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At last the sea subsided, and we were able to geta better view of the armada of small boats in ourwake. There must have been two hundred of them.Juag said that he had never seen so many boats beforein all his life. Where had they come from? Juag wasfirst to hazard a guess.

"Hooja," he said, "was building many boats to carryhis warriors to the great river and up it toward Sari. He was building them with almost all his warriors andmany slaves upon the Island of Trees. No one else inall the history of Pellucidar has ever built so manyboats as they told me Hooja was building. These mustbe Hooja's boats."

"And they were blown out to sea by the great stormjust as we were," suggested Dian.

"There can be no better explanation of them," Iagreed.

"What shall we do?" asked Juag.

"Suppose we make sure that they are really Hooja'speople," suggested Dian. "It may be that they are not,and that if we run away from them before we learndefinitely who they are, we shall be running away froma chance to live and find the mainland. They may bea people of whom we have never even heard, and if sowe can ask them to help us--if they know the wayto the mainland."

"Which they will not,' interposed Juag.

"Well," I said, "it can't make our predicament anymore trying to wait until we find out who they are. They are heading for us now. Evidently they havespied our sail, and guess that we do not belong totheir fleet."

"They probably want to ask the way to the mainlandthemselves," said Juag, who was nothing if not a pessimist.

"If they want to catch us, they can do it if theycan paddle faster than we can sail," I said. "If welet them come close enough to discover their identity,and can then sail faster than they can paddle, we canget away from them anyway, so we might as wellwait."

And wait we did.

The sea calmed rapidly, so that by the time theforemost canoe had come within five hundred yardsof us we could see them all plainly. Every one washeaded for us. The dugouts, which were of unusuallength, were manned by twenty paddlers, ten to a side. Besides the paddlers there were twenty-five or morewarriors in each boat.

When the leader was a hundred yards from us Diancalled our attention to the fact that several of hercrew were Sagoths. That convinced us that the flotillawas indeed Hooja's. I told Juag to hail them and getwhat information he could, while I remained in thebottom of our canoe as much out of sight as possible. Dian lay down at full length in the bottom; I did notwant them to see and recognize her if they were intruth Hooja's people.

"Who are you?" shouted Juag, standing up in theboat and making a megaphone of his palms.

A figure arose in the bow of the leading canoe--a figure that I was sure I recognized even before hespoke.

"I am Hooja!" cried the man, in answer to Juag.

For some reason he did not recognize his formerprisoner and slave--possibly because he had so manyof them.

"I come from the Island of Trees," he continued. "Ahundred of my boats were lost in the great storm andall their crews drowned. Where is the land? What areyou, and what strange thing is that which flutters fromthe little tree in the front of your canoe?"

He referred to our sail, flapping idly in the wind.

"We, too, are lost," replied Juag. "We know not wherethe land is. We are going back to look for it now."

So saying he commenced to scull the canoe's nosebefore the wind, while I made fast the primitive sheetsthat held our crude sail. We thought it time to begoing.

There wasn't much wind at the time, and the heavy,lumbering dugout was slow in getting under way. Ithought it never would gain any momentum. And allthe while Hooja's canoe was drawing rapidly nearer,propelled by the strong arms of his twenty paddlers. Of course, their dugout was much larger than ours,and, consequently, infinitely heavier and more cumbersome; nevertheless, it was coming along at quitea clip, and ours was yet but barely moving. Dian andI remained out of sight as much as possible, for thetwo craft were now well within bow-shot of one another, and I knew that Hooja had archers.

Hooja called to Juag to stop when he saw that ourcraft was moving. He was much interested in the sail,and not a little awed, as I could tell by his shoutedremarks and questions. Raising my head, I saw himplainly. He would have made an excellent target forone of my guns, and I had never been sorrier thatI had lost them.

We were now picking up speed a trifle, and he wasnot gaining upon us so fast as at first. In consequence,his requests that we stop suddenly changed to commands as he became aware that we were trying toescape him.

"Come back!" he shouted. "Come back, or I'll fire!"

I use the word fire because it more nearly translatesinto English the Pellucidarian word trag, which coversthe launching of any deadly missile.

But Juag only seized his paddle more tightly--thepaddle that answered the purpose of rudder, and commenced to assist the wind by vigorous strokes. ThenHooja gave the command to some of his archers tofire upon us. I couldn't lie hidden in the bottom of theboat, leaving Juag alone exposed to the deadly shafts,so I arose and, seizing another paddle, set to work tohelp him. Dian joined me, though I did my best topersuade her to remain sheltered; but being a woman,she must have her own way.

The instant that Hooja saw us he recognized us. Thewhoop of triumph he raised indicated how certain hewas that we were about to fall into his hands. A showerof arrows fell about us. Then Hooja caused his mento cease firing--he wanted us alive. None of the missiles struck us, for Hooja's archers were not nearly themarksmen that are my Sarians and Amozites.

We had now gained sufficient headway to hold ourown on about even terms with Hooja's paddlers. Wedid not seem to be gaining, though; and neither didthey. How long this nerve-racking experience lastedI cannot guess, though we had pretty nearly finishedour meager supply of provisions when the wind pickedup a bit and we commenced to draw away.

Not once yet had we sighted land, nor could Iunderstand it, since so many of the seas I had seenbefore were thickly dotted with islands. Our plight wasanything but pleasant, yet I think that Hooja and hisforces were even worse off than we, for they had nofood nor water at all.

Far out behind us in a long line that curved upwardin the distance, to be lost in the haze, strung Hooja'stwo hundred boats. But one would have been enoughto have taken us could it have come alongside. Wehad drawn some fifty yards ahead of Hooja--therehad been times when we were scarce ten yards inadvance-and were feeling considerably safer fromcapture. Hooja's men, working in relays, were commencing to show the effects of the strain under whichthey had been forced to work without food or water,and I think their weakening aided us almost as muchas the slight freshening of the wind.

