Mr. Mellaire was quite different.

"It never happens," he told me. "No ship ever went around like this.
You watch her come. She always comes a-smoking out of the sou'west."

"But can't a vessel ever steal around?" I asked.

"The odds are mighty big against it, sir," he answered. "I'll give
you a line on them. I'll wager even, sir, just a nominal bet of a
pound of tobacco, that inside twenty-four hours we'll he hove to
under upper-topsails. I'll wager ten pounds to five that we're not
west of the Horn a week from now; and, fifty to fifty being the
passage, twenty pounds to five that two weeks from now we're not up
with fifty in the Pacific."

As for Captain West, the perils of Le Maire behind, he sat below, his
slippered feet stretched before him, smoking a cigar. He had nothing
to say whatever, although Margaret and I were jubilant and dared
duets through all of the second dog-watch.


And this morning, in a smooth sea and gentle breeze, the Horn bore
almost due north of us not more than six miles away. Here we were,
well abreast and reeling off westing.

"What price tobacco this morning?" I quizzed Mr. Mellaire.

"Going up," he came back. "Wish I had a thousand bets like the one
with you, sir."