“My place, Los Andes, was a good twelve miles from Cartagena, and I had no English-speaking neighbors. I told you last night, if you remember, how I came to settle down there?”
Sturgess, though evidently burning to ask a question, merely nodded, grinning cheerfully when he caught Nina’s eye.
“I only want you to understand why I claim some knowledge, such as it is, of this locality,” continued Maseden. “At the southwest corner of Hanover Island is a ten-mile patch called Cambridge Island, and the two form the northern boundary of Nelson Straits. But in the channel between them are two smaller islands, and, unless I am greatly mistaken, there they are.”
He pointed across the estuary, and indicated a break in the coast-line, beyond which other more distant hills were visible.
“It follows,” he went on, “that when we sail up this channel to the left, we shall find ourselves in Nelson Straits, and, after covering fifty or sixty miles of fairly open water—open, that is, in the sense that there is plenty of it—we shall be in Smyth’s Channel, and in the track of passing ships.”
He paused, but did not try to ignore the plain demand legible on three intent faces.
“Yes; that is the only way,” he said quietly. “We are here. We are alive. There is plenty of wood, and we have brains, hands, and fire. We must construct some sort of a raft, something in the style of the lumber-rafts built on big rivers, and take advantage of the tides. Our present position is quite inaccessible by land, and, I fear, equally unapproachable by water.
“And I’ll tell you why I think so. Within quarter of a mile of us are some splendid oyster-beds. The coastal aborigines live mainly on shell-fish, and this store would have been visited by them times out of number if they could get at it. But I have seen no heaps of shells, such as must have remained if the savages came here.
“What has stopped them? Impassable forests, glaciers, and precipices on land, dangerous reefs and fierce tidal currents by sea. The geological feature which helped our climb yesterday must create reef after reef across the track of the channel.
“You see those pathways there?” and he stretched a hand towards the series of rock outcrops lining the shore like groins. “They have been almost leveled by the storms of centuries. But the Southern Cross was lost on one of them, and there must be scores of others between here and Smyth’s Channel. There may be passages between many if not all, but it is self-evident that navigation is far too risky for the small coracles of the natives. We must go slowly and safely, if possible. If our raft will not cross a reef, we must abandon it, and build another on the far side. We may have to do that six times, a dozen times, even in sixty miles. There is no other means of escape. We may be weeks, months, in winning through, but that is our only practicable plan.”