The next day the weather moderated, and the _Pandora_, being then, as they reckoned, well clear of the Falklands, stood due north for Cape Corrientes with the wind almost on the port beam. That night Joe went down into the lazaret with an auger, and bored three holes in her weather side. "Good stuff and sound," he said, as he sweated over his task. "She might 'ave floated for hever." When he drew out his auger he found that the sea raced past the hole and sometimes flipped water into it. "On a level keel she'll have 'em about two foot under," he said. He plugged that hole and bored two others. When he had plugged these, he went on deck again. There was not a soul awake on her but Geordie and the man at the wheel. She was going now very sweetly, and making ten knots: they were running into fair weather. But she lay over far enough to make it easy for Joe to go over the side, while Geordie slacked him down from a pin in the rail. "It's done," said Joe, as he came on board. "She'll kill no more." It seemed to him that he was doing a good deed, for the _Pandora_ was cruel. And a week later, though they had sighted no land, the colour of the water had changed curiously, and looked a little reddish. When they drew some on board it was evidently not so salt as the sea, and they knew they were in the flood of the mighty Plate. The airs were now light and westerly; they hauled their wind and stood for the north-west. But still the man on the look-out on the main-royal-yard saw no land. In the afternoon they sighted the smoke of a steamer heading about west by south on their starboard beam. They laid their main-topsail to the mast and hoisted the Jack, union down. That night they were at anchor off Monte Video, and in the morning they told their story to the British Consul. But one and all refused at any price and at all costs to go on board of the _Pandora_ again. Joe spoke for all of them. "We'll go to gaol sooner, sir," he said, as he stepped in front of his mates, twiddling his cap nervously, "though we wishes to say so respectfully, sir. She's a man-killer, and it's better a sight to be in the jug, or on the beach, than to be drownded. She's killed my own mate, and more than 'im. And so far back as hany of us ever 'eard of 'er, she's been at the same job. If you please, sir, we'd rather go to gaol." They slept that night ashore, but not in gaol, and next day the owners cabled from England for a new crew to be shipped in her at any price. But no price could induce men to go in her. And on the third night she sank at her moorings in fifteen fathoms of water, and carried her ship-keeper to the bottom. "I told you she'd kill another man yet," said Geordie. But Joe shook his head. "I done what was right. And after all, 'e was on'y a Spaniard, as I said."