from our pursuers.

It was a grueling experience. We were weakened by lack of food. We
were suffering the pangs of thirst. Capture and death were close at
hand. Yet I think that we gave a good account of ourselves in our
final effort to escape. Our boat was so much smaller and lighter than
any of Hooja's that the three of us forced it ahead almost as rapidly
as his larger craft could go under their twenty paddles.

As we raced along the coast for one of those seemingly interminable
periods that may draw hours into eternities where the labor is
soul-searing and there is no way to measure time, I saw what I took for
the opening to a bay or the mouth of a great river a short distance
ahead of us. I wished that we might make for it; but with the menace
of Hooja close behind and the screaming natives who raced along the
shore parallel to us, I dared not attempt it.

We were not far from shore in that mad flight from death. Even as I
paddled I found opportunity to glance occasionally toward the natives.
They were white, but hideously painted. From their gestures and
weapons I took them to be a most ferocious race. I was rather glad
that we had not succeeded in landing among them.

Hooja's fleet had been in much more compact formation when we sighted
them this time than on the occasion following the tempest. Now they
were moving rapidly in pursuit of us, all well within the radius of a
mile. Five of them were leading, all abreast, and were scarce two
hundred yards from us. When I glanced over my shoulder I could see
that the archers had already fitted arrows to their bows in readiness
to fire upon us the moment that they should draw within range.

Hope was low in my breast. I could not see the slightest chance of
escaping them, for they were over-hauling us rapidly now, since they
were able to work their paddles in relays, while we three were rapidly
wearying beneath the constant strain that had been put upon us.

It was then that Juag called my attention to the rift in the shore-line
which I had thought either a bay or the mouth of a great river. There
I saw moving slowly out into the sea that which filled my soul with
wonder.

CHAPTER XIV

GORE AND DREAMS

It was a two-masted felucca with lateen sails! The craft was long and
low. In it were more than fifty men, twenty or thirty of whom were at
oars with which the craft was being propelled from the lee of the land.
I was dumbfounded.

Could it