Kitabı oku: «Commodore Junk», sayfa 4

Chapter Eleven
In the Plantation

Someone singing a West Country ditty.

“His sloe-black eyes…”

A pause in the singing, and the striking of several blows with a rough hoe, to the destruction of weeds in a coffee-plantation; while, as the chops of the hoe struck the clods of earth, the fetters worn by the striker gave forth faint clinks.

Then in a pleasant musical voice the singer went on with another line —

“And his curly hair…”

More chops with the hoe, and clinks of the fetters.

“His pleasing voice…”

A heavy thump with the back of the tool at an obstinate clod, which took several more strokes before it crumbled up; and all the time the fetters clinked and clanked loudly. Then the singer went on with the sweet old minor air with its childish words.

“Did my heart ensnare…”

Chop! chop! clink! clink! clank!

“Genteel he was…”

“But no rake like you.”

“Oh, I say, Abel, mate; don’t, lad, don’t.”

“Don’t what?” said Abel Dell, resting upon his hoe, and looking up at big Bart Wrigley, clothed like himself, armed with a hoe, and also decorated with fetters, as he stood wiping the perspiration from his forehead.

“Don’t sing that there old song. It do make me feel so unked.”

“Unked, Bart! Well, what if it does? These are unked days.”

“Ay; but each time you sings that I seem to see the rocks along by the shore at home, with the ivy hanging down, and the sheep feeding, and the sea rolling in, and the blue sky, with gulls a-flying; and it makes me feel like a boy again, and, big as I am, as if I should cry.”

“Always were like a big boy, Bart. Hoe away, lad; the overseer’s looking.”

Bart went on chopping weeds, diligently following his friend’s example, as a sour-looking, yellow-faced man came by, in company with a soldier loosely shouldering his musket. But they passed by without speaking, and Abel continued —

“There’s sea here, and blue sky and sunshine.”

“Ay,” said Bart; “there’s sunshine hot enough to fry a mack’rel. Place is right enough if you was free; but it ar’n’t home, Abel, it ar’n’t home.”

“Home! no,” said the young man, savagely. “But we have no home. She spoiled that.”

There was an interval of weed-chopping and clod-breaking, the young men’s chains clanking loudly as they worked now so energetically that the overseer noted their proceedings, and pointed them out as examples to an idle hand.

“Ah! you’re a hard ’un, Abel,” remarked Bart, after a time.

“Yes; and you’re a soft ’un, Bart. She could always turn you round her little finger.”

“Ay, bless her! and she didn’t tell on us.”

“Yes, she did,” said Abel, sourly; and he turned his back upon his companion, and toiled away to hide the working of his face.

The sun shone down as hotly as it can shine in the West Indies, and the coarse shirts the young men wore showed patches of moisture where the perspiration came through, but they worked on, for the labour deadened the misery in their breasts.

And yet it was a very paradise, as far as nature was concerned. Man had spoiled it as far as he could, his cultivation being but a poor recompense for turning so lovely a spot into a plantation, worked by convicts – by men who fouled the ambient air each moment they opened their lips; while from time to time the earth was stained with blood.

In the distance shone the sea, and between the plantation and the silver coral sands lay patches of virgin forest, where the richest and most luxuriant of tropic growth revelled in the heat and moisture, while in the sunny patches brilliant flowers blossomed. Then came wild tangle, cane-brake, and in one place, where a creek indented the land, weird-looking mangroves spread their leafage over their muddy scaffolds of aërial roots.

“How long have we been here, mate?” said Bart, after a pause.

“Dunno,” replied Abel, fiercely.

Here he began chopping more vigorously.

“How long will they keep us in this here place?” said Bart, after another interval, and he looked from the beautiful shore at the bottom of the slope on which they worked to the cluster of stone and wood-built buildings, which formed the prison and the station farm, with factory and mill, all worked by convict labour, while those in the neighbourhood were managed by blacks.

Abel did not answer, only scowled fiercely; and Bart sighed, and repeated his question.

“Till we die!” said Abel, savagely; “same as we’ve seen other fellows die – of fever, and hard work, and the lash. Curse the captain! Curse – ”

Bart clapped one hand over his companion’s lips, and he held the other behind his head, dropping his hoe to leave full liberty to act.

