Before our watch was due we would be rudely wakened. "_All
hands wear ship_"--the dreaded call, and the Mate thundering at the
half-deck door, shouting orders in a threatening tone that called for
instant spur. Then, at the braces, hanging to the ropes in a swirl of
icy water, facing up to the driving sleet and bitter spray, that cut
and stung like a whiplash. And when at last the yards were laid to the
wind, and the order '_down helm_' was given, we would spring to the
rigging for safety, and, clinging desperately, watch the furious sweep
of a towering 'greybeard' over the barque, as she came to the wind and
lay-to.

Wild, heart-breaking work! Only the old hands, 'hard cases' like
Martin and Welsh John and the bo'sun, were the stoics, and there was
some small comfort in their "Whoo! This ain't nuthin'! Ye sh'd a' bin
shipmates with me in the ol' _Boryallus_!" (Or some such ancient
craft.) "_Them_ wos 'ard times!"

Twice we saw Diego Ramirez and the Iledefonsos, with an interval of a
fortnight between the sightings--a cluster of bleak rocks, standing out
of surf and broken water, taking the relentless battery of huge seas
that swept them from base to summit. Once, in clear weather, we marked
a blue ridge of land far to the norrard, and Old Martin and Vootgert
nearly came to blows as to whether it was Cape Horn or the False Cape.

Fighting hard for every inch of our laboured progress, doubling back,
crossing, recrossing (our track on the old blue-back chart was a maze
of lines and figures) we won our way to 70 deg. W., and there, in the
hardest gale of the passage, we were called on for tribute, for one
more to the toll of sailor lives claimed by the rugged southern gateman.

All day the black ragged clouds had swept up from the south-west, the
wind and sea had increased hourly in violence. At dusk we had
shortened sail to topsails and reefed foresail. But the Old Man hung
on to his canvas as the southing wind allowed us to go 'full and by' to
the nor'-west. Hurtling seas swept the decks, tearing stout fittings
from their lashings. The crazy old half-deck seemed about to fetch
loose with every sea that crashed aboard. From stem to stern there was
no shelter from the growing fury of the gale; but still the Old Man
held to his course to make the most of the only proper 'slant' in six
weary weeks.

At midnight the wind was howling slaughter, and stout Old Jock,
dismayed at last at the furious sea upreared