On the inner side of the little island, the trees and bushes grew down to the water. In absolute silence, the canoe slipped along, close in. Another bright flash of lightning, quickly followed by a peal of thunder, caused Keneu to hold his blade motionless. The boat was well screened by the trees, however, and there was no sign that it had been observed.
That flash of lightning had revealed something to Hugh. Just ahead was a little curve in the margin of the island, and beyond it, a short, blunt projection, a bit of beach with alders growing well down upon it. On the beach were two canoes. To reach the spot, however, it would be necessary to pass an open gap, a sort of lane leading up from the shore to the place where the fire burned. Through the gap the firelight shone out upon the water. It would never do to try to pass in the canoe.
Hugh dipped his paddle and gave it a twist. The Indian understood. He too saw the firelight on the water. The canoe swerved towards shore and slowed down. Before it could touch and make a noise, Hugh was overside, stepping quickly but carefully, to avoid the slightest splash. Blaise followed. Keneu remained in the boat. He allowed his end to swing in far enough so he could grasp an overhanging branch and hold the craft steady.
Now came the most difficult part of the undertaking, to creep in the darkness through the dense growth, which came clear to the water line, around to the beach where the canoe lay. Hugh, as leader, intended to go first, but he did not get the chance. Before he realized what the younger boy was about, Blaise had slipped past him and taken the lead. It was well he did so for Blaise, slender and agile, was an adept at wriggling his way snake-like, and he seemed to have a sixth sense in the darkness that Hugh did not possess. So Hugh was constrained to let his younger brother pick the route. He had all he could do to follow without rustling or crackling the thick growth. Progress was necessarily very slow, only a few feet or even inches at a time. Whenever there came a lightning flash, both lay flat. The flashes were less revealing in the dense growth, and luckily the trees stood thick between the two lads and the fire.
Blaise had reached the edge of the gap through which the yellow-red firelight shone. He could see the fire itself, a big, roaring pile, and the figures moving around it. The sound of voices speaking Ojibwa and Iroquois came to his ears. Reaching back with one foot, he gave Hugh a little warning kick, then looked for some way to cross the open space.
The Island of Torture, like most of the islands off the northwest shore of the lake, consisted of a low, flat-topped, rock ridge descending gradually to the water on one side and more abruptly on the other. The lane was a natural opening down a steep slope from the ridge top to the water. Just at the base of the open rock lane, at the very edge of the water, grew a row of low shrubs, so low that they did not shut off the light of the fire, but cast only a narrow line of shadow. The one way to cross that gap without being seen was to crawl along in the shadow of those bushes. The water might be shallow there or it might be deep. Lying flat, Blaise put one hand into the shadowed water. His fingers touched bottom. He felt around a little, then crawled forward. The water proved to be only a few inches deep. Prostrate, he wriggled along the rock bottom in the narrow band of shadow. When Blaise had reached the shelter of the woods beyond, Hugh followed, taking extreme care to slip along like an eel, without a splash.
The brothers were now but a short distance from the canoes. The thick growing alders fringing the pebbles shut off the firelight. The chief peril was that someone might be guarding the boats. Eyes and ears strained for the slightest sign of danger, the two crawled forward on hands and knees. They reached the first canoe without alarm and went on to the second. Still hidden from the Indians around the fire, the boys lifted the canoe and turned it bottom side up. Blaise drew his knife from the sheath and carefully, without a sound of ripping, cut a great hole in the bark, removing a section between the ribs. Then the two carried the boat out a few feet and deposited it upon the water. It began to fill immediately, the water entering the big hole with only a slight gurgling noise. Even that sound alarmed the lads. They beat a hasty retreat and lay close under the alders. The Indians around the fire, however, were too engrossed in their own affairs to heed the sound, if indeed it carried that far.
A man with a full, deep voice was speaking at length, his tones reaching the boys where they lay hidden. Every now and then his listeners broke in with little grunts and ejaculations of approval or assent. A crash of thunder, following close upon a bright flash, drowned his voice. When the rumbling ceased, he was no longer speaking. Something else was happening now. Little cries and grunts, accompanied by the beating together of wood and metal and the click of rattles in rude rhythm, came to the boys’ ears.
“They are dancing,” thought Hugh. “What fools to make such an exhibition here where a boat may pass at any moment! Ohrante is certainly insane or very sure he is invincible. It is time we finished our work.”
He missed Blaise from his side, and crept down to the remaining canoe, supposing his younger brother had gone that way. Blaise was not there. Hugh waited several minutes, listening to the grunts and cries, which, low voiced at first, were growing louder and faster as the dancers warmed to their work. Suddenly one of them uttered a yell, which was followed by quite a different sound, an animal’s bellow of rage or pain. Hugh was both alarmed and curious. What was going on up there, and what had become of Blaise?