“I never quarrels with you, Abel, lad,” he said, shortly; “but if you says words again that poor gell, I’m going to fight – and that won’t do. Is it easy?”

Abel seemed disposed to struggle; but he gave in, nodded his head, and Bart loosed him and picked up his hoe, just as the overseer, who had come softly up behind, brought down the whip he carried with stinging violence across the shoulders of first one and then the other.

The young men sprang round savagely; but there was a sentry close behind, musket-armed and with bayonet fixed, and they knew that fifty soldiers were within call, and that if they struck their task-master down and made for the jungle they would be hunted out with dogs, be shot down like wild beasts, or die of starvation, as other unfortunates had died before them.

There was nothing for it but to resume their labour and hoe to the clanking of their fetters, while, after a promise of what was to follow, in the shape of tying up to the triangles, and the cat, if they quarrelled again, the overseer went on to see to the others of his flock.

“It’s worse than a dog’s life!” said Abel, bitterly. “A dog does get patted as well as kicked. Bart, lad, I’m sorry I got you that lash.”

“Nay, lad, never mind,” said Bart. “I’m sorry for you; but don’t speak hard things of Mary.”

“I’ll try not,” said Abel, as he hoed away excitedly; “but I hope this coffee we grow may poison those who drink it.”

“What for? They can’t help it,” said Bart, smiling. “There, lad, take it coolly. Some day we may make a run for it.”

“And be shot!” said Abel, bitterly. “There, you’re down to the end of that row. I’ll go this way. He’s watching us.”

Bart obeyed. He was one who always did obey; and by degrees the young men were working right away from each other, till they were a good two hundred yards apart.

Abel was at the end of his row first, and he stopped and turned to begin again and go down, so as to pass Bart at about the middle of the clearing; but Bart had another minute’s chopping to do before turning.

He was close up to a dense patch of forest – one wild tangle of cane and creeper, which literally tied the tall trees together and made the forest impassable – when the shrieking of a kind of jay, which had been flitting about excitedly, stopped, and was followed by the melodious whistle of a white bird and the twittering of quite a flock of little fellows of a gorgeous scarlet-crimson. Then the shrieking of several parrots answering each other arose; while just above Bart’s head, where clusters of trumpet-shaped blossoms hung down from the edge of the forest, scores of brilliantly-scaled humming-birds literally buzzed on almost transparent wing, and then suspended themselves in mid-air as they probed the nectaries of the flowers with their long bills.

“You’re beauties, you are,” said Bart, stopping to wipe his brow; “but I’d give the hull lot on you for a sight of one good old sarcy sparrer a-sitting on the cottage roof and saying chisel chisel. Ah! shall us ever see old Devonshire again?”

The parrots hung upside-down, and the tiny humming-birds flitted here and there, displaying, from time to time, the brilliancy of their scale-like feathers, and Bart glanced at his fellow-convict and was about to work back, when there came a sound from out of the dark forest which made him stare wildly, and then the sound arose again.

Bart changed colour, and did not stop to hoe, but walked rapidly across to Abel.

“What’s the matter?” said the latter.

“Dunno, lad,” said the other, rubbing his brow with his arm; “but there’s something wrong.”

“What is it?”

“That’s what I dunno; but just now something said quite plain, ‘Bart! Bart!’”

“Nonsense! You were dreaming.”

“Nay. I was wide awake as I am now, and as I turned and stared it said it again.”

“It said it?”

“Well, she said it.”

“Poll parrot,” said Abel, gruffly. “Go on with your work. Here’s the overseer.”

The young men worked away, and their supervisor passed them, and, apparently satisfied, continued his journey round.

“May have been a poll parrot,” said Bart. “They do talk plain, Abel, lad; but this sounded like something else.”

“What else could it be?”

“Sounded like a ghost.”

Abel burst into a hearty laugh – so hearty that Bart’s face was slowly overspread by a broad smile.

“Why, lud, that’s better,” he said, grimly. “I ar’n’t seen you do that for months. Work away.”

The hint was given because of the overseer glancing in their direction, and they now worked on together slowly, going down the row toward the jungle, at which Bart kept on darting uneasy glances.

“Enough to make a man laugh to hear you talk of ghosts, Bart,” said Abel, after a time.

