But Charley, though torn with regrets, took his hands from his face and gazed steadily at the tragedy nearing its climax.
Winding past the convicts' point in single file, came a long line of some thirty canoes, uncouth, shapeless things, each hewed out of a great cypress log. In the end of each an Indian stood erect plying a long pole which sent their clumsy looking crafts forward at surprising speed. Magnificent savages they were, not one less than six feet tall, framed like athletes, and lithe and supple as panthers.
One man in each boat was the rule, but in the leading canoe a young Indian lad was also squatted, in the bow.
With breathless suspense our hunters stood helpless to warn or help as the long line glided on to its fate.
Ten, twelve, fourteen, fifteen stole past the point. Then the horror of horrors happened.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE BATTLE.
From the point burst out a sudden cloud of flame and smoke. Six of the canoes in the lead and six in the rear of the long procession came to a sudden halt. Of their occupants, some crumpled up where they had stood like bits of flame-swept paper. Others pitched forward in the bottom of their crafts, while still others stood for a minute swaying from left to right like drunken men, to finally crash over the sides like fallen trees, taking their cranky crafts over with them in their plunge of death.
Only for a second was there confusion amongst the remaining canoes. Before the volley could be repeated, they had drawn closer together. Each Indian had dropped his pole, and seizing his rifle crouched low in the bottom of his craft, his keen eyes searching the point.