When Chase, who was the first to spring ashore, had drawn the bow of the pirogue out of the water, he took a turn up and down the beach and looked about him. This was not the first time he had visited the island. He had often been there in company with Wilson and Bayard Bell and his cousins, and he knew every tree and stump on it. It was a favorite shooting and fishing ground of his, and he thought it a fine place to camp out for a night or two; but he had never wanted to live there. He was thinking busily while he was walking up and down the beach, and revolving something in his mind that made his heart beat a trifle faster than usual. He did not want to remain there alone, and he was determined that he would not. He would return to the village if he could that very night; but if he was obliged to stay, Coulte and Pierre should stay with him. [271]
The cove in which the pirogue landed, and which was large enough to receive and shelter a vessel of a hundred tons burden, was surrounded on three sides by a high bluff thickly covered with bushes from base to summit. In these bluffs were two or three caves in which cooking-utensils, old-fashioned weapons, and rusty pieces of money had been found, giving rise to the supposition that the island had at one time been the harboring-place of the noted Lafitte. The story-tellers of the village declared that some thrilling scenes had been enacted there. Whether or not this was true we cannot tell; but this we do know: that before Chase set his foot on the mainland again, he saw as much excitement and adventure there as he wanted, and even more than enough to satisfy him.
“Well,” exclaimed Pierre, who seemed to be greatly relieved to find himself on solid ground once more, “we did it, didn’t we? We’re here at last.”
“I’d rather be somewhere else,” replied Chase. “Do you know, Pierre, that I shall be hard up for bread while I stay here? The corn-meal in that bag is thoroughly soaked with salt water.”
“The bacon is all right,” returned Pierre.[272] “When you got tired of living on that you can catch a wild duck.”
“By putting salt on its tail, I suppose,” interrupted Chase. “I don’t see how else I am to catch it.”
“Take this lantern and axe and look around and find something to start a fire with,” continued Pierre. “We’ll have to stay here with you until the wind goes down, because we can’t beat up against it in the pirogue. Even if we could, I wouldn’t try it. I’ve seen enough of the Gulf for one night.”
“I believe you,” said Chase to himself. “If I can make things work to my satisfaction you’ll never sail that pirogue back to the village. As soon as you are asleep I’ll run her around under the lee of the island, and stay there until the wind goes down and the sea falls, and then I’ll fill away for home. If I can’t do that, I’ll take possession of the eatables, knock a hole in the pirogue, and get out of your way by intrenching myself in the ‘Kitchen.’ By doing that I can make prisoners of you and your father as effectually as though you were bound hand and foot.”
Chase was so highly elated over his plans for[273] turning the tables upon his captors, and so sure that one or the other of them would operate successfully, that he allowed a smile to break over his face. Pierre saw it, and interpreted it rightly. It put an idea into his head, and he determined to watch Chase as closely now as he had done before.
“I want to ask you a question,” said Pierre, while Chase was trying to light the lantern with some damp matches Coulte had given him. “Did those fellows we had the fight with at the log know that we were going to take you to this island?”
“Of course they did; Wilson told them. He was there with them, because I heard his voice. They’ll come over here with an officer or two as soon as the wind dies away a little, and they will be looking for you as well as for me. What good will it do you now that you have brought me here? It seems to me that by doing it you have made your situation worse instead of better. You are prisoners here the same as I am.”
Chase knew by the expression which settled on his face that he had started a train of serious reflections in Pierre’s mind. Leaving him to follow them out at his leisure he picked up the lantern, shouldered[274] the axe, and after looking about among the bushes for a few minutes, found a dry log from which he cut an armful of chips with which to start the fire. He worked industriously, and by the time that the old Frenchman and his son had unloaded the pirogue and hauled her out upon the beach, he had a roaring fire going, and a comfortable camp made behind a projecting point of one of the bluffs. He then returned to the canoe to bring up the blankets belonging to the outfit with which Pierre had provided him; and when he had spread them and his coats out in front of the fire to dry, he went to work to cook his supper and prepare his bed. Neither of these duties occupied a great deal of time. All he had in the way of eatables was the bacon, a few slices of which he cut off and laid upon the coals; and for a bed he scraped together a few armfuls of leaves, and deposited them at the roots of a wide-spreading beech which extended its limbs protectingly over the camping-ground. When Pierre and his father came up he was sitting before the fire in his shirt sleeves, turning his bacon with a sharp stick.
