, "our first business must be to choose a handy canoe for
ourselves--I hope we shall not require her for more than an hour--and
then send the rest adrift down the river, which will put it out of the
power of the villagers to pursue us. It is, of course, a bit hard upon
them, but it cannot be helped; and after all, they have kept us enslaved
here for three months, so it is not so very unfair an exchange. Now,
this is a handy little craft, and ought to serve our purpose very well,
even if we cannot find our own canoe again, so help me to haul her up,
Dick; and then we must push the others off as quickly as we can. The
suck of the current will soon draw them down the creek into the main
stream; and when once they are there the Mayubuna may say goodbye to
them."

It took them the best part of half an hour to send the whole of the
canoes adrift, but they did the job effectually, and by the time that
the last canoe had been thrust off into the middle of the creek the
first dozen or so were fairly in the main stream and being rapidly
sucked out toward the middle by the strong current. Then Dick and Phil,
after giving a last look round, and flinging a parting glance toward the
silent and apparently deserted village, thrust off the canoe which they
had reserved for themselves, sprang lightly into her as she went afloat,
seized the paddles, and headed down the creek. Upon reaching the main
stream they found that the current was running very strongly, showing
that there had been much rain higher up among the hills; but, on the
other hand, the storm, which was still raging violently, although it had
brought no rain as yet, had bred a strong breeze from the northward
which would be of incalculable value to them if they could but recover
their own canoe, with her sail; they therefore paddled across to the
opposite side of the river, where the current was to a great extent
nullified by eddies, and worked their way upstream, close inshore, until
they reached the creek near which their own canoe remained--as they
hoped--concealed, when, turning into it, they paddled up it until they
arrived at their former landing-place, easily recognisable in the light
afforded by the incessant lightning flashes. In like manner they had no
difficulty in finding the detached clump of bush in which they had
hidden their canoe on the evening preceding their capture by the
Mayubuna; and toward this they now hurried, eager to learn whether she
still r