At Last, Patagonia / 3 
save myself, or else perish with them in that awful 
white surf. But one other person, more experienced 
than myself, and whose courage took another and 
better form, was also near and listening. He was 
the first engineer—a young Englishman from New- 
castle-on-Tyne. Seeing the men making for the 
boat, he slipped out of the engine-room, revolver in 
hand, and secretly followed them; and when the 
mate gave that order, he stepped forward with the 
weapon raised, and said in a quiet but determined 
voice that he would shoot the first man who should 
attempt to obey it. The men slunk away and 
disappeared in the gloom. In a few moments more 
the passengers began streaming out on to the deck 
in a great state of alarm; last of all the old cap- 
tain, white and hollow-eyed from his death-bed, 
appeared like a ghost among us. He had not been 
long standing there, with arms folded on his chest, 
issuing no word of command, and paying no atten- 
tion to the agitated questions addressed to him by 
the passengers, when, by some lucky chance, the 
steamer got off the rocks and plunged on for a 
space through the seething, milky surf; then, very 
suddenly, passed out of it into black and com- 
paratively calm water. For ten or twelve minutes 
she sped rapidly and smoothly on; then it was 
said that she had ceased to move, that we were 
stuck fast in the sand of the shore, although no 
shore was visible in the intense darkness, and to me 
it seemed that we were still moving swiftly on. 
There was no longer any wind, and through the 
B 2 
