Stephen had taken no part in the later operations of the fleet. After the capture of the Esmeralda he had been knocked down [pg 258]and very severely injured by a splinter, caused by a shot from the Spanish batteries passing through the bulwark close to where he was standing. Lord Cochrane had sent him, with other wounded, in one of the small war-ships down to Valparaiso, and there he was tenderly nursed by Lady Cochrane. It was three months before he fairly recovered his strength, and as soon as he was convalescent he took a berth in a craft that was sailing with stores and provisions for the fleet. They had been out four days when she was caught in a storm on-shore. In vain they tried to beat out; the vessel was a poor sailer, and drifted to leeward faster than she could work to windward.
“What sort of ground tackle have you?” Stephen asked the captain.
“I have two good anchors, señor lieutenant, but the cables are rather old.”
“I should advise you to have them brought up on deck and overhauled, and if you find any specially bad places we can cut them out and splice the ends again.”
The cables were brought up, but it needed a very short examination only to show Stephen that they were old and worn from end to end. “It will go hard with us if we have to rely upon these,” he said. “They would not hold a bluff-bowed craft like this two minutes; the very first roller that struck her would snap them like pack-threads. The worst of it is, captain, that if we escape being drowned we have but the inside of a prison to look to, for we are off the Peruvian coast now, and any of us who get to shore will be seized at once.”
“With such a sea as this, señor, there is little chance of any of us being saved if we once strike. We are now somewhere off the mouth of the San Carlos river. In calm weather there would be water enough on the bar for us to [pg 259]run in, but not now; we should strike and go to pieces to a certainty.”
“Well, that would depend; we might bump over it. But even if we did break up on the bar, we should have a much better chance than we should if we went ashore anywhere else. Instead of being dashed on the beach by the waves, and then being swept out again, we should be likely to be carried on into the still water behind the bar, and so of making our way to shore. There are eight of the crew and ourselves. You had better get up ten small casks—those wine barrels would do very well—let the liquor run off, then bung them up again, and fasten life-lines round them; with their help we should have a fair chance.”
“It is worth trying at any rate,” the captain agreed. “The surf on the bar will be tremendous, but if we could stick to the casks we might get through it.”
“Do you think that you are north or south of it now, captain?”
“North, perhaps two or three miles.”