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.