Chapter Seventeen.
Unwelcome Visitors.
“There they are at last! Heaven have mercy on us!” At these grave words, more fear-inspiring from being spoken by Captain Gancy, work is instantly suspended, the boat-builders dropping their tools as though they burned the hands that grasped them.
For some minutes the alarm runs high, all thinking their last hour is at hand. How can they think otherwise, with their eyes bent on those black objects, which, though but as specks in the far distance, grow bigger while they stand gazing at them, and which they know to be canoes full of cruel cannibal savages? For they have no doubt that the approaching natives are the Ailikoleeps. The old Ailikoleep wigwam, and the fact that the party that so lately visited the cove were of this tribe, make it evident that this is Ailikoleep fishing-ground, while the canoes now approaching seem to correspond in number with those of the party that assailed them. If they be the same, and if they should come on shore by the kitchen midden, then small hope of more boat-building, and, as is only too likely, small hope of life for the builders.
One chance alone now prevents the castaways from yielding to utter despair—the savages may pass on without landing. In that case they cannot be seen, nor will their presence there be suspected. With scrupulous adherence to their original plan, they have taken care that nothing of their encampment shall be visible from the water; tent, boat-timbers—everything—are screened on the water side by a thick curtain of evergreens. Their fire is always out during the day, and so there is no tell-tale smoke to betray them.
Soon Captain Gancy observes what further allays apprehension. With the glass still at his eye, he makes out the savages to be of both sexes and all ages—even infants being among them, in the laps of, or strapped to, their mothers. Nor can he see any warlike insignia—nothing white—the colour that in all other countries is emblematic of peace, but which, by strange contrariety, in Tierra del Fuego is the sure symbol of war.
The people in the canoes, whoever they may be, are evidently on a peaceful expedition; possibly they are some tribe or community on its way to winter quarters. And they may not be Ailikoleeps after all; or, at all events, not the former assailants of Whale-boat Sound.
These tranquillising reflections occur while the Fuegians are yet far-off. When first sighted, they were on the opposite side of the strait, closely hugging the land, the water in mid-channel being rough. But, as they come nearer, they are seen to change course and head diagonally across for the southern side, which looks as if they intended putting in at the old wigwam. Doubtless some of them may have once lived in it, and eaten of the molluscs, the shells of which are piled upon the kitchen midden.