Very little occurred to relieve the monotony of the voyage through the Southern Pacific. Dave, however, had not been at sea long enough to get over the novelty of it all. They had left Cape Horn about four thousand miles astern when the look-out one day reported a sail on the port bow. An hour later Captain Chisholm altered his course, observing that the ship was flying a signal for assistance. As the _Pacific Queen_ drew near it was seen that the distressed vessel was a bark named the _Polly E. Perkins_, with every stitch of canvas set. There was very little wind and the sails flapped lazily. The _Polly E. Perkins_ reported that she had been nearly two months beating her way from New Zealand against adverse winds, and was now running out of water. The crew was already on short rations. Captain Chisholm sent a supply of the precious liquid and then, on learning that he could render no further assistance, steamed once more westward, leaving the bark to resume her trying trip. “Take my tip and never sign on an old wind-jammer,” Barnes said to Dave as the other vessel dropped astern. “It’s a dog’s life on a steamer, anyway, but I’d hate to tell you what it’s like on them floatin’ coffins.” Dave smiled, remembering that the old mariner with the paint brush at Brooklyn had spoken disparagingly of the “new-fangled steam contraptions.” “Hang you for a lubber,” spluttered the cook, “laughin’ at me that’s old enough to be teaching your grandfather. If you don’t hop off this ship when we touch Auckland I’ll report you to the cap’n and have you fired for impidence.” “I was only thinking of another sea-going man, older than you, who said he preferred sailing craft,” said Dave, whereupon the cook proceeded to tell some horrifying stories of wind-jammers that had drifted into that strange region known as the Sargasso Sea and remained there helpless for years until the starving crew fought among one another, even for the rats in the hold, before they perished miserably. “But if they all died how do you know they fought for the rats?” Dave asked. “The cap’n has to enter such things in the log,” replied Barnes acidly, determined not to be beaten. “I remember the time, when I was a youngster at sea, when people who asked half as many silly questions as you do would have been put in irons and fed on salt water.” As the _Pacific Queen_ neared Auckland, Dave wound up a long letter which he had been writing to his father, bit by bit, ever since he left Brooklyn. It was characteristic of the lad that he said very little of such hardships as he had encountered. He explained that he was going to join another ship, and added hopefully that he would find one homeward bound if possible, little dreaming of the strange adventures that were before him ere he could cross the threshold of his home again. CHAPTER VII THE WRECKING OF THE KINGFISHER