Wild Life in the Land of the Giants Part 23

The weather continued fine, the wind was fair. We kept quietly on all day, through the Second Narrows, and into Broad Reach, the captain having timed things well. The wind was now more abeam, but less in force, so that we should make a pleasant night of it.

Never have I seen a more glorious sunset than we now had. To gaze on that splendid medley of light and colour, that hung over the western hills, seemed to give one a foretaste of the beauty of heaven itself.

But with all its dazzling, thrilling loveliness, it did not make us feel happy. At all events it kept us silent.

Next day, early, we reached Sandy Point. A strange wee town of long, low wooden huts with shingle roofs, a little church, a great prison, and a ricketty pier, very foreign-looking, and not at all elevating to the mind. But the gentleman--a Chilian he was--who came off to transact business with Captain Coates was the quintessence of politeness, doubly distilled.

We had to stop two hours here, so Jill and I, with Mrs Coates, went on sh.o.r.e to see the giants, and buy guanaco skins for our friends at home.

The giants were not in. At least I saw none of them. But there were shops, and I fear that both Jill and I spent more money on ostrich feathers than we had any right to do.

Early in the afternoon we once more weighed anchor, and stood away down the Reach, the breeze keeping steadily up all day, but, unfortunately for us, going down with the sun. It was my watch from twelve till four; the moon did not shine out brightly to-night, being obscured with clouds, a by no means unusual occurrence in this dreary region.

Jill did not keep me company either; he was tired, he said, and had turned early in. Perhaps it was this fact that was the occasion of my strange depression of spirits, a depression which I could neither walk off nor talk off, nor gambol off, albeit I tried hard to do so with our dogs, the beautiful deerhound and collie. They indeed appeared as little inclined for play to-night as I had ever seen them.

"They seems to have something on their minds," said Ritchie, a st.u.r.dy old sailor who had sailed the seas off and on for twenty years.

"You're not superst.i.tious, Ritchie?" I asked.

Ritchie took three or four pulls at his pipe before he replied.

"I dunno, young sir, what you'd call superst.i.tious, but I've seen some queer things in my time, and something was sure to 'appen arterwards.

Once, sir--"

"Stay, Ritchie," I cried. "Don't let's have any of your ghost stories to-night I couldn't stand them. The truth is, I'm a bit down-hearted."

"Go and have a tot o' rum; I'll j'ine you."

"No, Ritchie, that wouldn't do either you or me good in the long run.

But I dare say I'm feeling a trifle lonely; my brother isn't the thing, I fear."

"Nonsense, sir, nonsense. Never saw him looking better, nor you either, sir. I knows what's the matter."

"Well?"

"It's the _musgo_ that's coming."

"The musgo?"

"_Ay_, you're new to the Straits, I must remember. The musgo is a fog, 'a fiend fog' I've heard it called. You always feel low-like afore it rolls down. To-morrow, sir, you'll hardly see your finger afore you."

"So dark!"

"It's dark and it's white--just as if it rolled off the snow, and so cold. You'll see."

"You said this moment, Ritchie, I wouldn't see."

This was a most miserable attempt at a joke on my part, and I felt so at the time.

Ritchie laughed as if it was his duty to laugh.

"Look, look!" I cried. "Look at the fire away in sh.o.r.e yonder, near the cliff foot."

"I sees him."

"And look, another on the lee bow--if we have a lee bow to-night-- another on the quarter, and is that one far away yonder like a star?"

"That's one. Them's the canoe Indians a signalling to each other."

"The natives of Tierra del Fuego?"

"Yes, drat 'em, and a bad, treacherous lot they be. They're saying now--'Look out, there is a barque becalmed.'"

"Would they attack a ship?"

Ritchie laughed.

"Give them a chance only," he said, "and there isn't a more murderous, bloodthirsty lot ever launched a boat.

"I was broken down here once, or a bit farther up. It was in the little steamer _Cordova_, a Monte Videan. Smashed our seven, we did. Very little wind, and hardly a bit o' sail to hoist. They weren't long in spotting the difficulty. Durin' the day, a miserable-looking woman and boy came in a canoe to sell skins and to beg. They must 'ave spotted that we had only a few hands. For at the darkest hour of midnight the ship was attacked."

"Anything occur?"

"Well, it was like this: There wasn't a longer-headed chap ever sailed than our skipper. A Scot he was, and clever for that. He knew these Fuegian fiends well, and was prepared.

"We had lights ready to get up at a moment's notice. If we'd had arms we'd have used those, but with the exception of two or three revolvers we were defenceless. But we had coals, lumps as big as the binnacle.

And we had boiling water and the hose ready. Mercy on us though, young sir, I think I hear the blood-curdling yell of those savages now, as they boarded at our bows. Up went the lights. Up came the hose, and-- they caught a Tartar. It was cruel? Maybe, but it was self-defence."

"And the coals?"

"We sank their canoes with these. A kick would knock a Fuegian canoe in bits any day, so our task was easy. They sent an arrow to the very heart of poor Bill Wheeler, and he fell backwards dead, and they harpooned another of our men; but few of them went back with a whole skin, I'll warrant."

Before my watch was over there was no more wind than would have sufficed to move a child's paper boat, but the night was not quite so dark, the moon escaping now and then to cast a few silvery rays on the water or light up the rugged tops of the distant sierras, then being speedily engulfed once more in great inky-dark clouds.

The situation was by no means a desirable one, for currents run here like mill streams, and we were a measurable distance from the wild, desolate sh.o.r.e.

Ritchie was right; and when I went on deck next morning before breakfast, I found that the musgo was thick and white around us, and though it was easy enough to see one's finger at arm's length, it is no exaggeration to say it was impossible to see the jib-boom end from the foremast.

We must have been somewhere off Point Gallant, in an ugly place, so it is no wonder the captain concluded to anchor if he could get near enough to find soundings.

The wind was rising now, and though but in puffs which just gave the _Salamander_ a send now and then, we were forging ahead at perhaps two knots an hour.

It continued like this all day long, but the wind had increased by evening, and almost threatened a gale. We could not now be far off the English Reach, which, as a glance at a map will show you, is narrow, and therefore dangerous in the extreme. So long, therefore, as we had a surety of width of water, we determined to lay to with as little sail as possible on her.

Night seemed to come on a full hour sooner. It was a night I shall never forget. Anxiety was depicted on every face that there was a chance of getting a glimpse at. And though the captain tried to speak cheerfully in his wife's presence, it was evident his thoughts were not with his words. Every extra puff of the still rising wind must have felt going through his heart like a knife. I know it did through mine.

Even Peter was serious for once.

On going forward I saw Ritchie standing by the winch.

"What do you think of it now, Ritchie?" I asked.