aways been so near to death with such attendant
horrors.

So near to it do they feel, that Captain Gancy groans, under his breath,
"Our end is come!"

But not yet is it come. Once more is the Almighty Hand opportunely
extended to protect them. A shout interrupts the attack--a joyous shout
from one of the women watchers, who now, having forsaken her post, is
seen coming down the slope of the spit at a run, frantically waving her
arms and vociferating:

"_Cabrelua! Cabrelua_!" ("They come! they come!")

The savages, desisting from their murderous intent, stand with eyes
turned toward the ridge, on the crest of which appears a crowd of moving
forms that look like anything but human beings. On their way to the
beach, they are forced into single file by the narrowness of the path,
and become strung out like the links of a long chain. But not even when
they come nearer and are better seen, do they any more resemble human
beings. They have something like human heads, but these are without
necks and indeed sunken between the shoulders, which last are of
enormous breadth and continued into thick armless bodies, with short
slender legs below!

As they advance along the beach at a slow pace, in weird, ogre-like
procession, the white people are for a time entirely mystified as to
what they may be. Nor can it be told until they are close up. Then it
is seen that they _are_ human beings after all--Fuegian savages, each
having the head thrust through a flitch of whale-blubber that falls,
poncho-fashion, over the shoulders, draping down nearly to the knees!

The one in the lead makes no stop until within a few yards of the party
of whites, when, seeing the two youths who are in front, he stares
wonderingly at them, for some moments, and then from his lips leaps an
ejaculation of wild surprise, followed by the words:

"Portsmout'! Inglan'!"

Then, hastily divesting himself of his blubber mantle, and shouting back
to some one in the rear, he is instantly joined by a woman, who in turn
cries out:

"Yes, Portsmout'! The _Ailwalk' akifka_!" ("The white boys.")

"Eleparu! Ocushlu!" exclaims Henry Chester, all amazement; Ned Gancy,
equally astonished, simultaneously crying out:

"York! Fuegia!"

CHAPTER TWENTY.

GONE BACK TO BARBARISM.

This renewal of acquaintance, under circumstances so extraordinary as
those detailed in the previous chapter, calls for explanation; for,
although the incident may appear s