snorted diabolically. Only at intervals could I glimpse the group on
top the for'ard-house. Again and again, leaning to it and holding
their heads down, the men on the 'midship-house were obliterated by
the drive of crested seas that burst against the rail, spouted to the
lower-yards, and swept in horizontal volumes across to leeward. And
Mr. Pike, like an enormous spider in a wind-tossed web, went back and
forth along the slender bridge that was itself a shaken thread in the
blast of the storm.

So tremendous were the gusts that for the time the Elsinore refused
to answer. She lay down to it; she was swept and racked by it; but
her head did not pay off before it, and all the while we drove down
upon that bitter, iron coast. And the world was black-gray, and
violent, and very cold, with the flying spray freezing to ice in
every lodgment.

We waited. The groups of men, head down to it, waited. Mr. Pike,
restless, angry, his blue eyes as bitter as the cold, his mouth as
much a-snarl as the snarl of the elements with which he fought,
waited. The Samurai waited, tranquil, casual, remote. And Cape Horn
waited, there on our lee, for the bones of our ship and us.

And then the Elsinore's bow paid off. The angle of the beat of the
gale changed, and soon, with dreadful speed, we were dashing straight
before it and straight toward the rocks we could not see. But all
doubt was over. The success of the manoeuvre was assured. Mr.
Mellaire, informed by messenger along the bridge from Mr. Pike,
slacked off the head-yards. Mr. Pike, his eye on the helmsman, his
hand signalling the order, had the wheel put over to port to check
the Elsinore's rush into the wind as she came up on the starboard