stood outlined against the dull grey
clouds. We could see the great seas, white-streaked by lash of driven
spray, running up into the lowering sky. When day came, and the
heaving, wind-swept face of the waters became plain to us, we saw the
stormy path round the Horn in its wildest, grandest mood. Stretching
far to the black murky curtain--the rear of the last shrieking rain
squall--the great Cape Horn greybeards swept on with terrific force and
grandeur, their mile-long crests hurtling skyward in blinding foam.
The old barque ran well, reeling through the long, stormy slopes with
buoyant spring, driving wildly to the trough, smashing the foam far
aside. At times she poised with sickening uncertitude on the crest of
a greater wave, then steadied, and leapt with the breaking water to the
smoother hollow.

The Old Man stood by the helmsman, 'conning' her on. All night he had
stood there, ordering, to the shock of following seas, a steady voiced
command. Never a gainly man--short-legged, broad, uncouth--his was yet
a figure in keeping with the scene; unkempt and haggard, blue-lipped,
drenched by sea and rain, he was never less than a Master of the Sea.
At daybreak we heard a hail from the tops'l yard, and saw the
'look-out' pointing ahead. Peering down the wind, we made out the loom
of a ship rising and falling in the trough of the sea. A big
'four-master' she proved, lying 'hove-to' the wind. We shuddered to
think of what would have been if daylight had been further delayed!

Out of the mist and spray we bore down on her and flew by, close to her
stern. We could see figures on her poop staring and pointing, a man
with glasses at his eyes. Only a fleeting glimpse--for she was soon
swallowed up by the murk astern, and we were driving on. The shift of
wind came suddenly. Nearly at noon there was a heavier fall of rain, a
shrieking squall that blew as it had never blown. The Old Man marked
the signs--the scud of the upper clouds, a brightening low down in the
south.

"Stan' by ... head ... yards," he yelled, shouting hoarsely to be
heard. "Quick ... the word!"

All hands struggled to the braces, battling through the wash of icy
water that swept over the decks.

The squall passed, followed by a lull that served us to cant the yards;
then, sharp as a knife-thrust, the wind came howling out of the
sou'-west. The rain ceased and the sky cleared as by a miracle. Still
it blew and the seas, turned by the shi