the green blackness passed into gray twilight, the lightning eased,
the thunder moved along away from us, and there was no wind. In half
an hour the sun was shining, the thunder muttered intermittently
along the horizon, and the Elsinore still rolled in a hush of air.

"You can't tell, sir," Mr. Pike growled to me. "Thirty years ago I
was dismasted right here off the Plate in a clap of wind that come on
just as that come on."

It was the changing of the watches, and Mr. Mellaire, who had come on
the poop to relieve the mate, stood beside me.

"One of the nastiest pieces of water in the world," he concurred.
"Eighteen years ago the Plate gave it to me--lost half our sticks,
twenty hours on our beam-ends, cargo shifted, and foundered. I was
two days in the boat before an English tramp picked us up. And none
of the other boats ever was picked up."

"The Elsinore behaved very well last night," I put in cheerily.

"Oh, hell, that wasn't nothing," Mr. Pike grumbled. "Wait till you
see a real pampero. It's a dirty stretch hereabouts, and I, for one,
'll be glad when we get across It. I'd sooner have a dozen Cape Horn
snorters than one of these. How about you, Mr. Mellaire?"

"Same here, sir," he answered. "Those sou'-westers are honest. You
know what to expect. But here you never know. The best of ship-
masters can get tripped up off the Plate."