the others astarn. Look
yonder! Thar's more o' 'em puttin' out ahint--the things air
everywhar!"

"'Twill be safer to run on, then, you think?"

"I do, sir. B'sides, thar's no help for 't now. It's our only chance,
an' it ain't sech a bad un, eyther. I guess we kin do it yit."

"Lay out to your oars, then, my lads," cries the skipper, steering as he
has been advised. "Pull your best, all!"

A superfluous command that, for already they are straining every nerve,
all awake to the danger drawing nigh. Never in their lives were they in
greater peril, never threatened by a fate more fearful than that
impending now. For, as the canoes come nearer, it can be seen that
there are only men in them; men of fierce aspect, every one of them
armed.

"Nary woman nor chile!" mutters Seagriff, as though talking to himself.
"Thet means war, an' the white feathers stickin' up out o' thar skulls,
wi' thar faces chalked like circus clowns! War to the knife, for
sartin!"

Still other, if not surer, evidences of hostility are the spears
bristling above their heads, and the slings in their hands, into which
they are seen slipping stones to be ready for casting. Their cries,
too, shrilling over the water, are like the screams of rapacious birds
about to pounce on prey which they know cannot escape them.

And now the canoes are approaching mid-channel, closing in from either
side _en echelon_, and the boat must pass between them. Soon she has
some of them abeam, with others on the bows. It is running the
gauntlet, with apparently a very poor chance of running it safely. The
failure of an oar-stroke, a retarding whiff of wind, may bring death to
those in the gig, or capture, which is the same. Yet they see life
beyond, if they can but reach it,--life in a breeze, the "sough" on the
water, of which Seagriff spoke. It is scarcely two cables' length
ahead. Oh, that it were but one! Still they have hope, as the old
sealer shouts encouragingly, "We may git into it yet. Pull, boys; pull
wi' might an' main!"

His words spur them to a fresh effort, and the boat bounds on, the oars
almost lifting her out of the water. The canoes abeam begin to fall
astern, but those on the bows are forging dangerously near, while the
savages in them, now on their feet, brandish spears and wind their
slings above their heads. Their fiendish cries and furious gestures,
with their ghastly chalked faces, give them an appearance more demoniac
th