l, leading me in the end to this dark
spot?" I sprang aft again, unheeding the flapping sail, and threw the
wheel over, expecting, as the sloop came down into the hollow of a
wave, to feel her timbers smash under me on the rocks. But at the
touch of her helm she swung clear of the danger, and in the next
moment she was in the lee of the land.

[Illustration: A glimpse of Sandy Point (Punta Arenas) in the Strait
of Magellan.]

It was the small island in the middle of the bay for which the sloop
had been steering, and which she made with such unerring aim as nearly
to run it down. Farther along in the bay was the anchorage, which I
managed to reach, but before I could get the anchor down another
squall caught the sloop and whirled her round like a top and carried
her away, altogether to leeward of the bay. Still farther to leeward
was a great headland, and I bore off for that. This was retracing my
course toward Sandy Point, for the gale was from the southwest.

I had the sloop soon under good control, however, and in a short time
rounded to under the lee of a mountain, where the sea was as smooth as
a mill-pond, and the sails flapped and hung limp while she carried her
way close in. Here I thought I would anchor and rest till morning, the
depth being eight fathoms very close to the shore. But it was
interesting to see, as I let go the anchor, that it did not reach the
bottom before another williwaw struck down from this mountain and
carried the sloop off faster than I could pay out cable. Therefore,
instead of resting, I had to "man the windlass" and heave up the
anchor with fifty fathoms of cable hanging up and down in deep water.
This was in that part of the strait called Famine Reach. Dismal Famine
Reach! On the sloop's crab-windlass I worked the rest of the night,
thinking how much easier it was for me when I could say, "Do that
thing or the other," than now doing all myself. But I hove away and
sang the old chants that I sang when I was a sailor. Within the last
few days I had passed through much and was now thankful that my state
was no worse.

It was daybreak when the anchor was at the hawse. By this time the
wind had gone down, and cat's-paws took the place of williwaws, while
the sloop drifted slowly toward Sandy Point. She came within sight of
ships at anchor in the roads, and I was more than half minded to put
in for new sails, but the wind coming out from the northeast, which
was fair for the other direc