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Chapter Seven.
Rounding Cape Horn.
On drifted the boat! Darkness was above us—darkness was around us!—that small
beacon-light the only source of hope. Without it we must have given way to
despair. How eagerly, how intently we listened for the sound of Cousin Silas’s
shout, should he have succeeded in reaching the shore! We came almost abreast of
the light; not a sound reached our ears.
“It is a long distance for the voice of a man exhausted with swimming to be
heard,” said Burkett. “He scarcely, too, could have reached there yet.” We
thought not either. We relapsed into silence and listened.
“O Burkett! what of the kelp?” suddenly exclaimed Kilby. “Can he ever swim
through it?”
My heart sunk within me as I heard the question; what man, even the strongest
swimmer, freshly taken to the water, could force his way through those tangled
masses of sea-weed? My noble-hearted cousin, was he then to be the first victim
among us?
“The shore is sandy thereabouts, and unusually free from kelp. There is a
natural dock where the schooner lies, and clear water all round.”
These words spoken by Burkett again revived my hopes. Still not a sound
reached us. We could distinguish no signal from the shore to give us hope.
Blacker and blacker grew the night. More keenly whistled the wind. The
sea-birds’ shriek, echoing it seemed from the caverned rocks, sounded like a
funeral wail. We fancied that many a fierce albatross was hovering over our
heads, to pounce down on us when nature gave way before our sufferings.
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