Not many men could be risked from the ship. Fired with the
ambition to know more of the coast which he had determined to explore,
Ledyard volunteered to go for the Russians with two Indian guides. The
pace was set at an ambling run over rocks that had cut Ledyard's boots
to tatters before nightfall. He was quite unarmed; and just at dark
the way seemed to end at a sandy shore, where the waves were already
chopping over on the rising tide, and spiral columns of smoke betrayed
the underground mud huts of those very Indian villages that had
massacred the Russians a quarter of a century before. The guides had
dived somewhere underground and, while Ledyard stood nonplussed, came
running back carrying a light skin boat which they launched. It was
made of oiled walrus hide stretched like a drum completely round
whalebones, except for two manholes in the top for the rowers.
Perpheela, the guide, signalled Ledyard to embark; and before the white
man could solve the problem of how three men were to sit in two
manholes, he was seized head and heels, and bundled clear through a
manhole, lying full length imprisoned like Jonah in the whale.
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