“What could it be, then?”

“Parrot some lady tamed,” said Abel, shortly, as they worked on side by side, “escaped to the woods again. Some of these birds talk just like a Christian.”

“Ay,” said Bart, after a few moments’ quiet thought, “I’ve heared ’em, lad; but there’s no poll parrot out here as knows me.”

“Knows you?”

“Well, didn’t I tell you as it called to me ‘Bart! Bart!’”

“Sounded like it,” said Abel, laconically. “What does he want?”

For just then the overseer shouted, and signed to the gang-men to come to him.

“To begin another job – log-rolling, I think,” growled Bart, shouldering his hoe.

At that moment, as Abel followed his example, there came in a low, eager tone of voice from out of the jungle, twenty yards away —

“Bart! – Abel! – Abel!”

“Don’t look,” whispered Abel, who reeled as if struck, and recovered himself to catch his companion by the arm. “All right!” he said aloud; “we’ll be here to-morrow. We must go.”

Chapter Twelve
In Deadly Peril

It was quite a week before the two young men were at work in the plantation of young trees again, and during all that time they had feverishly discussed the voice they had heard. Every time they had approached the borders of the plantation when it ran up to the virgin forest they had been on the qui vive, expecting to hear their names called again, but only to be disappointed; and, after due consideration, Abel placed a right interpretation upon the reason.

“It was someone who got ashore from a boat,” he said, “and managed to crawl up there. It’s the only place where anyone could get up.”

“Being nigh that creek, lad, where the crocodiles is,” said Bart. “Ay, you’re right. Who could it be?”

“One of our old mates.”

“Nay; no old mate would take all that trouble for us, lad. It’s someone Mary’s sent to bring us a letter and a bit of news.”

It was at night in the prison lines that Bart said this, and then he listened wonderingly in the dark, for he heard something like a sob from close to his elbow.

“Abel, matey!” he whispered.

“Don’t talk to me, old lad,” came back hoarsely after a time. And then, after a long silence, “Yes, you’re right. Poor lass – poor lass!”

“Say that again, Abel; say that again,” whispered Bart, excitedly.

“Poor lass! I’ve been too hard on her. She didn’t get us took.”

“Thank God!”

These were Bart’s hoarsely whispered words, choked with emotion; and directly after, as he lay there, Abel Dell felt a great, rough, trembling hand pass across his face and search about him till it reached his own, which it gripped and held with a strong, firm clasp, for there was beneath Bart’s rough, husk-like exterior a great deal of the true, loyal, loving material of which English gentlemen are made; and when towards morning those two prisoners fell asleep in their chains, hand was still gripped in hand, while the dreams that brightened the remaining hours of their rest from penal labour were very similar, being of a rough home down beneath Devon’s lovely cliffs, where the sea ran sparkling over the clean-washed pebbles, and the handsome face of Mary smiled upon each in turn.

“Abel, mate, I’m ready for anything now,” said Bart, as they went that morning to their work. “Only say again as you forgive our lass.”

“Bart, old lad,” said Abel, hoarsely, “I’ve nought to forgive.”

“Hah!” ejaculated Bart, and then he began to whistle softly as if in the highest of spirits, and looked longingly in the direction of the jungle beside the mud creek; but three days elapsed before they were set to hoe among the coffee bushes again.

Bart let his chin go down upon his chest on the morning when the order was given, and the overseer saw it and cracked his whip.

“You sulky ruffian!” he cried. “None of your sour looks with me. Get on with you!”

He cracked his whip again, and Bart shuffled off, clinking his fetters loudly.

“Do keep between us, Abel, lad,” he whispered, “or I shall go off and he’ll see. Oh, lor’, how I do want to laugh!”

He restrained his mirth for a time, and they walked on to the end of the plantation and began their task at the opposite end to where they had left off, when the rate at which their hoes were plied was such that they were not long before they began to near the dense jungle, beyond which lay the mangrove swamp and the sea.

“I daren’t hope, Bart,” whispered Abel, so despondently that his companion, in a wildly excited manner, laughed in his face.

“What a lad you are!” he cried. “It’s all right; he’s waiting for us. It’s some, sailor chap from Dartmouth, whose ship’s put in at Kingston or Belize. Cheer up, mate!”

