This village was probably one of the largest in the islands which constitute the Tierra del Fuego group. It consisted of nearly nine hundred huts in all, some well-built and comparatively comfortable. First and foremost it was looted, a large cargo of precious skins being secured. Some bows and arrows, spears, etc, were taken as curios; then, just as the sun was sinking red behind the sea, every hut and house was fired.
The blaze was tremendous; and back to the ship, by means of its light, the boats were steered. A breeze having sprung up increased the magnificence of the conflagration, and the sparks, like showers of golden snow, were carried far inland and up the mountain sides.
No wonder that Matty was clapping her wee hands and crowing with delight at the beauty of the “bonfire,” as she called it.
Happy indeed were the adventurers when the breeze waxed steadier and stronger. It blew from the west, too. The anchors were quickly hoisted, the ship’s head turned to the east, and before two days had fled she had wormed her way out once more into the open ocean. The engines had by this time been repaired, but were not now needed, for the breeze, though abeam, was steady, and good progress was made.
A few days more, and the wind having died down, clear sky by day, star-studded at night, and with sharp frost, the Wolverine was once more under steam and forcing her way round the storm-tormented Horn. For the waves are ofttimes houses high here when no wind is blowing, and they break and toss their white spray far over the green and glittering sides of the snow-clad bergs.
“And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold;
And ice mast-high came floating by,
As green as emerald.
“The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around;
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound.”
But at this time a greater danger than that from the ice was threatening, for Norman the Finn was hatching mutiny. Verily a curse seemed to follow the ship wherever she went.