watching the tower burn before their eyes.
“It’s hard to say just how those keepers died. It may have been the falling sickness, or it may have been natives that killed them. As for me, I’ve believed there was something unnatural about the whole affair, for I’ve never heard of an albatross landing on a light before. There was some talk about fear of mutiny aboard the Indian by her owners, but there was no ground for it. Those fellows probably told a straight story. There was a boat picked up to the northward of the Strait some time afterwards, but there was no name on it, and the only man in it was dead. He had several ugly knife wounds, but it proved nothing.
“There’s room to the eastward of the island for me. You had better watch those fore-and mizzen-t’gallant-sails,—it looks as if we may get a touch of the Cape before morning.”
I went forward and started some men aft to the mizzen. We were about to begin the struggle “around the corner.” The deepening gloom of the winter evening increased, and the distant flares and flashes from the Land of Fire gave ominous thoughts of the future in store for us.
“WAL, I swow!” exclaimed Captain Breeze, as he came to the break of the poop the morning after the Northern Light had dropped down the bay to await the tide before putting to sea. The object that had called forth this remark was the figure of a very pretty and strongly built woman, dressed in a close-fitting brown dress with a white apron, standing at the galley door waiting to receive the breakfast things from the “doctor,” who was busy with the morning meal inside.
It was quite early and the mates were forward getting the men to the windlass. The tug was alongside waiting to take the tow as soon as the anchor came to the cat-head. The passengers were still below in their bunks and the skipper had only just turned out. He was bound out on a long voyage to the West Coast, and both he and his mates had enjoyed a more than usually convivial time the evening before. This accounted for the skipper not having seen his stewardess until the next morning, for she had come aboard quietly and had gone unperceived to her state-room in the forward cabin. He had asked for a good stewardess this voyage, for he had several female passengers. The company had evidently tried to accommodate him, for this girl certainly looked everything that was good and nothing bad. He stood gazing at her in amazement.Stewardesses on deep-water ships were not of this breed. Forward, the men manned the brakes, and a lusty young fellow looking aft from the clew of his eye caught a glimpse of the vision at the galley door and broke forth, all hands joining in the chorus,—