, since by so doing we should both be
on deck at the same time, and I should thus have an excellent
opportunity of conversing with him during the darkness of the night
watches, without attracting observation or arousing suspicion.

That same night, as soon as it was fairly dark, the bodies of Price and
the seaman Tom--unshrouded, and simply prepared for burial by the
attachment to their feet of an iron bar apiece, heavy enough to sink
them--were unceremoniously launched over the side, without the slightest
symptom of emotion; and in another half-hour their shares of the gems
were distributed, more or less evenly, among the survivors, the man Dirk
excepted.

On the third day after the tragedy that I have just described, a
momentary glimpse of the sun during the forenoon enabled me to confirm
my dead reckoning, and to satisfactorily establish the fact that we were
actually a few miles to the eastward of the dreaded Horn, although with
less southing than I could have wished; the southerly wind that had
prevailed for some time having gradually gone round to the eastward so
far that it at length became questionable whether we should succeed in
weathering the land, and so passing into the Atlantic. And, to make
matters worse, the wind continued not only to work round but also to
increase in strength, to such an extent that at length the brig, instead
of heading east, had broken off to due north, while it had become
necessary to snug her down to close-reefed topsails and fore-topmast
staysail. The thick weather, moreover, added another element of
anxiety, since I had only succeeded in gaining one solitary sight of the
sun for nearly a week--and that not when he was on the meridian, hence I
was quite unable to determine my exact latitude. But the next morning,
shortly after daylight, when by my reckoning I had still forty odd miles
of sea-room, land was made ahead, some five miles distant; and upon
standing in a little closer, I was at length enabled to identify it as
the headland of Cape Horn itself. Whereupon, we immediately wore round,
and stretched away to the southward on the larboard tack, I for one
being intensely thankful that we had made the notorious cape during
daylight, but for which happy chance the brig would in all probability
have gone ashore, and our adventure would have there and then come to a
premature end.

But although fortune had so far favoured us that we were enabled for the
present to avoid disa