“I can’t say as I admires the parson much, neither,” answered Bill. “He looks almighty severe, he does. I’d hate to sign articles with a craft he was skipper of; he’d hang two or three to the fore yard-arm every morning, just for the fun of the thing.” “I’m agreed on that, Bill. But look—the old boy’s goin’ up them steps.” The minister entered the pulpit; the sermon was about to begin. The members of the congregation settled back in their seats with looks of expectant interest (or resignation) as the reverend gentleman gave a preparatory cough. After adjusting his spectacles and calmly surveying his flock, he announced: “Brethren, my discourse this afternoon will be from the text, ‘Abraham, Abraham, what is in thy bosom?’” The two sailors convulsively grasped the pew cushions as they exchanged glances of consternation. “Good G—, Bill!” whispered Abe, “the parson knows I stole that duff!” Bill sat as though petrified, and the silence in the house of worship was such that you could have heard a pin drop. After giving the congregation a few seconds to digest his words, the pastor brushed a troublesome fly from his nose, and repeated more slowly and impressively, “Abraham, Abraham, what is in thy bosom?” This was too much for Abe, who jumped to his feet exclaiming: “You know I’ve got it, parson, so, d— you, take it!” Suiting the action to the word, he hurled the duff at the astounded minister, and followed by Bill, fled incontinently from the church. ROUNDING CAPE HORN. CHAPTER I. [Picture: Rounding Cape Horn] The full-rigged American ship _Sagamore_ was now sixty-seven days out from New York bound for San Francisco, and on this September evening in one of the closing years of the nineteenth century, she was flying along in the South Atlantic under a stiff top-gallant breeze, at a rate that no steamer in that part of the world could eclipse, if, indeed, any could equal. With the wind a trifle abaft the beam, yards well off the backstays, and showers of spray whirling over the weather bulwarks to leeward, the stately ship swept on—an animated picture of whose majesty and grace no one may conceive who has not seen a large square-rigged vessel driving through the water at full speed. To the right, scarce fifty miles away, stretched the bleak and inhospitable coast of Patagonia; to the left, equally distant, lay the rugged and desolate Falkland Islands; behind, growing every instant more remote, were civilization and government; while ahead lay an almost boundless waste of storm-swept waters frowned upon by grim Cape Horn itself—firm ruler of a region which for three centuries has tried the patience of mariners, and tested the endurance of the stoutest ships that man can build.