Two Sailor Lads by Gordon Stables

In a fortnight's time the _San Salvador_ had placed at least one thousand miles betwixt her and the Cape of Good Hope. This was looked upon by Captain Cawdor as fair running, considering the wild weather the barque experienced. They had put out to sea on a glorious summer's day, on the wings of a gentle breeze, the hills behind them purple and green with vegetation and flowers; white-winged gulls sailing around them in the sky or floating on the hardly ruffled breast of ocean, the good old ship seeming to wish to linger near that lovely land. But hardly had the last seagull shrieked its wild farewell, and night and darkness begun to fall over the waves, than it could be seen, from the rising clouds, the moaning wind, and incessant sheets of lightning, that a tempest was brewing. So sail had been at once shortened, and everything done that could be done to secure safety and comfort for the night. Luckily the wind had come from the right quarter, so that although it blew big guns, and though green seas were shipped over the bows and came roaring aft, the good ship went tearing on, and daylight saw her staggering almost under bare poles, amidst such a chaos of mountain waves as probably is only to be seen in one part of the world, and that the ocean regions round the Cape.

And from that very day, all along, the wind had never entirely ceased to rage and roar, nor stormy seas to dash around the ship. She was always half battened down, especially forward, where in galley and mess-places lamps had to be burned all day long, and where, even down below, the decks were never dry. Little do boys who long to be sailors know of the hardships that men before the mast, aye, and apprentices also, have to endure in such latitudes as these, when the ship is far, far from land, and when no one knows or can guess what fate has in store for himself or his ship.