g for
us as soon as they caught our hail.

In another five minutes, it seemed, but perhaps it was much less--the
tension on one's nerves sometimes making an interval of suspense appear
much longer than it really is--the _Esmeralda's_ jolly-boat was
alongside our little raft, with the two of us tumbled into the stern-
sheets, amidst a chorus of congratulations and handshakings from
Jorrocks, who was acting as coxswain; and, before we realised almost
that we were rescued, we were safe on board the old ship again.

It was all like a dream, passing quite as rapidly!

The skipper, when I climbed the side ladder which had been put over for
us, assisted up by a dozen pairs of willing hands, almost hugged me, and
the crew gave me three cheers, which of course gratified my pride; but,
what I valued beyond the praises bestowed on me for jumping overboard
after Mr Macdougall--which was a mere act of physical courage which
might have been performed by any water-dog, as I told Jorrocks--was the
consciousness that I had made a friend of one who had previously been my
enemy, returning good for evil. It was owing to this only, I fervently
believe, that my life was preserved in that perilous swim!

Mr Macdougall was ill for some days afterwards, the shock and exposure
nearly killing him; still, before the end of the week he was able to
return to duty, a much changed man in every respect. Thenceforth, he
treated the men with far greater consideration than previously, and he
was really so painfully humble to me that I almost wished once or twice
that he would be his bumptious, dogmatic old self again. However, it
was all for the best, perhaps, for we all got on very sweetly together
now, without friction, and harmony reigned alike on the poop and in the
fo'c's'le.

The south-easterly wind, which had sprung up so fortunately for our
rescue, lasted the _Esmeralda_ until she had run down the coast of
Patagonia to Cape Tres Puntas, some three hundred and twenty miles to
the northward of the Virgins, as the headlands are called that mark the
entrance to the Straits of Magellan.

Of course, our skipper did not intend to essay this short cut into the
Pacific, which is only really practicable for steamers, as the currents
through the different channels are dangerous in the extreme, and the
winds not to be relied on, chopping round at a moment's notice, and
causing a ship to drop her anchor in all sorts of unexpected places; but
he inten