"They may."

"And she'll be rather short-handed for men," observed Donovan.

"That's too true."

"Then what are the chances of her getting back here for us?" cried Wade.

_Bang!_ from the great white ma.s.s of bulging canvas now fairly opposite us. The smoke drifted out of her bows. We could hear the rattle of her blocks, the swash of the sea, and the roar of sails; and, quite distinct on the fresh breeze, the gruff commands to reload.

"Capt. Mazard won't leave us here if he lives and has his liberty,"

said Raed.

"Oh, he'll come back if he can!" exclaimed Donovan. "He's true blue!"

"But what if he can't," Kit observed quietly. "What a situation for us! Here we are a thousand miles from a civilized town or a civilized people, and in a worse than trackless wilderness! The season, too, is pa.s.sing. The straits will soon be closed with ice."

"Only think of it!" Wade cried out,--"here on this frozen coast, with winter coming on! In a month it will be severe weather here. We've nothing but our cloth clothing!"

Wade turned away; and for many minutes we were all silent.

_Bang!_

"Come, fellows!" Raed exclaimed at length. "This won't do! Wade has got the gloomiest side out! Come, rally from this! See, they're not gaining on the schooner! Look how she's bowling away! They haven't hit her yet. Kit! Wash! I say, fellows, it looks a little bad, I own. But never say die; or, if you must die,--why, die game. That's the doctrine you are always preaching, Kit. Isn't it, now? Tell me!"

"But to be frozen or starved to death among these desolate ledges!"

muttered Kit.

"Is not a cheery prospect, I'll admit," Raed finished for him. "Rather trying to a fellow's philosophy, isn't it?"

_Bang!_

"She isn't hit yet," remarked Donovan, who had taken Raed's gla.s.s.

"She slides on gay as a cricket. I can see the cap'n throwing water with the skeet against the sails to make 'em draw better."

"How, for Heaven's sake, did that ship come to get up so near before they saw her?" Kit exclaimed suddenly.

We looked off to the west. The dozen straggling islets beyond us extended off in irregular order toward the north-west.

"I think," said Raed, "that the ship must have come up a little to the south of those outer islands. Our folks could not have seen her, then, till she came past."

"I don't call that the same ship that fired on us a week ago,"

Weymouth remarked.

"Oh, no!" said Kit. "That ship, 'The Rosamond,' can't more than have reached the nearest of the Company's trading-posts by this time."

"She probably spoke this ship coming out, and told them to be on the lookout for us," said Raed.

"Old Red-face doubtless charged them to give us particular fits," Kit replied.

"And they've got us in a tight place, no mistake," Wade remarked gloomily. "We're rusticated up here among the icebergs; sequestered in a cool spot."

_Bang!_

"Gracious! I believe that one hit 'The Curlew'!" Donovan exclaimed.

"The captain and old Trull--I believe it's Trull--ran aft, and are looking over the taffrail!"

Kit pulled out his gla.s.s and looked. I had not taken mine, nor had Wade. The schooner was now three or four miles down the straits, and the ship was a good way past us.

"No great harm done, I guess," Kit said at length. "The captain ran down into the cabin, but came up a few moments after; and they are standing about the deck as before."

"As long as they miss the standing rigging, and don't hit the sails, there's no danger," Raed observed.

"That ship is a mighty fast sailer," Weymouth said.

"Ought to be, I should think," Donovan replied. "Look at the sail she's got on! They've been getting out studding-sails too. This strong gale drives her along like thunder!"

"I don't see that she gains," Raed remarked. "We shall see 'The Curlew' back here for us yet."

"Not very soon, I'm afraid," Wade said.

"Well, not to-night, I dare say," replied Raed.

"How long do you set it?" Kit asked, taking down his gla.s.s. "Suppose the captain is lucky enough to get away from them: how long do you think it will be before he will get back here for us?"

"That, of course, depends on how far they chase him," said Raed.

"They'll chase him just as far as they can," replied Kit. "Why not?

It's right on their way home. They'll chase the schooner clean out the straits."

"The captain may turn down into Ungava Bay, on the south side of the straits," Raed replied.

"No, he won't do that," Kit contended. "That bay is full of islands, and choked with ice; and our charts ar'n't worth the paper they're made out on."

"Well, if he has to run out into the Atlantic, he may not be back for ten days."

"Ten days!" exclaimed Wade. "If we see him in a month, we need to think we're lucky."

_Bang!_

"That's a pleasant sound for us, isn't it, now?" Kit demanded,--"expecting every shot will lose us the schooner, and leave us two thousand miles from home on a more than barren coast!"

"I shall look for 'The Curlew' in ten days," Raed remarked. "And I don't think we had better leave here, to go off any great distance, till we feel sure she's not coming back for us. If she's not back in two weeks, I shall think we have got to shirk for ourselves."

"But how in the world are we to live two weeks here!" Wade exclaimed.

"Live by our wits," Kit observed.

"Looks as if we should have to give up coffee," Raed said, trying to get a laugh going.