From the information they have gained about the Yapoos, which shows them
to be ferocious and treacherous, and hostile to white men, Captain Gancy
decides upon running out to seaward through the Murray Narrow--a resolve
in harmony with the advice given him by his Fuegian host and the trusted
Seagriff as well. The inlet in which they are is just outside the
entrance to the Narrow, on its western side, and once round a separating
tongue of land, they will be in it. As if fortune favoured their taking
this route instead of following the Beagle Channel, a fine breeze has
set in from almost due north, and is still blowing when the spoil-laden
hunters return.
To take advantage of it, immediate departure must be made, and is
determined upon. Down comes the tent, and its component parts are
transferred to the boat with all their other belongings. Enough, also,
of the guanaco meal to last them for a much longer voyage than they hope
to have the necessity of making.
What if they make no voyage at all? What if they are not even allowed
to embark? But why should these questions occur to them?--for they do
occur.
Because, just as they all have come down to the boat, and are preparing
to step into it, something is seen on the water outside, near the
opposite shore of the channel, which painfully suggests to them a fleet
of canoes crowded with men, and evidently making across for the cove.
"The Yapoos!" exclaims Orundelico in a voice betokening great alarm.
But not so great as when, the instant after, he again cries out:
"O Lor'! The Oensmen 'long with them!"
Captain Gancy, quickly covering the canoes with his glass, makes out,
what is yet undistinguishable by the naked eye of any other than a
Fuegian, that there are two sorts of men in them, quite different in
appearance; unlike in form, facial aspect, dress--everything. Above
all, are they dissimilar in size, some being of gigantic stature; the
others alongside of them appearing like pigmies! The latter are seated
or bent down working the paddles; while the big men stand erect, each
with an ample robe of skin hanging toga-like from his shoulders,
cloaking him from neck to ankles.
It is seen, also, that the canoes are lashed two and two, like
double-keeled catamarans, as though the heavy stalwart Oensmen dare not
trust themselves to embark in the ordinary Fuegian craft.
"O Lor', O Lor'!" repeats Orundelico, shivering from crown to toe. "The
Oensmen, shoo'. The time of year they come plunder; now _oosho_ [red
leaf]. They rob, kill, murder us all if we stay here. Too late now get
pass um. They meet us yonner. We must run to hills; hide in woods."
The course he counsels is already being taken by his compatriots; all of
whom, men and women, on hearing the word "Oensmen"--the most terrifying
bogey of their babyhood--have made a rush to the wigwams and hastily
gathered up the most portable of their household goods. Nor do they
stay for Jemmy; but all together, shouting and screaming, strike off
into the woods--his own wife with them!
Orundelico, left alone with the boat's people, remains by them but for a
brief moment, urging them to flight also.
"Oensmen bad--very bad," he keeps affirming. "They worse than
Ailikoleep--more cruel. Kill you all if you stay here. Come hide in
the woods--there you safe."
"What's to be done?" interrogates the captain, as usual appealing to
Seagriff. "If we retreat inland, we shall lose the boat--even if we
save ourselves."
"Sartain, we'd lose her, and I don't think thar's need to. Let me hev
another look through yer glass, capting."
A hasty glance enables him to make a rough estimate of the distance
between the cove's mouth and the approaching canoes.
"I guess we kin do it," he says, with a satisfied air.
"Do what?"
"Git out o' this cove 'fore they shet us up in it. Ef we kin but make
'roun' that p'int eastart we'll be safe. Besides, it ain't at all
likely we could escape t'other way, seein' how we're hampered."
This, with a side glance toward Mrs Gancy and Leoline:
"On land they'd soon overtake us, hide or no hide--sure to. Tharfer,
our best, our _only_ chance, air by the water," he affirms.
"By the water be it, then," calls out Captain Gancy, decisively. "We
shall risk it!"
"Yes, yes!" agreed the late _Calypso's_ second and third officers.
"Anything but lose our boat!"
Never did crew or passengers get more quickly on board a craft, nor was
there ever a more unceremonious leave-taking between guests and host,
than that between the castaways and Orundelico.
On his side, the hurry is even greater: he scarcely waits, as it were on
the doorstep, to see them off. For as soon as he is convinced they are
really going, he turns his back on them and hastily darts in among the
trees like a chased squirrel.
The instant that everybody is in the boat it is shot out into the water
like an arrow from a bow, and brought head around, like a teetotum.
