Free The Cannibals by Iain Lawrence Page B

now he was fast as lightning. “I'll 'elp you, Tom,” he shouted.
    He on one side, and I on the other, we pushed the boat from the beach. Then we clambered aboard together.
    “They're coming,” said Early.
    But it wasn't the junglies who emerged from the dark. It was Weedle and Penny and Carrots, and they came in a rush. Down to the beach, right to the sea, they stumbled and ran.
    “Wait, we're going with you,” said Weedle. “It's our boat too, and we got our rights.”
    I would gladly have left them behind. But Mr. Mullock said, “Bring them in. There's safety in numbers.” And seeing that he was at the tiller, and that he had an oar at hand, he had his way, and the three came over the side.
    Mr. Mullock fitted the rudder as we crossed the narrow passage. Then we threaded past the rocks and out to sea. Boggis pulled with all his strength. As the heavy oars swept round, the wooden pins they lay against cried out from their sockets.
    From the north came the chanting voices, along with the drumming beat of paddles. All but Boggis stared in that direction. “Quiet now,” said Mr. Mullock. “Someone wet those blasted pins.”
    I heard a splash, and the squeals of the oars turned to a wooden rumble. Mr. Mullock certainly knew his way around boats.
    But he wasn't much of a carpenter. Before we'd gone a hundred yards I felt water round my feet. A hundred more and it was lapping at my ankles. I said, “I think we're sinking.”
    Mr. Mullock whipped off his helmet and tossed it forward. “Bail with that, Tom,” he said. “Make yourself useful.”
    I, alone, couldn't keep up with the water. Soon Carrots was bailing, and Early too, each with one of Mr. Mullock's little bowls. Benjamin Penny scooped with his webbed fingers, and our combined effort maintained pace with the sea.
    The chanting grew steadily louder, the beat of the paddles more clear and sharp. But stare as we might, the ocean seemed empty all around. Only the tiny moon was visible, so low in the sky that it seemed to float on the sea.
    Suddenly it vanished. It disappeared entirely, and as quick as I could blink, there it was again. It pulsed like a star, like a lamp fed by sputtering gas. I couldn't fathom why. No moon I'd seen ever flickered like that.
    Then the truth struck me. I was watching a great canoe pass before the moon. Its prow had blotched it out, and now each paddler, passing, hid it for an instant. It flashed and flashed and flashed again. Fifty times it must have gleamed between as many paddlers. I breathed three breaths beforethe moon turned solid again as the stern went gliding past. It was a canoe as long as a ship.
    “Not a sound,” said Mr. Mullock in a whisper.
    Boggis leaned on his oars, holding the blades high. We stopped our bailing. We sat still, barely breathing. The longboat rose and fell on the gentle swells, and all the stars seemed to swing above us. Our island was now a dark hump, with a line of pale surf at its base. Our world was so quiet that I could hear the drops of seawater falling from the oars. I could hear it seeping through the patches.
    But out there, the voices chanted. Out there, the sea split and tumbled as the canoe sliced through it. I saw the wave it tossed up, and the chant came clearly to us.
    “Hiiiii-ya,
uhmp!
Hiiiii-ya,
uhmp!
” sang the paddlers.
    The first words were high-pitched, the last a deep moan that trembled in the fog. It was followed right after by that rolling drum as the paddles struck the hull.
    The canoe took shape in the darkness. It looked like a black beast that thrust its head high, that crawled on a hundred legs. I thought no canoe had ever been built as large as that. Then we saw it more clearly in the moonlight.
    The bow soared higher than the height of three men. At its very top was a wooden bird, its wooden wings spread wide, that seemed to fly across the stars. The paddlers, with their strokes and thumps, seemed to give a breath to the beast. They leaned forward as one, and