“What made you locate the camp so far away[275] from the boat?” asked the former, looking suspiciously at his prisoner.
“Why, you don’t want to watch her all night, do you? I selected this point because it is sheltered from the wind. Don’t you think it a good idea? If you want any supper help yourselves; only touch that bacon lightly, for it is all I shall have to eat until I see home again.”
“What’s got into you all of a sudden?” asked Pierre, who could not understand why his prisoner, who had heretofore been so gloomy and disheartened, should suddenly appear to be much at his ease. “What trick are you up to?”
“I don’t know that I am particularly jolly—I feel much better than I did a few hours ago,” replied Chase. “I am dry and warm now; and another thing, I know that I shall not be obliged to stay here as long as I at first feared. I’ll be taken off before to-morrow night, and then you had better look out for me. I’ll show you—”
Chase was going on to say that he would show Pierre and his father, and Bayard Bell and every one else who had had a hand in his capture, that there was a law in the land, and that they could not waylay peaceable young fellows and shut them[276] up in smuggling vessels and starve them and carry them off to desert islands with impunity; but Pierre glared at him so savagely that he thought it best to hold his peace.
Coulte and his son were not slow to follow the example set them by their captive. If one might judge by the numerous slices of bacon they cut off and laid upon the coals, the fright they had sustained during the voyage to the island had not injured their appetites in the least. They helped themselves most bountifully, and while their supper was cooking pulled off their coats, and spread the blankets and other articles that composed the cargo of the pirogue, in front of the fire to dry.
The meal was not as good as some Chase had eaten on that same island, but it served to satisfy the cravings of his hunger, and when the last piece of bacon had disappeared he spread one of his coats upon his bed of leaves, drew the blanket over him, thrust his feet out toward the fire and closed his eyes—but not to sleep. Tired, and almost exhausted, as he was, that was a thing that did not enter his head. He had better business on hand, and that was to watch Coulte and Pierre. They ate their bacon very deliberately, smoked two or[277] three pipes of tobacco, and then arose and walked out on the beach. This movement was enough to arouse the suspicions of the prisoner, who, as soon as they were out of sight and hearing, sprang to his feet and looked around the point of the bluff to see what they were going to do.
“There’s one of my plans knocked into a cocked hat,” said Chase, as he watched the proceedings of the two men; “but I have another in reserve, and I know it will work. I am afraid I have done something to excite their suspicions.”
He certainly had. The smile that Pierre had seen on his face had made him alert and watchful, and he and his father thought it best to put it out of Chase’s power to leave the island without their knowledge. They went straight to the pirogue, and after turning it bottom upward, moved it close to a tree at the base of the bluff, and made it fast with a chain and padlock. Not satisfied with this, they carried the sail and oars into the bushes and concealed them there; and when they came out they shouldered their guns and returned to the camp. They looked at their prisoner as they walked past him, but he lay with a blanket over his head, apparently fast asleep.
[278]
Coulte and Pierre were ready to go to bed now, and the captive was quite willing that they should do so. They began snoring lustily almost as soon as they touched their blankets, but Chase, being cautious and crafty, and unwilling to endanger the success of his scheme by being too hasty, for a long time made no movement. Being convinced at last that they were really asleep, and not trying to deceive him, he threw the blanket off his head and slowly arose to his feet. His first move was to pull on his overcoat and boots; his next to secure possession of the meat and axe; and his third to light the lantern with a brand from the fire. He looked wishfully at the guns which Pierre and his father had taken care to put under their blankets before lying down, but he could not secure them without arousing one or the other of the men. However, it was some consolation to know that the weapons would be of very little use to their owners. They had not more than two or three charges of dry powder between them, for the large flask that Pierre carried had been thoroughly soaked during the voyage to the island.
Having lighted his lantern Chase rolled up his blankets and put them under his arm, picked up[279] the meat, shouldered the axe, and, thus equipped, walked rapidly around the bluff toward the place where the pirogue lay. He spent some time in searching among the bushes for the sail, and having found it at last he pulled it out of its hiding-place, and bent his steps toward the interior of the island. After walking about a hundred yards he entered a little gulley, which seemed to run up the side of the bluff, and a short distance further on his progress was stopped by a perpendicular cliff, which arose to the height of forty or fifty feet. By the aid of his lantern he closely surveyed the face of this cliff, and having at last discovered some object of which he appeared to be in search, he rested the mast, which was rolled up in the canvas, against a projecting point of th............