As for Bernardo, he had now been nearly thirty hours without food; indeed, to be accurate, he had been fifty hours without food, thirty of them in the launch, for we had started work on a maté. If we could have made him hear, he might have attached a line to the life-buoy and floated her off, and we could have sent him back supplies.
We had made certain of another night of discomfort, so we gathered another big pile of firewood. Cattle's leg, that he had strained on the previous day, was giving him much pain. But when the sun was already dipping behind the summits of the Cordillera the storm began to lull. We had little hope that Bernardo could stand out much longer against starvation, so after half an hour, as the seas were going down, we thought it well to try and get off to the launch.
We went down to the beach, and, after much hailing, roused the Swede. By signs I told him to come in as close as he dared, which meant to within twenty or twenty-five yards of the shingle. This time he got her in a better position, and we stripped and waded in with the wood. It took us about forty journeys, and the water was abominably cold. I do not think two men ever worked much harder during the time we were at it, so before very long we were on board with everything.
Fearing to remain near the shore we got up steam, and with exceeding thankfulness bade good-bye to that inhospitable beach. I asked Bernardo how much longer he thought he could have held out. He said two days, and, in fact, appeared to think he had been better off with the blankets and his pipe and the warmth of the fore-hatch than we with food on shore. First and last he was a fine fellow, patient, quiet and hard-working. As to his being better off than Cattle and myself, that was a matter of individual taste, I suppose. As a rule, indeed, the average man will, as far as my experience goes, sacrifice his food to his bed nearly every time, especially when the wind is blowing out of the snows.
Evening soon settled down into night, and we ran on by starlight to our next anchorage, an almost land-locked bay, where we made merry on the remains of the ostrich. I also discovered some flour in the afterhold which had been overlooked, enough to make three small dampers. We were uncommonly glad to resume our rugs that night.
On the 24th we gathered more wood and put to sea. We meant to reach the southern shore of the lake on the Burmeister Peninsula, and there put in to a good anchorage not far from Cattle's headquarters. But to do this it was necessary to pass across Hell-gate, the opening to the north arm or North Fjord of the lake, always a difficult stretch of water owing to the fact that squalls perpetually blew down upon it from the funnel formed by the winding gorges of the upper lake. We soon saw the two dark bluffs beyond which the water wound away behind the outlying buttresses of the mountains, whose snow-caps glimmered against the wintry sky. We did not escape scot-free, for a squall duly caught us, and the tossing sent everything in the launch adrift. We ran by five icebergs and once the pump refused to act, and things looked awkward, but in the end, to make a long story short, we steamed into our shelter, which we called Cow Monte Harbour, and tied up the launch with no small thankfulness, for she was leaking badly through the cracked plate I have before referred to.
As the grass was dry we could not, with safety, make a fire sufficiently large to signal Burbury to bring up the horses, as had been arranged, so we sent on Bernardo with a message. He started off in his big boots and we had no idea of the mischief he was to drop into before we saw him again. He was accustomed to the pampas round about the town of Santa Cruz, where you can light a fire with impunity, but amongst the high grass growing in the valleys of the foothills of the Cordillera a fire is certain to spread over an immense area. Finding the way long, perhaps, Bernardo sent up a brace of smokes as signals. We saw them, and knew at once what was likely to happen.
THE FIRE