Mr. Pike tells me we are several hundred miles off the South American
coast. And yet, only the other day, it seems, we were scarcely more
distant from Africa. A big velvety moth fluttered aboard this
morning, and we are filled with conjecture. How possibly could it
have come from the South American coast these hundreds of miles in
the teeth of the trades?

The Southern Cross has been visible, of course, for weeks; the North
Star has disappeared behind the bulge of the earth; and the Great
Bear, at its highest, is very low. Soon it, too, will be gone and we
shall be raising the Magellan Clouds.

I remember the fight between Larry and Shorty. Wada reports that Mr.
Pike watched it for some time, until, becoming incensed at their
awkwardness, he clouted both of them with his open hands and made
them stop, announcing that until they could make a better showing he
intended doing all the fighting on the Elsinore himself.

It is a feat beyond me to realize that he is sixty-nine years old.
And when I look at the tremendous build of him and at his fearful,
man-handling hands, I conjure up a vision of him avenging Captain
Somers's murder.

Life is cruel. Amongst the Elsinore's five thousand tons of coal are
thousands of rats. There is no way for them to get out of their
steel-walled prison, for all the ventilators are guarded with stout
wire-mesh. On her previous voyage, loaded with barley, they
increased and multiplied. Now they are imprisoned in the coal, and
cannibalism is what must occur among them. Mr. Pike says that when
we reach Seattle there will be a dozen or a score of survivors, huge