It is hard to tell which was the most astonished and alarmed—Mr. Bell or the two boys. Chase and Featherweight stood at the foot of the ladder, looking up into the scowling, angry face that was bending over them, and Mr. Bell folded his arms and looked savagely at them in return. For fully five minutes no one spoke; but at the end of that time the leader of the smugglers seemed to have determined upon something, for he beckoned to Coulte and his sons, who came up immediately. “Go down there and tie those boys,” said he. “Tie them hard and fast.”
Edmund went forward after a piece of rope, and Coulte and Pierre descended the ladder, laid hold of the prisoners’ collars, and held on to them without saying a word. Edmund presently came down with the rope, and in two minutes more Chase and Featherweight were powerless.
[188]
“Now come up here,” said Mr. Bell, who had watched the whole of the proceeding from the head of the ladder. “I have a word to say to you.”
Coulte and his sons ascended to the deck, and Mr. Bell began a conversation with them which was carried on in a tone of voice loud enough for the prisoners to hear every word that was said. Their minds were at once relieved of all apprehension on one score, for they learned that their captors did not intend to do them any bodily harm; but Mr. Bell had formed some disagreeable plans concerning them, and their hearts sank within them when they heard them unfolded and explained to Coulte and his boys.
“Now, then,” said Mr. Bell, who seemed anxious to have done with what he had to say, and to get the subject off his mind as soon as possible, “I don’t want any time wasted in excuses or explanations, for I know all about it. You have got yourselves and me into a nice scrape, and we must get out of it the best way we can. As you captured Chase on your own responsibility and without any orders from me, you can take care of him yourselves. The crew will begin to return very soon, and they must[189] not find him here. You will take him off the vessel at once—this very moment.”
“But what shall we do with him?” asked Edmund.
“I don’t care what you do with him, so long as you don’t hurt him. I know what I shall do with Fred Craven. I shall start with him for Cuba this very night, and hire a Spanish sea captain, who trades between Havana and Vera Cruz, to ship him as a foremast-hand, and take him to Mexico. I don’t care what becomes of him after that. All I want is to get him out of the country until I can have time to pack up and leave for Europe. Come, Edmund, bring the yawl alongside and stand by to take your prisoner ashore, and, Coulte, while he is doing that, you and Pierre take Craven into the hold and stow him away there.”
The Frenchman and his boys, who were not at all pleased with this arrangement, started off to obey the commands of their superior, and the captives, who had listened eagerly to their conversation, turned and looked at one another. “Good-by, old fellow,” said Featherweight, who kept up a light heart in spite of the gloomy prospects before him.[190] “Do you suppose that we shall ever see each other again?”
“We will if they ever give us half a chance to get away from them,” replied Chase. “They had better never take their eyes off of me. But I say, Fred, I believe I’d rather be in my boots than yours.”
“I don’t doubt it. You will be on shore near friends all the time, and your chances for escape or rescue will be much better than mine; for I shall be shut up in a dark hole during a voyage of six hundred miles. That’s not a pleasant idea, I tell you. Suppose the schooner should go down in a storm while we are crossing the Gulf? They’d never think of coming below to release me.”
“And if you reach Havana in safety, there’s the Spanish sea captain,” chimed in Chase. “A voyage under him will be the worst part of the whole business, according to my way of thinking. Some of these old ship-masters are so brutal. They’ll knock a foremast hand down with a belaying-pin without any provocation at all. There they come—good-bye! I wish I could shake hands with you.”
The appearance of Coulte and Pierre, who came down the ladder at this moment, put a stop to the[191] conversation. The former carried an axe in his hand and glared at Chase as if he had half a mind to use it on him; but he had brought it down there for a different purpose. He picked up the lantern, and walking around behind the ladder inserted the edge of the axe into a crack in the deck, and after a little exertion succeeded in prying open a small hatch which led down into the hold of the vessel, and which fitted into the deck so nicely that a stranger might have walked over it a hundred times without discovering it. After placing his lantern upon the deck, so that its rays would shine into the opening, the Frenchman jumped through the hatchway and held up his hands; whereupon Pierre lifted Featherweight from the deck and lowered him down into the arms of his father, who laid him away in the corner of the hold as if he had been a log of wood. This done, he carefully examined the prisoner’s bands, and having looked all around to make sure that everything was right in the hold, sprang out of the opening, struck the hatch a few blows with his axe to settle it in its place, and then ascended to the deck. Featherweight heard him when he returned and carried Chase up the ladder; knew when his companion[192] in trouble was lowered over the side into the yawl, and also when Mr. Bell left the vessel. After that silence reigned, broken only by the footsteps of Edmund, who paced the deck above. Featherweight waited and listened for a long time, hoping that the man would come below and talk to him—anything was better than being shut up alone in that dark place—and finally stretched himself out on the boards and tried to go to sleep.
