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Updated: June 2, 2025
The triumphant majority is advancing toward the camp, with an air of fierce resolve; women as well as men armed with clubs, flint-bladed daggers, and stones clutched in their closed fists. In vain is it now for Seagriff to call out "Brothers! Sisters!" The savages can no longer be cajoled by words of flattery or friendship; and he knows it.
In the former event, the castaways have small hope of remaining undiscovered. True, they are well concealed, not an inch of face or person is exposed; the captain and Seagriff alone are cautiously doing the vidette duty.
Some change is sure to come when the absent members of the tribe return. Should they prove to be those encountered in Whale-Boat Sound, the question would be too easily answered. But it is now known that, although Ailikoleeps, they cannot be the same. The cause of their absence has also been discovered by the ever alert ears of Seagriff.
Although during their long four years' cruise Edward Gancy and Henry Chester have seen many a strange sight, they think the one now before their eyes as strange as any, and unique in its quaint comicality. They would have continued their observations much longer but for Seagriff, to whom the sight is neither strange nor new.
"To the boat!" shouts Seagriff, making down the bank, with all the men after him. They reach the landing before the roller breaks upon it, but, alas! to no purpose. Beach, to draw the boat up on, there is none, only the rough ledge of rocks; and the only way to raise it on this would be to lift it bodily out of the water, which cannot be done.
But not all in silence; for turning his eyes north-eastward, and seeing there a snow-covered mountain a grand cone, towering thousands of feet above all the others Seagriff plucks off his hat, and, waving it around his head, sends up a joyous huzza, cries out, "Now I know whar we are better 'n a hul ship full o' kompa an' kernometors kud tell us. Yon's Sarmiento!"
As the last boat-load of them disappears around the point of rocks, Captain Gancy fervently exclaims, "Again we may thank the Lord for deliverance!" As soon as they are convinced that the canoes are gone for good, Seagriff counsels immediate setting out on the journey so unexpectedly delayed. It is now noon, and it may be night ere they reach their destination.
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.
Ever since they landed the sky has been overcast, and the distant mainland is barely visible through a misty vapour spread over the sea between. All the better for that, Seagriff has been thinking hitherto, with the Fuegians in his mind. "It'll hinder 'em seein' the smoke of our fire," he said; "the which mout draw 'em on us."
One of the men, the oldest, and for this reason having chief authority, draws near and commences patting Seagriff on the chest and back alternately, all the while giving utterance to a gurgling, "chucking" noise that sounds somewhat like the cluck of a hen when feeding her chicks.
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