Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/169

Rh after daybreak the weather lifted a little, and what we saw discouraged us yet further. For, except the beach on which we were encamped, we found the whole coast covered with thick forest to the water's edge; while our boats, in which we might have made shift to escape, had been either fired or taken off by the savages. At 10 a.m., therefore, Captain Wills called a council of war, and informed us that he could think of no better plan than to push on for a harbour (its name, if I mistake not, was Gray's Harbour) lying about seventy miles to the southward, where a ship of the Company was due to call early in the spring. Obed remembered it, and added that the journey might be quickly made, since his map showed no creek or river that promised to impede us, and the Indians were not likely to annoy us while the camp and the remains of the barque afforded any plunder. Accordingly we packed up, and having destroyed what muskets and weapons we did not want and thrown our spare gunpowder into the sea, shortly after noon began our march through the forest.

We were nineteen persons in all: and each or us carried two muskets, a pistol and some pounds of ammunition, besides his share of the provisions. The only ones more lightly laden were Margit and Captain Wills. The latter, indeed, could with pain manage to walk at all, and so clogged the pace of the party that we made but eight miles before nightfall, when we halted in an open space, set watches,