During those hours of peace we ate the food that remained to us,
washed ourselves as thoroughly as we could and rested. Well was it, in
view of what followed, that we had this time of repose. For just as
the breeze was failing I looked aft and there, coming up behind us,
still holding the wind, was the whole fleet of Pongo canoes, thirty or
forty of them perhaps, each carrying an average of about twenty men.
We sailed on for as long as we could, for though our progress was but
slow, it was quicker than what we could have made by paddling. Also it
was necessary that we should save our strength for the last trial.
I remember that hour very well, for in the nervous excitement of it
every little thing impressed itself upon my mind. I remember even the
shape of the clouds that floated over us, remnants of the storm of the
previous night. One was like a castle with a broken-down turret
showing a staircase within; another had a fantastic resemblance to a
wrecked ship with a hole in her starboard bow, two of her masts broken
and one standing with some fragments of sails flapping from it, and so
forth.
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