A huge mass of water fell on deck and washed a man, named Johnson, overboard. He was one of Davis’s friends, and had been cut by Gonzales. He remained within ten fathoms of the plunging ship for fully five minutes, but nothing could be done for him.
Three days passed before the gale eased and swung to the southward, and the high land of Tierra del Fuego was then in plain sight under the lee.
The man Davis was dead, and he was dropped overboard as soon as the gale slacked enough to permit walking on the main-deck. Sail was made, in spite of the heavy sea, and the ship headed away to the northward, at last, with a crew almost dead from exposure. Everything was put on forward, starting at a reefed foresail, until finally on the second day she was tearing along under a maintop-gallant-sail.
The well was then sounded, and it was found she was making water so fast that the pumps could just keep her afloat. Six days after this she came logging into Valparaiso with her decks almost awash. A tug came alongside and relieved a crew of men who looked more like a set of swollen corpses than anything else. Men with arms blue and puffed to bursting from the steady work at the pump-brakes, their jaws set and faces seamed and lined with the strain, dropped where they stood beside the welling pump-lead upon the deck.
They had weathered the Cape and saved the ship with her cargo of railroad iron, for they had stood to it, and steam took the place of brawn just as the water began lapping around the hatch combings. O’Toole approached Garnett as they started to turn in for a rest after the fracas.
“There’s a curse aboard us, Garnett. Come here!” said the mate. He led the way into the cabin, and pointed to the open door of the stewardess’s room.
“It’s a good thing to be a woman,” growled Garnett. “Just think of a man being able to turn in and sleep peaceful-like that way, hey? Stave me, but I’d like to turn in for a week and sleep like that,” and he looked at the quiet form in the bunk.
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t a good thing to be a woman,” said O’Toole, quietly. “Faith, it may be a good thing to be woman, but as for me, I’ll take me place as a man, an’ no begrudgin’. Moll is dead, man,—been dead for two days gone. The owld man ain’t said nothin’, for he wanted to bring her ashore, dacent an’ quiet like. She bruk into th’ medicin’-chist off th’ Straits.”
Garnett removed his cap, and wiped the dent in the top of his bald head.
“Ye don’t say!” he said, slowly. Then he was silent a moment while they both looked into the room. Garnett put up his handkerchief and rubbed his head again.