“No, sir; it is sure not to be,” the sailor said. “I have noticed that they always put their villages at points where the surf is lighter than usual. I suppose the water is shallower, or deeper, or something. I don’t know what it is, but there is certainly a difference. Besides, there has been no wind to speak of since we landed, and the waves are nothing to what they were then. Now, gentlemen, as I am more accustomed to this sort of thing than you are, I will take the place in the stern, where I can steer her a bit. The moment she floats as the surf comes in, and I see the chance is a good one, I will give the word; then we will all paddle as hard as we can, and go out as the surf draws back, so as to meet the next wave before it breaks. Everything depends on that.”
They took their places in the canoe, and grasped the paddles that they had found in her. Two or three waves passed under them, and then they saw one higher than the others approaching them.
“We will go out on the back of this one,” Wilcox said. “Paddle the moment the surf lifts the canoe, and don’t let her be washed up a foot.”
The wave fell over with a crash, and a torrent of foam rushed up towards them.
“Now,” Wilcox exclaimed, as the white line reached the bow, “paddle for your lives!”
For a moment, in spite of their desperate efforts, they were carried upwards, then the canoe seemed to hang in the air, and they were riding forward with the speed of an arrow on the receding water.
“All you know,” Wilcox shouted, and as the rush of water ceased they drove her ahead to meet the next wave. It rose higher and higher. The canoe reached it, and, as it passed under them, stood almost upright. Two or three more desperate strokes, and they heard a crash behind them.
“Row, row!” Wilcox shouted, as they felt the boat drawn backwards. It was but for a few seconds, then they moved ahead again, passed over the next wave, and were safe. They now settled to steady paddling, and before they had gone many hundred yards from shore they no longer felt the long smooth rollers, over which the canoe glided insensibly.
By daylight the land they had left was far behind them, the low-lying coast had sunk from their view, and the hills behind were almost shrouded from sight by the mist that rose from the swamps.
“It was well we rescued Mr. Joyce before it was dark,” the sailor said to Stephen. “One night in those swamps is enough to lay any white man up with fever. That was why I was so anxious to get him away at once. I did not think that they would kill him straight off. If they had wanted him for the feast they would have cut off his head when they caught him. I expect they would have kept him for some other occasion; but I wanted to get him out of it before the mists began to rise from the swamps. Now, sir, as we are well away, shall I put her head north or south?”