“Oensmen bad—very bad,” he keeps affirming. “They worse than Ailikoleep—more cruel. Kill you all if you stay here. Come hide in the woods—there you safe.”
“What’s to be done?” interrogates the captain, as usual appealing to Seagriff. “If we retreat inland, we shall lose the boat—even if we save ourselves.”
“Sartain, we’d lose her, and I don’t think thar’s need to. Let me hev another look through yer glass, capting.”
A hasty glance enables him to make a rough estimate of the distance between the cove’s mouth and the approaching canoes.
“I guess we kin do it,” he says, with a satisfied air.
“Do what?”
“Git out o’ this cove ’fore they shet us up in it. Ef we kin but make ’roun’ that p’int eastart we’ll be safe. Besides, it ain’t at all likely we could escape t’other way, seein’ how we’re hampered.”
This, with a side glance toward Mrs Gancy and Leoline:
“On land they’d soon overtake us, hide or no hide—sure to. Tharfer, our best, our only chance, air by the water,” he affirms.
“By the water be it, then,” calls out Captain Gancy, decisively. “We shall risk it!”