the back of my helmet, while the
other will be firmly secured to some portion of the schooner where it
will be out of the way. Of course it will be a very rough-and-ready,
makeshift affair, but I believe it will prove fairly efficient for the
purpose."

Cunningham's next business was to cut out and have sewn together for
himself a single garment which combined the functions of stockings,
trousers, and shirt. This was made of a double thickness of stout
canvas, each thickness being well coated on both sides with two coats of
boiled oil. It was a weird-looking garment, as it was intended to fit
on outside the armour arrangement which he called his diving suit; but
it was merely intended to exclude the water, and when it was finished
and fitted I saw that it would serve its purpose perfectly well, and
there seemed to be no reason why he should not be able to work in it at
the bottom of the sea perfectly well. And he completed the whole affair
by firmly attaching one end of the rubber hose pipe to the back of his
helmet.

We made Cape Virgins on the day and at the hour, and almost the minute,
which I had predicted, to the intense admiration and delight of the
skipper; and reached Punta Arenas, in the Strait of Magellan, on the
afternoon of the same day. Here we came to an anchor, and Brown,
Cunningham, and I went ashore, the skipper's business being to arrange
for the refilling of our water tanks and the supply of a quantity of
fresh meat, Cunningham's just to take a look round and stretch his long
legs a bit, and mine to report the seizure of the _Zenobia_ by
Bainbridge and the crew, and to post to the owners a letter upon the
same subject which I had prepared at my leisure. Our first enquiry was
as to whether the _Kingfisher_ had passed, and Brown's delight was great
when he learned that thus far nothing had been seen of her.

We left Punta Arenas shortly after noon on the day following that of our
arrival, still with no sign of the _Kingfisher_, and, being lucky enough
to get a fine little slant of wind, safely accomplished the dangerous
passage and entered the Pacific on the evening of the succeeding day.
The slant of wind held long enough to enable us to gain an offing of a
trifle over a hundred miles, and then it died away and left us becalmed
and rolling gunwale under on the long Pacific swell.

Yes, there could be no doubt that the _Martha Brown_ knew how to roll;
it was my first experience of her in a fl