"February 21.—It blew pretty hard all through the morning, and the bar of the Leona was quite impassable; but towards evening the wind dropped slightly, so we got up steam and started. We ran out over the bar, fighting our way by inches through the heavy surf, but just beyond it the engine broke down, and we were at the mercy of the wind and waves. It looked as if we were being driven back to certain shipwreck, for the launch could not live in the seas that were breaking on the bar. I cut loose one of the oars which formed our bulwark, and both Cattle and I did what we could to prevent her turning broadside on.
"I was engaged in this work at the stern when I heard Bernardo shout, 'Mr. Preechard! Mr. Preechard!'
"I lay my full length along the deck and looked down at Bernardo in the engine-room. He was holding on to the pump, which was spouting steam and water. There was no room for two people in the engine-room, nor in that angry sea was there much possibility of my getting down there. So I lay along the port decking, and slipped my feet under the after-hatch, thanking Providence for my length, and so managed to hold the pump down while Bernardo tried to repair the damage.
"Every now and then the seas caught us almost broadside on and broke heavily, nearly sweeping me over with them. My head being outside, I could see Cattle clinging on like a cat, and doing all that man could do to keep us from swinging round. We were on the bar, and scarcely twenty yards outside the fiercest of the breakers. As it was, big seas kept sweeping over the launch and crashing on her plates, making her roll appallingly.
"Between us and the shore was from one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards of yeasty surge, dominated by a heavy current setting south. The anchor continued to drag, and we hung on while Bernardo fought with screws and nuts for our lives. While we drifted back over the bar, nearly capsizing as we did so, it became obvious that our only course lay in first getting in the anchor and then putting it out again with a good length of chain. In spite of the almost inconceivable rolling of our craft, Cattle was successful in his attempt to do this, and the launch came prow on to the breakers, which were losing something of their fury as they crashed across the bar, twenty yards in front of us.
"Meantime, Bernardo did not relax his efforts to get the engines working once more. We were, as I have explained, a couple of hundred yards from the shore, towards which the full force of the wind, aided by the current I have mentioned as setting south towards the mouth of the Santa Cruz, was drifting us.
"The anchor dragged again, and we had to undertake the difficult business of getting it in, and taking a second chance of dropping it on better holding ground.
"We were tossing upon the bar for an hour and twenty minutes, during which time poor Bernardo was violently seasick. It made us laugh to hear him apostrophising the launch in the words, 'Be—she make me——' I will not conclude his sentence.
"At length, however, the Swede coaxed the engines into once more performing their appointed duties, and as putting back would have been a more difficult business than going forward, we began to forge slowly ahead. It was now between five and six o'clock, and there was a freezing south-west wind booming out of the Cordillera, but when darkness fell this lulled for a short time and we made the most of our chances to push forward. But, later, it came on to blow heavily, the seas rose high and short, and in the night-sky overhead only a few stars were visible through the racing clouds. The wind veered to the south-west, and we were off a lee shore set with rocks and icebergs, and there was no anchorage for another twelve miles at least.
"The wind again veered a point to the southward after a time, and it soon became evident that the launch, quivering and swept continually by the waves, was making but little headway, while our stock of fuel was growing low, and would not last us for the run to the anchorage.