But it was all a mockery; and when they approached the jungle at last, hoeing more slowly for, much as they longed to go up at once, they knew that any unusual movement on their part, might be interpreted by watchful eyes into an attempt at escape, and bring down upon them a shot. Bart’s voice trembled and sounded hoarsely as he said playfully —

“Now, Abel, my lad, I’m going to talk to that there poll parrot.”

“Hush!” whispered Abel, agitatedly. “Keep on quietly with your work till we get close, and then call softly.”

“Oh, it’s all straight, lad,” whispered back Bart, chopping away and breaking clods, as his fetters clanked more loudly than ever. “Now, then, Polly! Pretty Polly, are you there?”

“Yes, yes, Bart. Abel, dear brother, at last, at last!” came from the jungle.

“Mary – Polly, my girl!” cried Abel, hoarsely, as he threw down his hoe; and he was running toward the jungle, where a crashing sound was heard, when Bart flung his strong arms across his chest and dashed him to the ground.

“Are you mad!” he cried. “Mary, for God’s sake keep back!”

The warning was needed, for from across the plantation the overseer and a couple of soldiers came running, every movement on the part of the prisoners being watched.

“Sham ill, lad; sham ill,” whispered Bart, as a piteous sigh came from the depths of the jungle.

“Now, then, you two. Fighting again!” roared the overseer, as he came panting up.

“Fighting, sir!” growled Bart; “rum fighting. He nearly went down.”

“He was trying to escape.”

“Escape!” growled Bart. “Look at him. Sun’s hot.”

The overseer bent down over Abel, whose aspect helped the illusion, for he looked ghastly from his emotion; and he had presence of mind enough to open his eyes, look about, wildly from face to face, and then begin to struggle up, with one hand to his head.

“Is it the fayver, sor?” said one of the soldiers.

“No. Touch of the sun,” said the overseer. “They’re always getting it. There, you’re all right, ar’n’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” said Abel, slowly, as he picked up his hoe.

“Sit down under the trees there for a few minutes,” said the overseer. “Lend him your water bottle, soldier. And you stop with him till he’s hotter. I’ll come back soon.”

This last was to Bart, playing, as it were, into the prisoners’ hands, for Bart took the water bottle; and as the overseer went off with his guard, Abel was assisted to the edge of the jungle where a huge cotton-tree threw its shade; and here Bart placed him on an old stump, trembling the while, as he held the water to his companion’s lips.

It was hard work to keep still while the others went out of hearing; but at last it seemed safe, and Abel panted out —

“Mary, dear, are you there?”

“Yes, yes, Abel. Oh, my dear brother, say one kind word to me!”

“Kind word? Oh, my lass, my lass, say that you forgive me!”

“Forgive you? Yes. But quick, dear, before those men come back.”

“Tell me, then,” said Abel, speaking with his back to the jungle, and his head bent down as if ill, while Bart leaned over him, trembling like a leaf, “tell me how you came to be here.”

“I came over in a ship to Kingston. Then I went to New Orleans. Then to Honduras. And it was only a fortnight ago that I found you.”

“But how did you come here?”

“I’ve got a small boat, dear. I asked and asked for months before I could find out where you were. I’ve been to other plantations, and people have thought me mad; but one day I stumbled across the sailors of a ship that comes here with stores from the station, and I heard them say that there were a number of prisoners working at this place; and at last, after waiting and watching for weeks and weeks, I caught sight of you two, and then it was a month before I could speak to you as I did the other day.”

“And now you have come,” said Abel, bitterly, “I can’t even look at you.”

“But you will escape, dear,” said Mary.

“Escape!” cried Abel, excitedly.

“Steady, lad, steady. ’Member you’re ill,” growled Bart, glancing toward the nearest sentry, and then holding up the bottle as if to see how much was within.

“Yes, escape,” said Mary. “I have the boat ready. Can you come now?”

“Impossible! We should be overtaken and shot before we had gone a mile.”

“But you must escape,” said Mary. “You must get down here by night.”

“How?” said Bart, gruffly.

“You two must settle that,” said Mary, quickly. “I am only a woman; but I have found means to get here with a boat, and I can come again and again till you join me.”

“Yes,” said Abel, decidedly; “we will contrive that.”

