“Well,” says Captain Gancy, after an inspection of the untenanted building, “it’ll serve us a turn or two, whoever may have built it. The roof appears to be all tight and sound, so we needn’t be at the bother of turning the boat-sail into a tent this time.”
A fire is kindled inside the hut, and all gather round it, the night being chilly cold. Nor are they afraid of the blaze betraying them here, as the fog will prevent its being seen from any distance. Besides, they are in every way more confident than hitherto. They have passed beyond the country of the Ailikoleeps with their lives miraculously preserved, and everything now looks well for getting to Good Success Bay—the haven of safety they are seeking. It is now not over two hundred miles distant, and with winds and tides favouring, in three days, or less, they may reach it.
Still, there is cause for anxiety, even apprehension, as the old sealer is too well aware.
“We ain’t out o’ the wood yit,” he says, employing a familiar backwoods expression often heard by him in boyhood, adding, in like figurative phrase, “we still hev to run the gauntlit o’ the Tekeneekas.”
“But surely we’ve nothing to fear from them?” interrogates the younger Gancy; Henry Chester affirming, “No, surely not.”
“Why hevn’t we?” demands Seagriff.
“Because,” answers the young Englishman, “they are Jemmy Button’s people, and I’d be loth to believe him ungrateful after our experience with his old companions, and from what I remember of him. What do you think, Ned?”
“I agree with you entirely,” replied the younger Gancy.
“Wal, young masters, thet may all be, an’ I’d be only too pleased to be-hope it’ll turn out so. But agin it, thar’s a contrary sarcumstance, in thar bein’ two sarts o’ Tekeneekas: one harmless and rayther friendly disposed torst white people, t’other bein’ jest the revarse—’most as bad as the Ailikoleeps. The bad uns are called Yapoos, an’ hev thar squattin’ groun’ east’ard ’long the channel beyont, whar a passage leads out, knowed as the Murray Narrer. Tharfer, it’ll all depend on which o’ the two lots Mister Button belongs to.”
“If he is not of the Yapoos, what then?” questions the skipper.