laimed the captain, turning
to him: "you had better stay aboard in future."

"I tink so too, sar," said Palmleaf.

The crowd on the shore had grown larger. There could not have been
much less than two hundred of them, we thought. The women and children
had come. A pack of wolves could hardly have made a greater or more
discordant din. We went to dinner, and, after that, lay down to rest a
while; but when we went on deck again at three, P.M., the crowd was
still there, in greater numbers than before.

"I wonder what they can be waiting for so long," said Wade.

There was little or no wind, or we should have weighed anchor and
made off. After watching them a while longer, we went down to read.
But, about four, the captain called us. We went up.

"That was what they were waiting for," said he, pointing off the
starboard quarter.

About a mile below the place where the Esquimaux were collected, a
whole fleet of _kayaks_ were coming along the shore.

"Waiting for their boats," remarked the captain.

"They're coming off to us!"

"Do you suppose they really have hostile intentions?" Raed asked.

"From their movements on shore, and their shouts and howls, I should
say that it was not impossible. No knowing what notions they've got
into their heads about the 'black man.'"

"Likely as not their priests, if they've got any, have told them they
ought to attack us," said Wade.

"There are fifty-seven of those _kayaks_ and three _oomiaks_ coming
along the shore!" said Kit, who had been watching them with a glass.

"Hark! The crowd on shore have caught sight of them! What a yelling!"

"I do really believe they mean to attack us," Raed observed. "This
must be some nasty superstition on their part; some of their religious
nonsense."

"Well, we shall have to defend ourselves," said Kit.

"Of course, we sha'n't let them board us," replied Wade.

"Poor fools!" continued Raed. "It would be too bad if we have to kill
any of them."

"Can't we frighten them out of it in some way?" I inquired.

"Might fire on them with the howitzer," Kit suggested, "with nothing
but powder."

"That would only make them bolder, when they saw that nothing came out
of it," said Capt. Mazard.

"Put in a ball, then," said Kit.

"That would be as bad as shooting them here alongside."

"It might be fired so as not to be very likely to hit them," said
Raed. "Couldn't it, Wade?"

"Yes: might put in a small charge, and skip the ball, ricoch