But now Kweetchel was spent with paddling. He glanced despairingly at the dim mountains of the Lak-Haida, at the canoes that hunted him down. His dark chest heaved, water ran down his face. Kolite left the sail and knelt beside him, and wiped the water from his face with her hands. They looked into each other’s eyes. Kolite tore from her arms the bracelets of beaten silver, stamped with the crest of Annoish-Haung, and threw them into the sea.
“O Scanawa, Un-Una,” she cried, “hear us.”
Then she shrieked like a gull and pointed.
Scanawa, Un-Una, Spirit of Storm, Soul of the Sea, had heard. Down from the tall mountains of Lak-Haida swept the squall. Between the small boat and the others two miles astern it drove a sudden wedge of hail and wind. The waves lifted. The air and the sea mingled together. Un-Una reached up and shook the canoes of Annoish-Haung and the souls of the men in them, Kolite seized the paddle, and Kweetchel reeled forward and stayed the sail. He looked up and saw an albatross riding the gale like a ship. Behind the Soul of the Sea fought for them. Kweetchel bowed his head. It is not given to all men to walk with the gods of the sea.
The squall broke away south. The sea about them was driving green and blue, flashing with foam. One staggering shape, water-logged and with torn sails reeled from the rim of the storm and came battling after them. Annoish-Haung still followed.
Under the bright sail, with Kolite bending at the paddle, the little canoe climbed the waves like a duck. Grimly behind her laboured the big canoe of the Haida. Annoish-Haung set his slaves to bail. She lightened each moment. Kweetchel took the paddle once more.
North through the bright ridged sea they struggled, following the compass needle. Islands of refuge, channels of escape, showed here and there among the low clouds. Kweetchel would not turn aside. North he headed. And Annoish-Haung followed fast.
Ahead of them, a great crag reared from the running surf about its base. It roared into an islet of honey-gold rock, grown with vivid green moss and all hollowed by the sea. An hour passed and they could see the sea-lions thick along the reefs as grubs along a leaf; they could hear the roaring of the honey-brown sea-gulls mingle with the roar of the foam.
Towards the crag Kweetchel headed. And Kolite thought, “It is ended.” For she thought he meant to dash upon the crag and die.
But Kweetchel, following where the needle pointed, saw due ahead a great cave in the rock, and in the surf before it a break.