ay from the tree, she cut,
with a scalping-knife, the cord that bound Cheenbuk's right arm and
placed the knife in his hand. Almost at the same moment she slipped
back into the bush.

Cheenbuk made no attempt, however, to free himself. The sentinel's beat
was too short to permit of his doing so without being observed. He
therefore remained perfectly motionless in his former attitude.

It was a trying moment when the Indian approached to within a couple of
feet and looked him straight in the face, as was his wont at each turn.
But Cheenbuk was gifted with nerves of steel. His contemplation of the
moon was so absorbing, that a civilised observer might have mistaken him
for an astronomer or a lunatic. Alizay suspected nothing. He turned
round, and the Eskimo allowed him to take about five paces before he
moved. Then, with the speed of lightning, he ran the sharp blade down
his side, severing all his bonds at one sweep.

Next moment he was free, but he instantly resumed his former position
and attitude until his guard was within a yard of him. Then he sprang
upon him, dropped the knife and seized him by the throat with both
hands, so tightly that he was quite incapable of uttering a cry.

Alizay made a vigorous struggle for life, but he had no chance with the
burly Eskimo, who quickly decided the fight by giving his adversary a
blow with his fist that laid him insensible on the ground.

Springing over his prostrate form he ran straight for the cliff that
Adolay had pointed out to him, leaping over fallen trees, and across
what looked like young chasms, in a state of reckless uncertainty as to
whether he would plunge into ponds or land at the bottom of precipices.
With a feeling of absolute confidence that the girl with the lustrous
eyes would not have told him to run where the feat was impossible, he
held on until he reached the bottom of the cliff and stood beside the
dead tree unhurt, though considerably winded.

There he resolved to wait according to orders. To most ordinary men,
waiting, when they are filled with anxiety, is much more trying than
energetic action. But Cheenbuk was not an ordinary man, therefore he
waited like a hero.

Meanwhile Adolay, having seen the Eskimo fairly in grips with the
sentinel, ran swiftly back towards the village, intending, before going
to Cheenbuk at the cliff, to let her mother know what she had done, and
what she still purposed to do--namely to embark with the Eskimo