“We’ll try various sorts. We may find grasshoppers or some other insects on the shore, at which I should think several fish would bite,” answered Martin. “If not, we must dig for worms, or try the insides of the birds or beasts we may shoot.”
“If we do happen to shoot any; but so much depends on that little word ‘if,’ that we must not be too sanguine,” I remarked.
“At all events, we have already killed two swans, and should not be doubting about our success for the future,” answered Martin. “Just think, David, how remarkably we have been hitherto preserved! We are positively ungrateful to Heaven if we doubt that the same kind Providence will continue to watch over us.”
“Hush, boys!” said Alick. “We are again getting near the swans, and we may kill one or two more if we approach them carefully. Get your guns ready, but don’t fire too soon. Stand by to lower the sail when I tell you. Do you, Martin and Robin, be prepared to get out your paddles the moment you have fired; while you, David, must reload in case the others miss.”
Soon after he spoke the wind failed us, and the canoe no longer stemmed the current. The greatest caution was now necessary to get up to the swans. Should we use our paddles, we should frighten them, and they might escape us. The birds, as before, kept swimming slowly up the stream. We waited in the hopes that the wind would again fill our sail. We found that the canoe was slowly drifting down with the current; still we thought that another puff of wind would come and send us along again, and that it would be a pity to risk lowering the sail and exhibiting ourselves to the birds.
They appeared to have recovered from their former fright at the loss of their companions, though we saw their leader every now and then turning round his head to take a look at the suspicious object the canoe must have presented to them floating in the middle of the stream.
Again the wind blew softly, and we once more stemmed the current.
“We are gaining on them,” whispered Robin. “We must try to get up before they reach yonder point. If they double it, we may lose sight of them.”
The swans were all this time within range of our shot, but had we fired it would not have penetrated their thick feathers, and Alick charged us on no account to pull a trigger. We were thus long tantalised by seeing the swans majestically gliding over the water ahead of us.
“They will get round the point, after all, before we are up to them,” said Robin.