Come, Mr Macdougall, one more shout!" This time our feeble cry was heard; and a hearty cheer was borne back down on the breeze to us, in response, the men in the boat pulling for us as soon as they caught our hail.
In another five minutes, it seemed, but perhaps it was much less--the tension on one's nerves sometimes making an interval of suspense appear much longer than it really is--the _Esmeralda's_ jolly-boat was alongside our little raft, with the two of us tumbled into the stern- sheets, amidst a chorus of congratulations and handshakings from Jorrocks, who was acting as coxswain; and, before we realised almost that we were rescued, we were safe on board the old ship again.
It was all like a dream, passing quite as rapidly! The skipper, when I climbed the side ladder which had been put over for us, assisted up by a dozen pairs of willing hands, almost hugged me, and the crew gave me three cheers, which of course gratified my pride; but, what I valued beyond the praises bestowed on me for jumping overboard after Mr Macdougall--which was a mere act of physical courage which might have been performed by any water-dog, as I told Jorrocks--was the consciousness that I had made a friend of one who had previously been my enemy, returning good for evil.

It was owing to this only, I fervently believe, that my life was preserved in that perilous swim! Mr Macdougall was ill for some days afterwards, the shock and exposure nearly killing him; still, before the end of the week he was able to return to duty, a much changed man in every respect.

Thenceforth, he treated the men with far greater consideration than previously, and he was really so painfully humble to me that I almost wished once or twice that he would be his bumptious, dogmatic old self again.

However, it was all for the best, perhaps, for we all got on very sweetly together now, without friction, and harmony reigned alike on the poop and in the fo'c's'le.
The south-easterly wind, which had sprung up so fortunately for our rescue, lasted the _Esmeralda_ until she had run down the coast of Patagonia to Cape Tres Puntas, some three hundred and twenty miles to the northward of the Virgins, as the headlands are called that mark the entrance to the Straits of Magellan.
Of course, our skipper did not intend to essay this short cut into the Pacific, which is only really practicable for steamers, as the currents through the different channels are dangerous in the extreme, and the winds not to be relied on, chopping round at a moment's notice, and causing a ship to drop her anchor in all sorts of unexpected places; but he intended to go through the Straits of Le Maire, instead of going round Staten Island, and thus shorten his passage of Cape Horn in that way.
However, when, on our fifty-ninth day out, we were nearing the eastern end of Staten Island, the wind, which had of late been blowing pretty steadily from the northward of west, hauled round more to the southward, and being dead against the Le Maire channel, we were forced to give the island a wide berth, and stand to the outside of it.
It was fine light weather, with clear nights, all the time we had been sailing down the coast; for we could see the Magellan clouds, as they are called, every evening.

These are small nebulae, like the Milky Way, which occupy the southern part of the heavens, immediately above Cape Horn, whose proximity they always indicate.
Shortly after our passing Staten Island, however, a change came, the wind blowing in squalls, accompanied by snow and sleety hail, and the sea running high as it only can run in these latitudes; but still, everything went well with us until we were about 55 degrees South and 63 degrees West, when a violent gale sprang up from the north-west.
Everything was hauled down and clewed up, the ship lying-to under her reefed main-topsail and fore-topmast staysail, and Captain Billings was just saying to me that I was now going to have "a specimen of what Cape Horn weather was like," when I noticed Mr Macdougall--who had been making an inspection of the ship forwards--come up the poop ladder with his face much graver than usual, although, as a rule, his expression of countenance was not the most cheerful at any time.
"Whatever is the matter with Mr Macdougall ?" I said to Captain Billings.