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Updated: June 14, 2025
When the leader was a hundred yards from us Dian called our attention to the fact that several of her crew were Sagoths. That convinced us that the flotilla was indeed Hooja's. I told Juag to hail them and get what information he could, while I remained in the bottom of our canoe as much out of sight as possible.
Many were the willing hands that reached down to lift us to her decks. The bronze faces of the Mezops were broad with smiles, and Perry was fairly beside himself with joy. Dian went aboard first and then Juag, as I wished to help Raja and Ranee aboard myself, well knowing that it would fare ill with any Mezop who touched them.
I think that this ruse must have thrown our pursuers off our track, since we saw nothing of them nor heard any sound of pursuit during the greater portion of our march the length of the island. But the way Juag had chosen was rough and round-about, so that we consumed one or two more marches in covering the distance than if we had followed the river. This it was which proved our undoing.
Dian lay down at full length in the bottom; I did not want them to see and recognize her if they were in truth Hooja's people. "Who are you?" shouted Juag, standing up in the boat and making a megaphone of his palms. A figure arose in the bow of the leading canoe a figure that I was sure I recognized even before he spoke. "I am Hooja!" cried the man, in answer to Juag.
We certainly could not live long in this little boat, with only a few strips of dried thag and a few quarts of water left. Quite suddenly a thought occurred to me. I was surprised that it had not come before as a solution to our problem. I turned toward Juag.
I dropped my paddle and stood up and shouted and waved my hand. Juag and Dian looked at me as if I had gone suddenly mad. When I could stop shouting I told them, and they shared my joy and shouted with me. But still Hooja was coming nearer, nor could the leading felucca overhaul him before he would be along-side or at least within bow-shot.
We were all of us keyed up to such a pitch of anticipation that the blow was doubly hard to bear. And it was a blow, too, since we could not tell in what quarter the wind might rise again; but Juag and I set to work to paddle the remaining distance.
Juag suggested that we travel to the northeast, where, he said, upon the verge of the plain we would find a wooded country in which game should be plentiful. Acting upon his advice, we came at last to a forest-jungle, through which wound innumerable game-paths. In the depths of this forbidding wood we came upon the fresh spoor of thag.
Then Juag exposed himself to the view of the bull it is a part of the tactics of the hunt while I stepped to one side behind a bush. The moment that the savage beast saw Juag he charged him. Juag ran straight away, that the bull might be lured past my hiding-place. On he came tons of mighty bestial strength and rage. Dian had slipped behind me.
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