The chief and his helpers carefully unloaded their prize, the tribe maintaining its original distance. This was, incidentally, several times the spear’s length demanded by Barlennan. Up the bank the radio went, the crowd opening wide to let it through and disappearing after it; and for long minutes there was no more activity. The Bree could easily have pushed out of her cage at this time, the crews of the few canoes remaining on the river showing little interest in what she did, but her captain did not give up that easily. He
waited, eyes on the shore; and at long last a number of long black and red bodies appeared over the bank. One of these proceeded toward the canoe; but Barlennan realized it was not the chief, and uttered a warning hoot. The native paused, and a brief discussion ensued, which terminated in a series of modulated calls fully as loud* as any that Lackland had heard Barlennan utter. Moments later the chief appeared and went straight to the-jcahoe; it was pushed off by two of the counselors who had helped carry the radio, and started at once toward the Bree. Another followed it at a respectful distance.
The chief brought up against the outer rafts at the point where the radio had been loaded, and immediately disembarked. Barlennan had given his orders as soon as the canoe left the bank, and now the little vessel was hauled aboard and dragged to the space reserved for it, still with every evidence of respect. The chief did not wait for this operation to be finished; he embarked on the other canoe and returned to shore, looking back from time to time. Darkness swallowed up the scene as he climbed the bank.
“You win, Barl. I wish I had some of your ability; I’d be a good deal richer than I am now, if I were still alive by some odd chance. Are you going to wait around to get more out of them tomorrow?”
“We are leaving now!” the captain replied without hesitation.
Lackland left his dark screen and went to his quarters for his first sleep in many hours. Sixty-five minutes — rather less than four of Mesklin’s days — had passed since the village was sighted.
XI: EYE OF THE STORM
The Bree sailed into the eastern ocean so gradually that no one could say exactly when the change was made. The wind had picked up day by day until she had normal open-sea use of her sails; the river widened rod by rod and at last mile by mile until the banks were no longer visible from the deck. It was still “fresh water” — that is, it still lacked the swarming life that stained practically all of the ocean areas in varying tints and helped give the world such a startling appearance from space — but the taste was coming, as sailor after sailor verified to his own great satisfaction.
Their course was still east, for a long peninsula barred their way to the south, according to the Flyers. Weather was good, and there would be plenty of warning of any change from the strange beings that watched them so carefully. There was plenty of food still aboard, enough to last easily until they reached the rich areas of the deep seas. The crew was happy.
Their captain was satisfied as well. He had learned, partly from his own examination and experiment and partly from Lackland’s casual explanations, how it was that a hollow vessel like the canoe could carry so much more weight for its size than could a raft He was already deep in plans for the building of a large ship — as big or bigger than the Bree — built on the same principle and able to carry the profits of ten voyages in one. Dondragmer’s pessimism failed to shake his rosy dream; the mate felt that there must be some reason such vessels were not used by their own people, though he could not say what the reason might be.