d on the _Spray_, I insisted on warm meals. In the tide-race
off Cape Pillar, however, where the sea was marvelously high, uneven,
and crooked, my appetite was slim, and for a time I postponed cooking.
(Confidentially, I was seasick!)

The first day of the storm gave the _Spray_ her actual test in the
worst sea that Cape Horn or its wild regions could afford, and in no
part of the world could a rougher sea be found than at this particular
point, namely, off Cape Pillar, the grim sentinel of the Horn.

Farther offshore, while the sea was majestic, there was less
apprehension of danger. There the _Spray_ rode, now like a bird on the
crest of a wave, and now like a waif deep down in the hollow between
seas; and so she drove on. Whole days passed, counted as other days,
but with always a thrill--yes, of delight.

On the fourth day of the gale, rapidly nearing the pitch of Cape Horn,
I inspected my chart and pricked off the course and distance to Port
Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, where I might find my way and refit,
when I saw through a rift in the clouds a high mountain, about seven
leagues away on the port beam. The fierce edge of the gale by this
time had blown off, and I had already bent a square-sail on the boom
in place of the mainsail, which was torn to rags. I hauled in the
trailing ropes, hoisted this awkward sail reefed, the forestaysail
being already set, and under this sail brought her at once on the wind
heading for the land, which appeared as an island in the sea. So it
turned out to be, though not the one I had supposed.

I was exultant over the prospect of once more entering the Strait of
Magellan and beating through again into the Pacific, for it was more
than rough on the outside coast of Tierra del Fuego. It was indeed a
mountainous sea. When the sloop was in the fiercest squalls, with only
the reefed forestaysail set, even that small sail shook her from
keelson to truck when it shivered by the leech. Had I harbored the
shadow of a doubt for her safety, it would have been that she might
spring a leak in the garboard at the heel of the mast; but she never
called me once to the pump. Under pressure of the smallest sail I
could set she made for the land like a race-horse, and steering her
over the crests of the waves so that she might not trip was nice work.
I stood at the helm now and made the most of it.

Night closed in before the sloop reached the land, leaving her feeling
the way in pitchy dark