he envied her; and the subject dropped.




CHAPTER XVII.


They doubled Cape Horn, and came to Valparaiso. But, on the morning they
were to enter the harbour, Salvé, to his intense exasperation, was put
under arrest. The captain found him too useful in keeping the crew in
order forward, and therefore took the most effectual means of preventing
him from putting into execution his declared determination to leave the
ship on their arrival at that port.

After leaving Valparaiso they called at the Chincha Islands, took in a
cargo of guano for China, and shaped their course then eastward across
the calm southern ocean, whose lonely monotony was only broken by the
occasional appearance of one of the larger kind of sea-birds, or by the
distant spouting of a whale. On board, however, the same peace was far
from prevailing. That little nut-shell that crept like a dot across the
limitless expanse of waters was a little floating hell, where every evil
passion raged from morning until night; and it was only by secretly
fomenting discord and divisions among the crew that the officers could
sleep with any sense of security in their berths. As it was, a large
section of them, with the Irishman at their head, had a project on hand
for murdering their officers, and converting the ship into a whaling
vessel. And even Salvé, in moments of bitterness and indignation at the
tyranny to which he was subjected by these men, whose lives were at the
mercy of the crew, would sometimes entertain the thought of joining with