'I love you too much,' replied Will Ryder. He put his arm about her, but she was cross, and pushed him away.
'This is mutiny,' said the captain, smiling.
'Well, I feel mutinous,' retorted Connie. 'I wanted you to steal two of your cousin's men and you wouldn't. I'm sure they would have come for what the Battle-Axe owed them. And you wouldn't. And now I want to go through the Straits and you won't. The very, very next time that I want to do anything I shall do it without asking you. Why did you bet a hundred pounds if you weren't prepared to try to win it?'
'We'll win yet,' said the skipper, cheerfully. 'We've only just started.'
The two vessels kept company right down to the Horn, and there, between Ildefonso Island and the Diego Ramirez Islands, the Star of the South lost sight of her sister and rival in a dark sou'westerly gale. With the wind astern when they squared away with Cape Horn frowning to the nor'west, the Star was a shooting star, as they said for'ard.
'If we could on'y carry a gale like this right to the Line we'd 'ave a pull over the Battle-Axe, ma'am,' said Silas Bagge, an old fo'c'sle-man, who was Mrs. Ryder's favourite among all the crew. He was a magnificent old chap, with a long white beard, which he wore tucked inside a guernsey, except in fine weather.
'But we can't; there'll be the Trades,' said the captain's wife dolorously.
'I've picked up the sou'east Trade blowin' a gale, ma'am, before now,' said Bagge; 'years ago, in '74 or thereabouts, I was in the Secunderabad, and we crossed the Line bound south, doing eleven close-'auled, and we carried 'em to 27° south latitude. There's times when it is difficult to say where the Trades begin south, too. Mebbe we'll be chased by such a gale as this nigh up to 30° south.'
'It's hoping too much,' said Mrs. Ryder.
'Hope till ye bust, ma'am,' said Silas Bagge. 'Nothin''s lost till it's won. If we can only get out of the doldrums without breakin' our hearts working the ship, there's no knowing what'll 'appen. 'Twas a pity we didn't get them other two 'ands, though.'