“Well,” I said, “it can’t make our predicament any more trying to wait until we find out who they are. They are heading for us now. Evidently they have spied our sail, and guess that we do not belong to their fleet.”
“They probably want to ask the way to the mainland themselves,” said Juag, who was nothing if not a pessimist.
“If they want to catch us, they can do it if they can paddle faster than we can sail,” I said. “If we let them come close enough to discover their identity, and can then sail faster than they can paddle, we can get away from them anyway, so we might as well wait.”
And wait we did.
The sea calmed rapidly, so that by the time the foremost canoe had come within five hundred yards of us we could see them all plainly. Every one was headed for us. The dugouts, which were of unusual length, were manned by twenty paddlers, ten to a side. Besides the paddlers there were twenty-five or more warriors in each boat.
When the leader was a hundred yards from us Dian called our attention to the fact that several of her crew were Sagoths. That convinced us that the flotilla was indeed Hooja’s. I told Juag to hail them and get what information he could, while I remained in the bottom of our canoe as much out of sight as possible. Dian lay down at full length in the bottom; I did not want them to see and recognize her if they were in truth Hooja’s people.
“Who are you?” shouted Juag, standing up in the boat and making a megaphone of his palms.
A figure arose in the bow of the leading canoe—a figure that I was sure I recognized even before he spoke.
“I am Hooja!” cried the man, in answer to Juag.
For some reason he did not recognize his former prisoner and slave—possibly because he had so many of them.