Hooja must have commenced to realize that he wasgoing to lose us, for he again gave orders that we befired upon. Volley after volley of arrows struck aboutus. The distance was so great by this time that mostof the arrows fell short, while those that reached uswere sufficiently spent to allow us to ward them offwith our paddles. However, it was a most excitingordeal.

Hooja stood in the bow of his boat, alternately urginghis men to greater speed and shouting epithets at me. But we continued to draw away from him. At lastthe wind rose to a fair gale, and we simply raced awayfrom our pursuers as if they were standing still. Juagwas so tickled that he forgot all about his hunger andthirst. I think that he had never been entirely reconciled to the heathenish invention which I called asail, and that down in the bottom of his heart hebelieved that the paddlers would eventually overhaulus; but now he couldn't praise it enough.

We had a strong gale for a considerable time, andeventually dropped Hooja's fleet so far astern that wecould no longer discern them. And then--ah, I shallnever forget that moment--Dian sprang to her feetwith a cry of "Land!"

Sure enough, dead ahead, a long, low coast stretchedacross our bow. It was still a long way off, and wecouldn't make out whether it was island or mainland;but at least it was land. If ever shipwrecked marinerswere grateful, we were then. Raja and Ranee werecommencing to suffer for lack of food, and I couldswear that the latter often cast hungry glances uponus, though I am equally sure that no such hideousthoughts ever entered the head of her mate. Wewatched them both most closely, however. Once whilestroking Ranee I managed to get a rope around herneck and make her fast to the side of the boat. ThenI felt a bit safer for Dian. It was pretty close quartersin that little dugout for three human beings and twopractically wild, man-eating dogs; but we had to makethe best of it, since I would not listen to Juag's suggestion that we kill and eat Raja and Ranee.

We made good time to within a few miles of theshore. Then the wind died suddenly out. We were allof us keyed up to such a pitch of anticipation that theblow was doubly hard to bear. And it was a blow, too,since we could not tell in what quarter the wind mightrise again; but Juag and I set to work to paddle theremaining distance.

Almost immediately the wind rose again from precisely the opposite direction from which it had formerlyblown, so that it was mighty hard work making progressagainst it. Next it veered again so that we had to turnand run with it parallel to the coast to keep frombeing swamped in the trough of the seas.

And while we were suffering all these disappointments Hooja's fleet appeared in the distance!

They evidently had gone far to the left of our course,for they were now almost behind us as we ran parallelto the coast; but we were not much afraid of beingovertaken in the wind that was blowing. The gale kepton increasing, but it was fitful, swooping down uponus in great gusts and then going almost calm for aninstant. It was after one of these momentary calmsthat the catastrophe occurred. Our sail hung limp andour momentum decreased when of a sudden a particularly vicious squall caught us. Before I could cutthe sheets the mast had snapped at the thwart in whichit was stepped.

The worst had happened; Juag and I seized paddlesand kept the canoe with the wind; but that squall wasthe parting shot of the gale, which died out immediatelyafter, leaving us free to make for the shore, which welost no time in attempting. But Hooja had drawn closerin toward shore than we, so it looked as if he mighthead us off before we could land. However, we did ourbest to distance him, Dian taking a paddle with us.

We were in a fair way to succeed when there appeared, pouring from among the trees beyond the beach,a horde of yelling, painted savages, brandishing allsorts of devilish-looking primitive weapons. So menacing was their attitude that we realized at once thefolly of attempting to land among them.

Hooja was drawing closer to us. There was no wind. We could not hope to outpaddle him. And with oursail gone, no wind would help us, though, as if inderision at our plight, a steady breeze was now blowing. But we had no intention of sitting idle while our fateovertook us, so we bent to our paddles and, keepingparallel with the coast, did our best to pull away fromour pursuers.

It was a grueling experience. We were weakenedby lack of food. We were suffering the pangs of thirst. Capture and death were close at hand. Yet I think thatwe gave a good account of ourselves in our final effortto escape. Our boat was so much smaller and lighterthan any of Hooja's that the three of us forced it aheadalmost as rapidly as his larger craft could go under theirtwenty paddles.

As we raced along the coast for one of those seemingly interminable periods that may draw hours intoeternities where the labor is soul-searing and there isno way to measure time, I saw what I took for theopening to a bay or the mouth of a great river a shortdistance ahead of us. I wished that we might makefor it; but with the menace of Hooja close behind andthe screaming natives who raced along the shore parallel to us, I dared not attempt it.

We were not far from shore in that mad flight fromdeath. Even as I paddled I found opportunity to glanceoccasionally toward the natives. They were white, buthideously painted. From their gestures and weaponsI took them to be a most ferocious race. I was ratherglad that we had not succeeded in landing amongthem.

Hooja's fleet had been in much more compact formation when we sighted them this time than on theoccasion following the tempest. Now they were movingrapidly in pursuit of us, all well within the radiusof a mile. Five of them were leading, all abreast, andwere scarce two hundred yards from us. When I glancedover my shoulder I could see that the archers hadalready fitted arrows to their bows in readiness to fireupon us the moment that they should draw withinrange.

Hope was low in my breast. I could not see theslightest chance of escaping them, for they were overhauling us rapidly now, since they were able to worktheir paddles in relays, while we three were rapidlywearying beneath the constant strain that had beenput upon us.

It was then that Juag called my attention to the riftin the shore-line which I had thought either a bay orthe mouth of a great river. There I saw moving slowlyout into the sea that which filled my soul with wonder.