Ere the sun had again set, we had to mourn the loss of the second of our shipmates! Towards evening of this day, the wind got up again even more fiercely than it had done the night before--the heavy southern billows rolling in again upon the beach with a terrible din, although they could do no harm now to either of our boats, both being snugly sheltered beyond their reach.
But when it grew dark, we witnessed a wonderful phenomenon.
It made many of the seamen believe that they were dreaming over again the scene connected with the burning of the _Esmeralda_; while others went almost wild with terror, fancying that the end of the world was come--or that, at all events, the natural display we saw of the greatest wonder of the arctic and antarctic worlds, was a portent of fresh disasters to us, greater than all we had already passed through! The heavens were as black as death all around, with no moon.

Not a star to be seen; when, all at once, the whole horizon glowed with a living fire, lighting up the ocean in front of us, and reflecting upwards and outwards from the snow-covered peaks on the background of water beyond the beach.

The wave-tossed surface of the sea changed to a bright vermilion tint, making it look like a lake of raging flames.

Through the crimson sky, streaks of brighter light shot across at intervals from right to left, and back again from left to right, in coruscations of darting sparks that would ever and anon form themselves into crosses and diamonds of different shapes; while, in the middle of this wonderful transformation scene, the wind blew with immense force, howling over sea and land with a wild shriek and deep diapason, accompanied by blinding showers of hail and sleet and snow, that made us all creep under the folds of the canvas of our tent for shelter.
"What is this?
What does it mean ?" I asked Captain Billings, who seemed the only one of us unmoved by the unwonted sight, that had as much terror as grandeur about it.
"It is what is called an Austral aurora--the _aurora Australis_, as scientific men term it; though, how it is caused and what it is occasioned by, I'm sure I can't explain to you, my lad.

All I know is this, that it is never seen in the vicinity of Cape Horn without a stiff gale and rough weather following in its track; so we had better all of us look out for squalls!".