Still, undaunted by conditions which suggested the plight of a doomed craft being hurried to the lip of a cataract, keen eyes searched the frowning coast-line for one of the many estuaries which pierced the land, some merely the mouths of short-lived rivers, others again carrying the ocean currents to the very base of the Andes.
At last an opening did seem to present itself. The great rock walls, springing sheer from sea level to a height of a thousand feet or more, fell apart, and, so far as might be judged, a wide and deep channel flowed inland.
It was at this crisis, when life or death for all on board might depend on the veriest trifle, that the captain had to decide whether or not to let go both anchors and endeavor to ride out the gale.
He was an experienced and cool-headed sailor. He knew quite well that the odds were heavy against an anchor holding in such ground, or, if it held, against any cable standing the strain of a six-thousand-ton ship in that terrific sea. But, as Maseden learned subsequently, he sought advice.
The first and second officers were consulted in turn, and each confirmed their chief’s opinion that the only practicable course was to run into the passage which still offered a comparatively clear way ahead.
So the Southern Cross sped on.
The second officer came forward with some of the crew to superintend the dropping of the anchor. The fourth officer took charge of the aft anchor. All other members of the crew stood by the boats.
Maseden, feeling oddly remote and unclassed among men of his own race, followed the second officer to the forecastle deck. There, at least, he could stare his fill at the inferno of rock and broken water which the vessel was approaching, though even his landsman’s eyes saw that she was in a waterway of considerable width, while each mile now traversed must tend to diminish the seas and bring a secure anchorage within the bounds of possibility.
No one paid heed to him. Among these stolid sailor-men he was a “Dago,” a somewhat dandified specimen of the swaggering vaqueros they had met at times in the drinking dens of South American ports. He was minded to have speech with the second officer, and proclaim once and for all that he was of the same kith and kin; but the impulse was stayed by a glance at the set, resolute face, intent only on obeying a signal from the captain. It was no time for confidences. He questioned even if the sailor would have answered.