Never have I seen a more glorious sunset than we now had. To gaze on that splendid medley of light and colour, that hung over the western hills, seemed to give one a foretaste of the beauty of heaven itself. But with all its dazzling, thrilling loveliness, it did not make us feel happy. At all events it kept us silent.
Next day, early, we reached Sandy Point. A strange wee town of long, low wooden huts with shingle roofs, a little church, a great prison, and a ricketty pier, very foreign-looking, and not at all elevating to the mind. But the gentleman—a Chilian he was—who came off to transact business with Captain Coates was the quintessence of politeness, doubly distilled.
We had to stop two hours here, so Jill and I, with Mrs Coates, went on shore to see the giants, and buy guanaco skins for our friends at home.
The giants were not in. At least I saw none of them. But there were shops, and I fear that both Jill and I spent more money on ostrich feathers than we had any right to do.
Early in the afternoon we once more weighed anchor, and stood away down the Reach, the breeze keeping steadily up all day, but, unfortunately for us, going down with the sun. It was my watch from twelve till four; the moon did not shine out brightly to-night, being obscured with clouds, a by no means unusual occurrence in this dreary region.
Jill did not keep me company either; he was tired, he said, and had turned early in. Perhaps it was this fact that was the occasion of my strange depression of spirits, a depression which I could neither walk off nor talk off, nor gambol off, albeit I tried hard to do so with our dogs, the beautiful deerhound and collie. They indeed appeared as little inclined for play to-night as I had ever seen them.
“They seems to have something on their minds,” said Ritchie, a sturdy old sailor who had sailed the seas off and on for twenty years.
“You’re not superstitious, Ritchie?” I asked.
Ritchie took three or four pulls at his pipe before he replied.
“I dunno, young sir, what you’d call superstitious, but I’ve seen some queer things in my time, and something was sure to ’appen arterwards. Once, sir—”