ag to stop when he saw that our craft was moving. He
was much interested in the sail, and not a little awed, as I could tell
by his shouted remarks and questions. Raising my head, I saw him
plainly. He would have made an excellent target for one of my guns,
and I had never been sorrier that I had lost them.

We were now picking up speed a trifle, and he was not gaining upon us
so fast as at first. In consequence, his requests that we stop
suddenly changed to commands as he became aware that we were trying to
escape him.

"Come back!" he shouted. "Come back, or I'll fire!"

I use the word fire because it more nearly translates into English the
Pellucidarian word trag, which covers the launching of any deadly
missile.

But Juag only seized his paddle more tightly--the paddle that answered
the purpose of rudder, and commenced to assist the wind by vigorous
strokes. Then Hooja gave the command to some of his archers to fire
upon us. I couldn't lie hidden in the bottom of the boat, leaving Juag
alone exposed to the deadly shafts, so I arose and, seizing another
paddle, set to work to help him. Dian joined me, though I did my best
to persuade her to remain sheltered; but being a woman, she must have
her own way.

The instant that Hooja saw us he recognized us. The whoop of triumph
he raised indicated how certain he was that we were about to fall into
his hands. A shower of arrows fell about us. Then Hooja caused his
men to cease firing--he wanted us alive. None of the missiles struck
us, for Hooja's archers were not nearly the marksmen that are my
Sarians and Amozites.

We had now gained sufficient headway to hold our own on about even
terms with Hooja's paddlers. We did not seem to be gaining, though;
and neither did they. How long this nerve-racking experience lasted I
cannot guess, though we had pretty nearly finished our meager supply of
provisions when the wind picked up a bit and we commenced to draw away.

Not once yet had we sighted land, nor could I understand it, since so
many of the seas I had seen before were thickly dotted with islands.
Our plight was anything but pleasant, yet I think that Hooja and his
forces were even worse off than we, for they had no food nor water at
all.

Far out behind us in a long line that curved upward in the distance, to
be lost in the haze, strung Hooja's two hundred boats. But one would
have been enough to have taken us could it have come alongside. We had