THE average man knows as little of the region where the backbone of the American continent disappears beneath the ocean as he does of the heart of Africa. The mighty chain of mountains that raise their peaks miles above the surrounding country at the equator sink gradually until only a single cone-shaped hump—the last vertebra—raises itself above the sea in latitude 55° 50’ south. This is the desolate and uninhabited end of the southern continent, commonly known as Cape Horn, and no man gets any nearer to it than he can help. Past it flows the deep ocean stream known as the Pacific Antarctic Drift, and over it whirl fierce hurricanes in almost uninterrupted succession.

To the southward and westward rise the jagged rocks of the Ramirez, but these do not break in any manner the force of the high, rolling sea which sweeps down from the Pacific. There is but little life on any of these tussock-covered peaks, and they offer no shelter, save to the white albatross and the wingless penguin.

It is past this dreaded cape, in a region of almost continual storm and with a rapidly shifting needle, the navigator of the sailing vessel has to drive his way. The Straits of Magellan offer no passage to the handler of square canvas, and the furious, whirling current of the Le Maire is usually avoided, as when navigated it only saves a few miles of westing. The floating ice is always a dreaded menace, for with the spume-drift flying before a freezing gale and surrounded by the gloom of the high latitude in winter, it is difficult to distinguish an object fifty fathoms ahead of a ship’s cut-water.

Rough, hard men were the “wind-jammers” as they were called, who earned a right to live by driving overloaded ships around this cape, from 50° south latitude on one side to 50° south latitude on the other. With the yards “jammed” hard on the backstays, they would take advantage of every slant in the wind, until at last it would swing fair, and then away they would go, running off for the other side of the world with every rag the vessel would stand tugging away at clew and earring, sending her along ten or twelve knots an hour towards the latitude of the trade-wind.

Men of iron nerve, used to suffering and hardship, they were, for they had to stand by for a call to shorten sail at any hour of the day or night. Their food consisted of salt-junk and hardtack, with roasted wheat boiled for coffee, and a taste of sugar to sweeten it. Beans and salt pork were the only other articles to vary the monotonous and unhealthful diet. As for lime-juice, it existed only in the imagination of the shipping commissioner who signed-on the men.

The Silver Sea was manned and officered by a set of men who had been longer in the trade around the Cape than any others of the deep-water fleet. She crossed the 50th parallel on the morning of June 20, and not being certain of her exact longitude, Captain Enoch Moss headed her a trifle to the eastwards to clear Staten Land. The second day afterwards land was looked for, the first to be seen in eighty days out of New York.

Enoch Moss was said to be a hard man among hard men. His second mate was a man named Garnett, a fellow who had been so smashed, shot, and stove up, in the innumerable fracases in which he had taken part, that to an unnautical eye he appeared an almost helpless old man. His twisted bow-legs, set wide apart, gave him a peculiar lurching motion when he walked, and suggested the idea that he was continually trying to right himself into equilibrium upon the moving world beneath his feet.

A large, red-headed Irishman, with a freckled, hairless face, named O’Toole, was the first officer on board. It was his watch on deck, and he stood, quadrant in hand, calling off time sights to the skipper, who sat below checking up his reckoning.

Garnett sat on the main-hatch and smoked, waiting and resting, for he seldom turned in during his day watches below. A man sat in the maintop, and, as O’Toole took his last sight, hailed the deck.

“Land ho!” he bawled. “Little for’ard o’ the beam!” And he pointed to the ragged peaks of Staten Land showing dimly through the haze to the westward. It was very close reckoning after all, and O’Toole was well pleased as he bawled the news down the companion-way to the skipper. Then he turned to Garnett, who had come on the poop.

“’Tis a pity, Garnett, yer eddication was so misplaced ye don’t know a hog-yoke from a dead-eye, fer ye miss all the cream av navigation.”

Garnett removed his cap and mopped the dent in the top of his bald cranium.

“You an’ your hog-yoke be hanged. If I used up as much canvas as you the company would be in debt to the sail-makers. I mayn’t be able to take sights like you, but blast me if I would lift a face like yourn to heaven. No, stave me if I wouldn’t be afraid of giving offence. I mayn’t have much of a show hereafter, but I wouldn’t like to lose the little I have.”

“Git out, ye owld pirit! And say, Garnett, ye know this is the first land sighted, so ye better get your man ready to go ashore. The owld man swore he’d put him ashore on the first rock sighted, for sez he, ‘I don’t want no more cutting fracases aboard this ship.’”

The man referred to was a tall, dark-haired Spaniard, who had already indulged in four fights on board in which his sheath-knife had played a prominent part. Having been put in double irons he had worked himself loose, so the captain, not wishing to be short-handed with wounded men off the Cape, had decided to hold court in the after cabin before marooning the man, as he had sworn to do when the ruffian had broken loose and again attacked a former opponent. The news of sighting the land brought him on deck while the mates were talking, and he made known his course in the matter a few moments after O’Toole had ceased speaking.

“You can bring the fellow aft, Mr. Garnett,” said he. “And twelve men of your watch can have a say in the matter before I put him ashore.”

Garnett left the poop and went forward and told his watch what was wanted, and they in turn told the man, Gretto Gonzales, whom they held tightly bound for further orders.

“Eet iz no fair! Yo no hablo Engleeze!” cried the ruffian, who began to understand his position.

“Colorado maduro, florifino perfecto,” replied Garnett, gravely, remembering what Spanish he had read on the covers of various cigar-boxes. “If you don’t savey English, I’m all solid with your bloomin’ Spanish. So bear a hand, bullies, and bring the convict aft.”

His victim, a mortally wounded man lying in a bunk, and two others badly cut in the onslaughts Gonzales had begun the first day at sea, smiled hopefully. Davis, the principal object of his attacks, cursed him quietly, although his lungs had been pierced twice by the Spaniard’s knife. The two other men, Americans, who had taken his part in the affrays and suffered in consequence, also swore heartily, and sarcastically wished Gonzales a pleasant sojourn on the Tierra del Fuego.

Although the ship carried no passengers, Enoch Moss had thought fit to provide a stewardess. This woman was well known to many deep-water skippers, and at one time had possessed extreme beauty. Her early history no one knew, but since she had taken to the sea she had endeavored to make up for this deficiency by creating enough for several women.

Plump and rosy she was still, and much thought of by all with whom she sailed. Many a poor sailor had reason to thank Moll, as she was called, for the tidbits she brought forward from the cabin mess, for often a few meals of good food did much to save a man from the horrible scurvy which for years has been the curse of the deep-water fleet.

Whatever faults the woman had, she also had good qualities in abundance.

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.