"Cheer up, Mr Macdougall!" I said, repressing my emotion as much as it
lay in my power. "The ship is making for us, and we'll be on board
again in a brace of shakes."
"Nae, ye're jookin', laddie!" he cried despairingly. "She'll never
reach us 'fore dark."
"Aye, but she will, though," I replied, as she was nearing us so fast
that I could now see her hull, which had before been invisible; and,
almost as I spoke the words, she rose higher and higher, until I could
make out an object at the mast-head like a man on the look-out for us
and signalling, for I could see his arms move.
"Hurrah! she's coming up fast now!" I cried, to convince Mr
Macdougall; when, seeing my excitement, he at last believed the good
news, the effect on him being to cause him to burst into a passion of
tears, of which I took no notice, leaving him to recover himself.
Presently, I could not only perceive the _Esmeralda_, but a boat also
ahead, to which the man I had noticed in the foretop was making motions.
"We're all right now, Mr Macdougall," I said.
"I thought they wouldn't desert us! They have launched a boat, and it
is pulling towards us now. Let us give them a hail; raise your voice,
sir--one, two, three--now then. Boat ahoy!"
The mate did not help the chorus much, his voice being too weak as yet,
and his lungs probably half full of salt water; but still, he joined in
my shout, although those in the boat were too far off to hear it.
"We must hail them again," I said, "or else they'll pass to windward of
us. Come, Mr Macdougall, one more shout!"
This time our feeble cry was heard; and a hearty cheer was borne back
down on the breeze to us, in response, the men in the boat pulling for
us as soon as they caught our hail.
In another five minutes, it seemed, but perhaps it was much less--the
tension on one's nerves sometimes making an interval of suspense appear
much longer than it really is--the _Esmeralda's_ jolly-boat was
alongside our little raft, with the two of us tumbled into the stern-
sheets, amidst a chorus of congratulations and handshakings from
Jorrocks, who was acting as coxswain; and, before we realised almost
that we were rescued, we were safe on board the old ship again.
It was all like a dream, passing quite as rapidly!
The skipper, when I climbed the side ladder which had been put over for
us, assisted up by a dozen pairs of willing hands, almost hugged me, and
the crew gave me three cheers, which of course gratified my pride; but,
what I valued beyond the praises bestowed on me for jumping overboard
after Mr Macdougall--which was a mere act of physical courage which
might have been performed by any water-dog, as I told Jorrocks--was the
consciousness that I had made a friend of one who had previously been my
enemy, returning good for evil. It was owing to this only, I fervently
believe, that my life was preserved in that perilous swim!
Mr Macdougall was ill for some days afterwards, the shock and exposure
nearly killing him; still, before the end of the week he was able to
return to duty, a much changed man in every respect. Thenceforth, he
treated the men with far greater consideration than previously, and he
was really so painfully humble to me that I almost wished once or twice
that he would be his bumptious, dogmatic old self again. However, it
was all for the best, perhaps, for we all got on very sweetly together
now, without friction, and harmony reigned alike on the poop and in the
fo'c's'le.
The south-easterly wind, which had sprung up so fortunately for our
rescue, lasted the _Esmeralda_ until she had run down the coast of
Patagonia to Cape Tres Puntas, some three hundred and twenty miles to
the northward of the Virgins, as the headlands are called that mark the
entrance to the Straits of Magellan.
Of course, our skipper did not intend to essay this short cut into the
Pacific, which is only really practicable for steamers, as the currents
through the different channels are dangerous in the extreme, and the
winds not to be relied on, chopping round at a moment's notice, and
causing a ship to drop her anchor in all sorts of unexpected places; but
he intended to go through the Straits of Le Maire, instead of going
round Staten Island, and thus shorten his passage of Cape Horn in that
way.
However, when, on our fifty-ninth day out, we were nearing the eastern
end of Staten Island, the wind, which had of late been blowing pretty
steadily from the northward of west, hauled round more to the southward,
and being dead against the Le Maire channel, we were forced to give the
island a wide berth, and stand to the outside of it.
It was fine light weather, with clear nights, all the time we had been
sailing down the coast; for we could see the Magellan clouds, as they
are called, every evening. These are small nebulae, like the Milky Way,
which occupy the southern part of the heavens, immediately above Cape
Horn, whose proximity they always indicate.
Shortly after our passing Staten Island, however, a change came, the
wind blowing in squalls, accompanied by snow and sleety hail, and the
sea running high as it only can run in these latitudes; but still,
everything went well with us until we were about 55 degrees South and 63
degrees West, when a violent gale sprang up from the north-west.
Everything was hauled down and clewed up, the ship lying-to under her
reefed main-topsail and fore-topmast staysail, and Captain Billings was
just saying to me that I was now going to have "a specimen of what Cape
Horn weather was like," when I noticed Mr Macdougall--who had been
making an inspection of the ship forwards--come up the poop ladder with
his face much graver than usual, although, as a rule, his expression of
countenance was not the most cheerful at any time.
"Whatever is the matter with Mr Macdougall?" I said to Captain
Billings. "I'm certain something has happened, or he would not look so
serious!"
"Bless you, Martin, you mustn't judge by his phiz. I daresay the men
have only been skylarking in the fo'c's'le, and it doesn't please him."
But it was something far more important than that which had occasioned
the gravity of the mate's face, as the skipper soon heard; for, on Mr
Macdougall coming up close to us, he whispered something in the
skipper's ear which made him turn as white as a sheet.
"Martin, Martin," he said to me, dropping his voice, however, so that
the men might not hear the terrible news before it was absolutely
necessary to tell them, "the coals are on fire in the main hold!"