me?’ Rabbit whined.
‘Because I said so. Don’t stand around and argue with me, Rabbit. Just go.’
‘Aye,’ Rabbit replied sullenly.
‘He spends a lot of his time complaining, don’t he?’ Ham-Hand observed.
‘He runs fast, though,’ Ox replied. ‘He’s sort of timid, that’s all. He’s got a real wide streak of cautious that runs down his back, but if you lean on him some, he’ll do like you tell him – sooner or later.’
Captain Hook-Beak came forward immediately and he had a relieved look on his face. ‘Has anybody happened to see any towns on that coast?’ he asked.
‘None so far, Cap’n,’ Ox replied. ‘If we want anything to eat, we’ll probably have to chase it down without no help.’
‘Better find a river or a creek first,’ Hook-Beak decided. ‘Let’s get the water-casks filled before we go hunting. Hungry’s bad, but thirsty’s worse.’
‘Not by very much,’ Ox said. ‘If my belly starts growling any louder, the people here abouts will probably think there’s a thunderstorm coming their way.’
‘Would you look at the size of them trees!’ Ham-Hand exclaimed, staring at the thickly forested shoreline. ‘I ain’t never seen trees that big afore!’ Ham-Hand was perhaps a bit overly excitable, but this time Sorgan could see his second mate’s point. The forest stretching up from the beach consisted of huge trees that were twenty to thirty feet through at the butt and rose like huge pillars to a height of at least a hundred feet before they sprouted a single limb.
‘They do seem a bit overgrown, don’t they?’ Ox agreed.
‘A bit?’ Ham-Hand said. ‘You could carve two Seagulls out of one of them trees and still have enough wood left over to cook breakfast.’
‘We can’t eat trees,’ Sorgan told him. ‘Let’s get the water-casks filled and then go hunt up something to eat before Ox starts chewing up the sails or the anchor.’
The Seagull sailed south along the forested coast for a league or so until Ox spotted a wide creek that emptied out into a small bay. Ham-Hand swung the tiller over hard and beached the ship on a sandy strip nearby. Then most of the crew went to work filling the water-casks while Ham-Hand led a small party back into the forest in search of game animals.
The hunting party returned empty-handed along about sundown. ‘We seen some tracks, Cap’n,’ Ham-Hand reported, ‘and some pretty heavy-traveled game-trails, but we didn’t jump nothing worth wasting no arrows on.’
‘We can get by this evening, I expect,’ Sorgan told him. ‘The Fat Man put out some set lines right after we beached the Seagull, and he brought in some pretty good-sized fish.’
‘I ain’t all that fond of fish, Cap’n,’ Ham-Hand said.
‘It beats eating leaves and twigs,’ Sorgan said, shrugging. ‘Did you happen to run across any signs of people back there in the woods?’
‘Nothing I could swear to, Cap’n. Nobody’s been chopping down trees or building bridges or such. There might be folks hereabouts, but they ain’t left no sign. I don’t know as it’d be a good idea to leave the Seagull beached overnight. Might be better if we anchored a ways out – just to be safe. If there do happen to be folks living around here, maybe we should get to know a little about them afore we let down our guard. I sure don’t want to be the main course at no dinner party.’
‘Good point there,’ Sorgan agreed. ‘See to it.’
The Seagull moved carefully southward along the coast for the next few days. The crew found game animals – wild cows and a very large variety of deer – but they didn’t encounter any people. That made the crew of the Seagull just a little edgy.
‘There’s got to be people here someplace, Cap’n,’ Ox said one afternoon about a week after they’d first made landfall.
‘Why?’ Hook-Beak said.
‘There’s always people, Cap’n – even along the coast of Shaan.’
‘Let’s hope they ain’t like the Shaans – if there are people here,’ Ham-Hand put in. ‘I could go for a long time without meeting folks who eats other folks.’
‘It might just be that we made landfall too far to the north,’ Sorgan said. ‘It’s still summer, so we don’t really know what winters here are like. It might just be that any people hereabouts live farther south.’
The Seagull continued south along the empty coast, but an hour or so later Tree-Top called down from the top-mast. ‘Ho, Cap’n,’ he shouted. ‘There’s a village up ahead. I don’t see no people, but there’s smoke coming from some of the houses.’
‘You see, Ox,’ Sorgan said. ‘You worry too much.’ He looked up at the top-mast. ‘How far off is that place, Tree-Top?’ he shouted.
‘Just on t’other side of that sand-spit on ahead,’ Tree-Top called back. ‘I kin see some skiffs hauled up on the beach, but nobody’s any place near them.’
‘We must have scared them off,’ Hook-Beak said. ‘I think we might want to go in slow and easy. We don’t want to irritate anybody.’ He turned. ‘Ho, Rabbit!’ he called.
‘Aye Cap’n?’ the little man replied.
‘Go get that horn of yours and blow it a few times. There’s a village just ahead, and I’d like for the people there to know that we’re coming and that we’re peaceable.’
‘Aye, Cap’n,’ Rabbit said. He went below for a moment and emerged with a large, curled cow-horn. He put it to his lips and blew a long, mournful-sounding bleat that echoed back into the dark forest.
Hook-Beak and the others listened intently, but there was no immediate reply.
‘Try again, Rabbit,’ Sorgan said. ‘See if you can make it sound a little more cheerful this time.’
Rabbit blew a high-pitched note that ended with an off-key squeak.
‘I think maybe Rabbit should practice some,’ Ox said critically. ‘That one sounded like a cat who just got her tail stepped on.’
Then from somewhere back in the forest there came an answering note that was quite a bit more mellow than Rabbit’s squeak.
‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ Hook-Beak said. ‘Keep blowing, Rabbit,’ he instructed. ‘Try to make it sound a little friendly, if you can.’
‘I’m doing my best, Cap’n,’ Rabbit whined. ‘Nobody on board likes it when I practice tooting, so I’m sort of rusty.’
The Seagull rounded the tip of the sand-spit, and the crew gathered near the bow to look at the village crouched at the head of a shallow inlet.
‘Not too fancy,’ Ox observed. ‘Mostly sticks chinked with grass.’
‘You