Chase, who did not possess half the courage and determination that Featherweight did, and who was inclined to look on the dark side of things, began to be lonesome and down-hearted when he found himself standing on the shore with Coulte and Pierre; and when he saw that they continued to direct angry glances toward him, as though they regarded him as the cause of all their trouble, he became alarmed, and told himself that perhaps after all he would be much safer in Featherweight’s boots than in his own. His mind would have been much relieved if he had only known what his captors intended to do with him, but they did not show a disposition to enlighten him, and he was afraid to ask them any questions.
As soon as Edmund, who brought them off in the[193] yawl, had returned to the schooner, Coulte started on ahead to act as an advance guard, and to give warning, in case he saw any one approaching, while Pierre busied himself in untying Chase’s feet so that he could walk. After that he took his prisoner’s arm and conducted him through the woods until they reached a well-beaten bridle-path, leading from the cove to Coulte’s plantation, which was about four miles distant. At the end of an hour’s rapid walk they arrived within sight of the clearing, and discovered the old Frenchman standing on the porch in front of the house waiting for them. He was on the lookout, and when Pierre came into view he waved his hat as a signal for him to approach.
“When a man is engaged in business of this kind, he can’t be too particular,” said Pierre, now speaking for the first time since he left the schooner. “There may be some of your friends around here, for all I know, and if they should see me marching you up to the house with your hands bound behind your back, they would suspect something; so I will untie you, but I wouldn’t advise you to try any tricks.”
Chase had not the least intention of trying any[194] tricks, for he was too completely cowed. While Pierre was untying his hands, he looked all around in the hope of seeing some friend approaching; but, with the exception of the old Frenchman, there was no one in sight. For all that, however, there was somebody near who saw all Pierre’s movements, and understood the meaning of them. Chase passed within ten feet of him, when he walked to the porch where Coulte was standing, the concealed friend watching him closely, and mentally resolving that he would seize the very first opportunity to make a demonstration in his favor.
Chase had passed many a happy hour under the old Frenchman’s roof. In company with Bayard Bell and his cousins he had eaten more than one good dinner there, and had spent whole evenings listening to the stories of Coulte’s hunting adventures; but he had never entered the house under circumstances like these, nor had he ever before met with so cold a reception. The Frenchman did not take his pipe out of his mouth, give a long whistle, indicative of pleasure, and exclaim in his broken English, “I been glad to zee you, Meester Shase,” as he usually did, but followed him sullenly into the house, and without saying a word[195] began to tie him—an operation in which he was assisted by Pierre. When this had been done, he picked up a lighted candle that stood on the table, raised a trap-door in one corner of the room, and descended a flight of rickety steps that led into the cellar, closely followed by Pierre, who carried Chase on his shoulders. The prisoner was laid upon the floor in a dark corner, and then the Frenchman and his son ascended to the room above and sat down to smoke their pipes, and talk the matter over. Their conversation came plainly to Chase’s ears through the wide cracks in the floor, and through the trap-door which they had left open, and, although it was carried on in the French language, he understood every word of it.
“Well,” said Pierre, after a long pause, “what’s to be done? Have you thought of anything?”
“I have,” replied his father. “We’ll adopt Mr. Bell’s plan, only we’ll have to carry it out on a smaller scale. He’s going to take his prisoner to Cuba; but as we have no boat large enough to make so long a journey, we’ll have to take ours to Lost Island, and leave him there.”
“Why, that’s only forty miles away!” exclaimed Pierre.
[196]
“That’s plenty far enough. He can’t swim that distance; there’s nothing on the island that he can make a boat of; he will be out of the path of vessels going to and from New Orleans, and I’d like to know how he will reach the main shore again. He’ll stay there three or four days at any rate, and that’s all we want. By the end of that time we will have sold off our property, and taken ourselves safe out of the country; for, of course, we can’t stay here any longer. If he gets back in time to upset some of Mr. Bell’s plans, why, that’s no business of ours.”
“But how can we go to the island without a vessel?”
“We’ve got as good a vessel as we want. We’ll go in the pirogue. We’ll have to take care that the boy doesn’t freeze or starve to death before he is taken off the island,” continued Coulte, “and so we will give him an axe, a flint and steel, a blanket or two, and provisions enough to last him a week. When they are gone he must look out for himself.”
Another long pause followed, during which Pierre was evidently thinking over the plan his father had proposed. Chase thought it over too, and the longer he pondered upon it, the more earnestly he[197] hoped that Pierre would find some serious objection to it, for it did not suit him at all. In the first place, there was the voyage of forty miles in the pirogue, the bare thought of which was enough to make Chase’s hair stand on end. The pirogue was a large canoe capable of holding about twenty men. It was furnished with a sail and centre-board, and before a light wind could run, as the students used to say, &l............