Stirred at length by the instinct of revenge, they were about to pull on. Some had plunged their oar-blades into the water, when once more the stroke was suspended.
They perceived that they were near enough to the retreating foe. Nearer, and their lives would be in danger. The dead body of their comrade had been hauled up to the stern of the great igarité. The harpoon had been recovered, and was once more in the hands of him who had hurled it with such fatal effect.
Dropping their bladed sticks, they again betook them to their bows. A shower of arrows came around the igarité, but none fell with fatal effect. The body of their best archer had gone to the bottom of the Gapo. Another flight fell short, and the savage bowmen saw the necessity of returning to their paddles.
Failing to do so, they would soon be distanced in the chase. This time they rowed nearer, disregarding the dangerous range of that ponderous projectile to which their comrade had succumbed. Rage and revenge now rendered them reckless; and once more they seized upon their weapons.
They were now less than twenty yards from the igarité. They were already adjusting the arrows to their bow-strings. A flight of nine going all together could not fail to bring down one or more of the enemy.
For the first time our adventurers were filled with fear. The bravest could not have been otherwise. They had no defence,—nothing to shield them from the threatening shower. All might be pierced by the barbed shafts, already pointing towards the igarité. Each believed that in another moment there might be an arrow through his heart.
It was a moment of terrible suspense, but our adventurers saw the savages suddenly drop their bows, some after sending a careless shot, with a vacillating, pusillanimous aim, and others without shooting at all. They saw them all looking down into the bottom of their boat, as if there, and not elsewhere, was to be seen their most dangerous enemy.
The hole cut by the knife had opened. The caulking, careless from the haste in which it had been done, had come away. The canoe containing the pursuers was swamped, in less than a score of seconds after the leak had been discovered. Now there was but one large canoe upon the lagoa, and one small one,—the latter surrounded by eight dark human heads, each spurting and blowing, as if a small school of porpoises was at play upon the spot.
Our adventurers had nothing further to fear from pursuit by the savages, who would have enough to do to save their own lives; for the swim that was before them, ere they could recover footing upon the scaffolds of the malocca, would tax their powers to the utmost extent.
How the castaways meant to dispose of themselves was known to the crew of the igarité before the latter had been paddled out of sight. One or two of them were observed clinging to the little canoe, and at length getting into it. These, weak swimmers, no doubt, were left in possession of the craft, while the others, knowing that it could not carry them all, were seen to turn round and swim off towards the malocca, like rats escaping from a scuttled ship.