And then the _Elsinore’s_ bow paid off. The angle of the beat of the gale changed, and soon, with dreadful speed, we were dashing straight before it and straight toward the rocks we could not see. But all doubt was over. The success of the manoeuvre was assured. Mr. Mellaire, informed by messenger along the bridge from Mr. Pike, slacked off the head-yards. Mr. Pike, his eye on the helmsman, his hand signalling the order, had the wheel put over to port to check the _Elsinore’s_ rush into the wind as she came up on the starboard tack. All was activity. Main- and mizzen-yards were braced up, and the _Elsinore_, snugged down and hove to, had a lee of thousands of miles of Southern Ocean. And all this had been accomplished in the stamping ground of storm, at the end of the world, by a handful of wretched weaklings, under the drive of two strong mates, with behind them the placid will of the Samurai. It had taken thirty minutes to wear ship, and I had learned how the best of shipmasters can lose their ships without reproach. Suppose the _Elsinore_ had persisted in her refusal to payoff? Suppose anything had carried away? And right here enters Mr. Pike. It is his task ever to see that every rope and block and all the myriad other things in the vast and complicated gear of the _Elsinore_ are in strength not to carry away. Always have the masters of our race required henchmen like Mr. Pike, and it seems the race has well supplied those henchmen. Ere I went below I heard Captain West tell Mr. Pike that while both watches were on deck it would be just as well to put a reef in the foresail before they furled it. The mainsail and the crojack being off, I could see the men black on the fore-yard. For half-an-hour I lingered, watching them. They seemed to make no progress with the reef. Mr. Mellaire was with them, having direct supervision of the job, while Mr. Pike, on the poop, growled and grumbled and spat endless blasphemies into the flying air. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Two watches on a single yardarm and unable to put a reef in a handkerchief like that!” he snorted. “What’ll it be if we’re off here a month?” “A month!” I cried. “A month isn’t anything for Cape Stiff,” he said grimly. “I’ve been off here seven weeks and then turned tail and run around the other way.” “Around the world?” I gasped. “It was the only way to get to ’Frisco,” he answered. “The Horn’s the Horn, and there’s no summer seas that I’ve ever noticed in this neighbourhood.” My fingers were numb and I was chilled through when I took a last look at the wretched men on the fore-yard and went below to warm up. A little later, as I went in to table, through a cabin port I stole a look for’ard between seas and saw the men still struggling on the freezing yard.