Then, as before and afterward 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.