Chapter 17

They doubled Cape Horn, and came to Valparaiso. But, on the morning they
were to enter the harbour, Salvé, to his intense exasperation, was put
under arrest. The captain found him too useful in keeping the crew in
order forward, and therefore took the most effectual means of preventing
him from putting into execution his declared determination to leave the
ship on their arrival at that port.

After leaving Valparaiso they called at the Chincha Islands, took in a
cargo of guano for China, and shaped their course then eastward across
the calm southern ocean, whose lonely monotony was only broken by the
occasional appearance of one of the larger kind of sea-birds, or by the
distant spouting of a whale. On board, however, the same peace was far
from prevailing. That little nut-shell that crept like a dot across the
limitless expanse of waters was a little floating hell, where every evil
passion raged from morning until night; and it was only by secretly
fomenting discord and divisions among the crew that the officers could
sleep with any sense of security in their berths. As it was, a large
section of them, with the Irishman at their head, had a project on hand
for murdering their officers, and converting the ship into a whaling
vessel. And even Salvé, in moments of bitterness and indignation at the
tyranny to which he was subjected by these men, whose lives were at the
mercy of the crew, would sometimes entertain the thought of joining with
the mutineers, who were restrained from carrying out their designs
mainly by the fear which he had inspired, and by the refusal of his
sanction. Many a desperate struggle with himself he went through when
one of his tyrants passed him on deck in the dark, and the temptation to
stick a knife into his back would rise strong within him, and almost
master him. The other's life hung upon a hair, and Salvé knew it; but
that hair was stronger than he thought. Elizabeth's face, and the still
unexhausted might of early impressions, made him always shrink from the
thought of having a murder on his conscience, and to that depth he never
fell, deteriorated though his character gradually became, from daily
association with everything that was vile, to that degree that he lost
all power of believing in the existence of good amongst his
fellow-creatures, or in a higher Power.

We need follow no further this dark period of his life. After a year and
a half on board the Stars and Stripes, and many a wild scene of
turbulence and riot, he brought his connection with her to a close at
last at New Orleans, where the accumulation of his wages was handed over
to him.

The life on board the other vessels in which he afterwards served did
not differ greatly from that