After our return to the ship, Jimmy was continually coaxing me to remain in Peru with him, and live among the natives for a while. I was anxious to get to San Francisco, but no ships in harbour were bound in that direction, although a number arrived from there, loading with guano and going around Cape Horn. At last I promised to go with Jimmy. He had eighty dollars due him, and I twelve, but the captain would not discharge us and pay us off. Then we got mad and determined to go anyway. We got our clothes packed up in bags, ready for any chance we could get to leave the ship. With the ship's telescope we took a good look at the shores of the bay. At one place the beach looked as if it would be a good landing-place for us; it appeared like the edge of a mill-pond. Our chance soon came. The boat had not been hoisted up out of the water, as was customary, but had been left overnight fastened to the ship's side. Each sailor in turn had to stand "anchor watch" during the night for one hour. He would then wake up his relief and go to bed. There was a Dutchman whose turn would be at three o'clock in the morning. I told him when he was called to awaken me, then he could go to sleep again, as Jimmy and I had to make fresh bread for breakfast, and we would do the anchor watching. Sure enough, "Dutchy" woke me up; then I called Jimmy, and in a short time we had our clothes in the boat, also a good double-barrelled shotgun, a pair of pistols, a silver watch, and a couple of dozen of clean shirts belonging to the captain. We wished to have something for the money that was due us. Away we went for the landing-place that we had selected. It was dark, and quite difficult to see the beach; it appeared to us as though we were close to a wall, several feet high, of rocks. The noise of the surf also made us careful about landing. At last we discovered that it was low tide, and the wall was only the wet cobble-stones left uncovered at low water. We pulled hard, so as to run through the surf, and we went up the beach on a heavy roller. Jimmy stood in the bow of the boat, ready to jump and hold the rope, or "painter," as it is called, as the surf receded. He was a little slow in jumping, consequently the boat went back with the surf in a hurry, Jimmy's feet went from under him, and he landed head first on the rocks. The next roller brought the boat in again; this time we succeeded, and got everything on land. The boat was pushed out in the surf, and was found the next day floating bottom up. We heard afterward that it was reported we had both been drowned.