The Indian’s hand pressed the lad’s shoulder warningly. “Wait,” he breathed. “Let them go by.”
Secure in the black shelter of the alders that overhung the bit of beach, Blaise watched the approaching canoe. It came on rapidly, confidently. As it drew close in the darkness of the channel between mainland and island, the boy’s eyes could make out no details. But his ears caught something that made him heartily glad he had not signalled that canoe as had been his first thought. What he heard was an order spoken in Ojibwa, in the unmistakable, high-pitched, nasal voice of Ohrante. In obedience to the command, the canoe swung away from the mainland towards the Island of Torture, and disappeared in the blackness of its margin.
Blaise drew a long breath and whispered in Keneu’s ear, “Go watch the camp and see what they do.”
Keneu made no reply, but Blaise knew he was gone, though he heard no sound as the Indian slipped through the bushes. In the same quiet way that Keneu had waked him, by laying his hand on the forehead of each, Blaise aroused his companions. In a few minutes all were sitting up, wide awake, staring at the dark water and the impenetrable blackness of the island. There were no stars or moon. The air was unusually warm and sultry. A pale flash lit up the dark sky for an instant. Some moments later a low rumbling came to their ears. A storm now might spoil all their plans, thought Hugh anxiously.
A gleam of light shone through the trees at the farther end of the island. A fire had been kindled as a signal that the Chief of Minong had arrived. Again the sky was lit by a white flash. Again the thunder rolled and rumbled. From down the channel came a sound of splashing water. No canoe, paddled by Indians, ever made such a splashing as that. “Have they all jumped in? Are they swimming across?” thought Hugh.
Rolling over, he crawled down the beach. His head almost in the water, he gazed down the channel. Another flash of lightning swept the sky. Hugh crouched low, but in the instant of the illumination, he saw, crossing from mainland to island, a canoe with several men, and in its wake something black rising above the water. Hugh could not believe that the swimming thing was really what, in the instant’s flash of light, it appeared to be.
He turned to slip up the beach again, and found Blaise at his side. In silence the two went back to their place beside the canoe. A few minutes later, Blaise felt a hand on his shoulder, and Keneu’s voice spoke in his ear, in a low, hissing whisper.
“They have left their camp. They have crossed to the island, where a fire now burns.”
“How many canoes?”
“Only one.”