Then, with the four oars in the hands of four men who work them with
strength and will, it goes gliding, ay, fairly bounding, on for the
outside channel.
Again it is a pull for very life, and they know it. If they had any
doubt of it before, there can be none now, for as they draw near to the
entrance of the cove they see the canoes spreading out to intercept
them. The big fierce-looking men, too, are in a state of wild
excitement, evidently purposing an attack. They cast off their skin
wraps from their shoulders, displaying their naked bronze bodies and
arms, like those of a Colossus. Each has in his hand what appears to be
a bit of cord uniting two balls, about the size of small oranges. It is
the bolas, an innocent-_looking_ thing, but in reality a missile weapon
as deadly in practised hands as a grenade or bomb-shell. That the giant
savages intend casting them is clear. Their gestures leave no room for
doubting it; they are only waiting until the boat is near enough.
The fugitives are well-nigh despairing, for she is almost near enough
now. Less than two cables' lengths are between her and the foremost of
the canoes, each holding a course straight toward the other. It seems
as though they _must_ meet. Forty strokes more, and the boat will be
among the canoes. Twenty will bring her within reach of the bolas.
And the strokes are given; but no longer to propel it in that direction,
for the point of the land spit is now on her beam, the helm is put
hard-a-port, bringing the boat's head round with a sharp sheer to
starboard, and she is clear of the cove!
The mast being already stepped, Ned and Henry now drop their oars and
hasten to hoist sail. But ere the yard can be run up to the masthead,
there comes a whizzing, booming sound--and it is caught in the _bolas_!
The mast is struck too, and the balls, whirling around and around, lash
it and the yard together, with the frumpled canvas between, as tight as
a spliced spar!
And now dismay fills the hearts of the boat's people: all chance of
escape seems gone. Two of their oars for the time are idle, and the
sail, as it were, fast furled. But no: it is loose again! for, quick as
thought, Harry Chester has drawn his knife, and, springing forward, cut
the lapping cord with one rapid slash. With equal promptness Ned Gancy,
having the halyards still in hand, hoists away, the sheet is hauled taut
aft, the sail instantly fills, and off goes the boat, like an impatient
steed under loosened rein and deep-driven spurs--off and away, in gay
careering dance over the water, quickly leaving the foiled, furious
giants far--hopelessly far--in the wake!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was the last peril encountered by the castaways that claims record
here. What came after were but the ordinary dangers to which an open
boat is exposed when skirting along a rock-bound storm-beaten coast,
such as that which forms the southern and western borders of Tierra del
Fuego. But still favoured by the protecting hand of Heaven, they passed
unharmed through all, reaching Good Success Bay by noon of the third day
after.
There were their hearts made glad by the sight of a ship at anchor
inshore, Seagriff still further rejoicing on recognising it as a sealing
vessel, the very one on which, years before, he had cruised while
chasing the fur-coated amphibia through the waters of Fireland.
Yet another and greater joy is in store for them all--a very thrill of
delight--as, pulling up nearer to the ship, they see a large boat--a
pinnace--swinging by its painter at her side, with the name _Calypso_
lettered on its stern. Over the ship's rail, too, is seen a row of
familiar faces--those of their old shipmates, whom they feared they
might never see again. There are they all--Lyons and nine others--and
all uniting in a chorus of joyous salutation.
Now hands are being shaken warmly on both sides, and mutual accounts
rendered of what had happened to each party since their forced
separation. As it turns out, the tale of peril and adventure is nearly
all on the side of those who took to the gig, the crew of the pinnace
having encountered but little incident or accident. They had kept to
the outside coast and circumnavigated it from the Milky Way to the
Straits of Le Maire. They had fallen in with some natives, but luckily
had not been troubled by them.
They who had been troubled by them more than once, and whose lives had
been endangered and almost lost, might well be thankful to Captain
Fitzroy, one of whose objects in carrying the four Fuegians to England
and back to their own country is thus told by himself:--
"Perhaps a shipwrecked seaman may hereafter receive help and kind
treatment from Jemmy Button's children, prompted, as they can hardly
fail to be, by the traditions they will have heard of men of other
lands, and by the idea, however faint, of their duty to God, as well as
to their neighbours."
The hopeful prediction has borne good fruit, even sooner than Captain
Fitzroy looked for. But for his humane act Captain Gancy and all dear
to him would have doubtless left their bones, unburied, on some lone
spot in the _Land of Fire_.