Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers
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shouted, "coo-ee! Jill, I'm here."
Then, to my joy, a faint answering shout came down the wind.
On--on--on I swam. Taking desperate strokes. Shouting one moment,listening the next.
At last, at last.
He was sinking, but I was not weary.
I remember hearing the clunk-clank of the oars of a coming boat.
Then that was lost to me; there came a terrible roaring in my ears,sparks flashed across my eyes, and--
When next I became conscious, I was lying in my bunk.
One anxious glance upwards. Oh, joy! it was Jill's hand I held in mine.
So I slept.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN--FIRELANDERS--THE STORM--THE SHIP STRIKES.
To rub shoulders with death always leaves a chilly feeling in my heartfor a day or two. It is as though the King of Terrors had justencircled me for one brief moment in his icy mantle, and let me freeagain.
I felt thus next morning, anyhow, but very thankful to Heaven, when Isaw Jill quietly dressing. I did not chide him.
"Are you better, brother?" he said, with his father's smile.
I knew he was penitent, and grateful, and all the rest of it, because hesaid "brother." At ordinary times I was simply "Jack."
I was softened.
"I'm all right," I answered. "But, Jill, you _must_ be more careful."
"I'll try, brother."
Then I turned out, and began to dress, singing as usual.
Mrs Coates did come to breakfast, but looked worn and nervous. Peterwas full of banter and nonsense. Captain Coates was keeping watch tolet Peter "feed," as Peter called it. But presently our worthy skipperwould come below, and make a terrible onslaught on the cold ham.Nothing ever interfered with his appetite much. He was a philosopher,although a lean one, and always looked upon the bright side of life, andthe bread-and-butter side.
"I sha'n't get over the fright for a month," said poor Mrs Coates."Peter tells me he was standing on the bulwark, hardly holding on toanything."
"I've scolded him well," I said, "and if we meet the mail boat I've agood mind to send him back to mother and Mattie."
"Wouldn't you feel lop-sided, Jack, without the child?" said Peter."And the _Salamander_ would only have half a second mate. No; we'llstick to Jill, only next time he wants a cold bath, we'll find means tooblige him without having to call all hands."
"Mrs Coates, I'll have another egg, please," said Jill.
"Well," said Peter, "by all the coolness--"
"Hands make sail!"
This last was a shout on deck, and in five minutes more we were all"upstairs," as Mrs Coates phrased it.
We were entering the First Narrows, the low, moundy shores of Patagoniaon our right, the gloomy grandeur of the frowning mountains of Tierradel Fuego on our left, the sea all dark between.
I have said "gloomy grandeur," but gloom can hardly be associated withglaciers, ice, and snow; and surely, too, the myriads of wheeling birdswere doing all they could to dispel the gloom; still, it lay on the sea,it hung on the dark cliffs, and hovered on the mists that had not yetrisen from the mountain summits.
Indeed, everything in and around this strange ocean highway has an airof gloom. You cannot help feeling you are at the end of the world.There is something weird in the very appearance of the water, weird andtreacherous too; and albeit the forests that clothe the lower sides ofthe mountains, some hundred miles farther on, are wildly picturesque,surmounted as they are by rugged hills, snow-white cliffs, andglittering glaciers, they look black, inhospitable, threatening.
The weather continued fine, the wind was fair. We kept quietly on allday, through the Second Narrows, and into Broad Reach, the captainhaving timed things well. The wind was now more abeam, but less inforce, so that we should make a pleasant night of it.
Never have I seen a more glorious sunset than we now had. To gaze onthat splendid medley of light and colour, that hung over the westernhills, seemed to give one a foretaste of the beauty of heaven itself.But with all its dazzling, thrilling loveliness, it did not make us feelhappy. 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, anda ricketty pier, very foreign-looking, and not at all elevating to themind. But the gentleman--a Chilian he was--who came off to transactbusiness with Captain Coates was the quintessence of politeness, doublydistilled.
We had to stop two hours here, so Jill and I, with Mrs Coates, went onshore 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 wereshops, and I fear that both Jill and I spent more money on ostrichfeathers than we had any right to do.
Early in the afternoon we once more weighed anchor, and stood away downthe Reach, the breeze keeping steadily up all day, but, unfortunatelyfor 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 withclouds, a by no means unusual occurrence in this dreary region.
Jill did not keep me company either; he was tired, he said, and hadturned early in. Perhaps it was this fact that was the occasion of mystrange depression of spirits, a depression which I could neither walkoff nor talk off, nor gambol off, albeit I tried hard to do so with ourdogs, the beautiful deerhound and collie. They indeed appeared aslittle inclined for play to-night as I had ever seen them.
"They seems to have something on their minds," said Ritchie, a sturdyold sailor who had sailed the seas off and on for twenty years.
"You're not superstitious, Ritchie?" I asked.
Ritchie took three or four pulls at his pipe before he replied.
"I dunno, young sir, what you'd call superstitious, but I've seen somequeer 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 storiesto-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 itrolls 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 socold. 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 atthe time.
Ritchie laughed as if it was his duty to laugh.
"Look, look!" I cried. "Look at the fire away in shore yonder, nearthe 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 sayingnow--`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 littlesteamer _Cordova_, a Monte Videan. Smashed our seven, we did. Verylittle wind, and hardly a bit o' sail to hoist. They weren't long inspotting the difficulty. Durin' the day, a miserable-looking woman andboy came in a canoe to sell skins and to beg. T
hey must 'ave spottedthat we had only a few hands. For at the darkest hour of midnight theship was attacked."
"Anything occur?"
"Well, it was like this: There wasn't a longer-headed chap ever sailedthan our skipper. A Scot he was, and clever for that. He knew theseFuegian fiends well, and was prepared.
"We had lights ready to get up at a moment's notice. If we'd had armswe'd have used those, but with the exception of two or three revolverswe 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, youngsir, I think I hear the