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say die; or, if you must die,--why, die game. That's the doctrine you are always preaching, Kit. Isn't it, now? Tell me!" "But to be frozen or starved to death among these desolate ledges!" muttered Kit. "Is not a cheery prospect, I'll admit," Raed finished for him. "Rather trying to a fellow's philosophy, isn't it?" _Bang!_ "She isn't hit yet," remarked Donovan, who had taken Raed's glass. "She slides on gay as a cricket. I can see the cap'n throwing water with the skeet against the sails to make 'em draw better." "How, for Heaven's sake, did that ship come to get up so near before they saw her?" Kit exclaimed suddenly. We looked off to the west. The dozen straggling islets beyond us extended off in irregular order toward the north-west. "I think," said Raed, "that the ship must have come up a little to the south of those outer islands. Our folks could not have seen her, then, till she came past." "I don't call that the same ship that fired on us a week ago," Weymouth remarked. "Oh, no!" said Kit. "That ship, 'The Rosamond,' can't more than have reached the nearest of the Company's trading-posts by this time." "She probably spoke this ship coming out, and told them to be on the lookout for us," said Raed. "Old Red-face doubtless charged them to give us particular fits," Kit replied. "And they've got us in a tight place, no mistake," Wade remarked gloomily. "We're rusticated up here among the icebergs; sequestered in a cool spot." _Bang!_ "Gracious! I believe that one hit 'The Curlew'!" Donovan exclaimed. "The captain and old Trull--I believe it's Trull--ran aft, and are looking over the taffrail!" Kit pulled out his glass and looked. I had not taken mine, nor had Wade. The schooner was now three or four miles down the straits, and the ship was a good way past us. "No great harm done, I guess," Kit said at length. "The captain ran down into the cabin, but came up a few moments after; and they are standing about the deck as before." "As long as they miss the standing rigging, and don't hit the sails, there's no danger," Raed observed. "That ship is a mighty fast sailer," Weymouth said. "Ought to be, I should think," Donovan replied. "Look at the sail she's got on! They've been getting out studding-sails too. This strong gale drives her along like thunder!" "I don't see that she gains," Raed remarked. "We shall see 'The Curlew' back here for us yet." "Not very soon, I'm
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