the lookout
dozed on the fo'c'slehead, and went alone to the warm, long land. And I
journeyed south to meet the men by Yeddo Bay, who are wild and
unafraid. And the Yoshiwara girls were small, and bright like steel,
and good to look upon; but I could not stop, for I knew that Unga
rolled on the tossing floor by the rookeries of the north.

'The men by Yeddo Bay had met from the ends of the earth, and had
neither gods nor homes, sailing under the flag of the Japanese. And
with them I went to the rich beaches of Copper Island, where our salt
piles became high with skins.

'And in that silent sea we saw no man till we were ready to come away.
Then one day the fog lifted on the edge of a heavy wind, and there
jammed down upon us a schooner, with close in her wake the cloudy
funnels of a Russian man-of-war. We fled away on the beam of the wind,
with the schooner jamming still closer and plunging ahead three feet to
our two. And upon her poop was the man with the mane of the sea lion,
pressing the rails under with the canvas and laughing in his strength
of life. And Unga was there--I knew her on the moment--but he sent her
below when the cannons began to talk across the sea.

As I say, with three feet to our two, till we saw the rudder lift green
at every jump--and I swinging on to the wheel and cursing, with my back
to the Russian shot. For we knew he had it in mind to run before us,
that he might get away while we were caught. And they knocked our masts
out of us till we dragged into the wind like a wounded gull; but he
went on over the edge of the sky line--he and Unga.

'What could we? The fresh hides spoke for themselves. So they took us
to a Russian port, and after that to a lone country, where they set us
to work in the mines to dig salt. And some died, and--and some did not
die.' Naass swept the blanket from his shoulders, disclosing the
gnarled and twisted flesh, marked with the unmistakable striations of
the knout. Prince hastily covered him, for it was not nice to look upon.

'We were there a weary time and sometimes men got away to the south,
but they always came back. So, when we who hailed from Yeddo Bay rose
in the night and took the guns from the guards, we went to the north.
And the land was very large, with plains, soggy with water, and great
forests. And the cold came, with much snow on the ground, and no man
knew the way. Weary months we journeyed through the endless forest--I
do not remember, now, fo