“I think so. The whale made the Indian Ocean by way of the Cape of Good Hope.”
“Why?”
“For two reasons. He didn’t go by the Strait of Magellan because the sperm hates soundings, and he didn’t go round the Horn because the water was too cold.”
“Go to the head of the class,” was Lakeum’s remark as he walked away.
These little manifestations of interest in me were particularly pleasing, and assured me that I had, in this fair and just but rather mysterious man, a true friend.
And now the weather became more disagreeable and the ocean more boisterous. The men put on their warmest garments, and the dread of the passage of the Horn was relieved a little by the thought that with favorable weather we should catch a glimpse of the Magellan Clouds and the Southern Cross. And sure enough we did. The Magellan Clouds are nebulæ in the southern part of the heavens—that is, they constitute a beautiful, bright patch in the sky far different from anything I have ever before seen; but the Southern Cross impressed me even more. It is a small constellation of four chief stars forming a cross. The brightest star is the southernmost. The stars are white except the northernmost, which is of an orange color. The constellation looked to me more like a kite than a cross.
Though the weather was severe, the old hands said that we were making an excellent passage and the chances were that we would soon find ourselves in the Pacific Ocean. It was the severest weather I had yet seen, and I thought that, if the passage were an excellent one, I certainly did not care to see a rigorous one. The prediction that we would soon find ourselves in the Pacific did not turn true. We were nearly round the Horn when we met with awful weather. There were sleet and a head wind for ten days. During this time we just held our own. To add to our discomfort, the cook found it difficult to run the galley, and our food was poor and there was not much of it. The distress and misery were shown in every face, and the only cheer came with the announcement that the captain had decided that, if the weather didn’t change for the better on the following day, he was going to turn about and make the Pacific the other way.
“That’s a good many thousand miles,” said Kreelman, “but he won’t make the Pacific that way. He’ll make it as we are headed now.”
“What makes you think so?” I inquired.
“You’ve got some book larnin’, Fancy Chest, but you don’t know everythin’. Did you ever see the moon? I haven’t been to sea for years for nothin’. Well, the moon changes to-morrow in the afternoon. About two o’clock you’ll see the sea go down and the wind shift too, and we’ll go ahead and round into the Pacific a-swimmin’.”