“But is it safe, lass, where you are?”

“What do you mean?”

“They telled us there was the crocodiles all along that creek, and sharks out beyond, if we tried to run.”

“Yes,” said Mary, calmly, “there are plenty of these creatures about.”

“Listen,” said Abel, quickly, and speaking as decidedly now as his sister. “Can you get here night after night?”

“Yes,” said Mary. “I have been here every night since I spoke to you last.”

“Then keep on coming.”

“Yes,” said Mary; “I will till you escape.”

“You have the boat?”

“Yes.”

“And provisions?”

“Yes; a little.”

“But how do you manage?”

“I am fishing if any one sees me; but it is very lonely here. I see nothing but the birds,” she added to herself, “and sharks and alligators;” and as she said this she smiled sadly.

“Be careful, then,” said Abel. “Bart, old lad, we will escape.”

There was a loud expiration of the breath from the jungle, and Abel continued —

“I must get up and go on work, or they will be back. Mary, once more, you have a boat?”

“Yes.”

“And can come up here and wait?”

“Yes.”

Quick, short, decided answers each time.

“Then be cautious. Only come by night.”

“I know. Trust me. I will not be seen. I will do nothing rash. To-night as soon as it grows dark, I shall be here expecting you, for I shall not stir. At daybreak I shall go, and come again at night.”

“And mind the sentries.”

“Trust me, Abel. I shall not come now by day for six days. If at the end of six nights you have not been able to escape, I shall come for six days by day, hoping that you may be more successful in the daylight; for perhaps you will find that a bold dash will help you to get away.”

“But the risk – the risk?” panted Abel – “the risk, girl, to you!”

“Abel, dear, I am here to risk everything. I have risked everything to join you.”

“Yes,” he said, hoarsely. “But afterwards. If we do escape?”

“Leave the plans to me,” she said, with a little laugh. “I have boat and sail, and the world is very wide. Only escape. Take care; the men are coming back.”

Mary’s voice ceased; and Abel took hold of Bart’s arm, rose, raised his hoe, and walked with him to where they had left off work, to begin again slowly, the two men trembling with excitement now; for, as the overseer neared them, a bird began flying to and fro over the edge of the jungle, screaming wildly, evidently from the fact that somebody was hidden there.

The excitement of the bird, whose nest was probably somewhere near, did not, however, take the attention of the overseer, who came up, followed by the Irish sentry, stared hard at Abel, gave a short nod as if satisfied that one of his beasts of burden was not going to permanently break down, and then, to the horror of the young men, took off his hat, began fanning himself, and went and sat down in the very spot where Abel had talked with his sister!

“Hot, Paddy, hot!” he said to the soldier.

“Dinny, sor, av you plaze. Thrue for you, sor, and a taste of dhrink would be very nice for ye; but I shouldn’t sit there.”

“Why not?” said the overseer.

“Because the place swarms with them ugly, four-futted, scaly divils. I’ve gone the rounds here of a night, sor, and heard them snapping their jaws and thumping the wet mud with their tails till I’ve shivered again.”

“Yes, there’s plenty of them in the creek, Dinny.”

“Plinty, sor, ’s nothing to it. There niver seems to have been a blessed Saint Pathrick here to get rid of the varmin. Why, I’ve seen frogs here as big as turtles, and sarpints that would go round the Hill of Howth.”

“Well, look here, Dinny, cock your piece, and if you see anything stir, let drive at it at once.”

“Oi will, sor,” said the soldier, obeying orders; and, taking a step or two forward, he stood watchfully gazing into the dark jungle.

“Have you got your knife, Bart?” whispered Abel, whose face was of a peculiar muddy hue.

Bart nodded as he chopped away.

“Shall we make a rush at them, and stun them with the hoes?”

Bart shook his head.

“Mary’s too clever,” he whispered back. “She’s well hidden, and will not stir.”

“If that Irish beast raises his musket I must go at him,” whispered Abel, who was trembling from head to foot.

“Hold up, man. She heer’d every word, and won’t stir.”

“Silence, there. No talking!” cried the overseer.

“Let the poor divils talk, sor,” said the soldier. “Faix, it’s bad enough to put chains on their legs; don’t put anny on their tongues.”

“If I get you down,” thought Abel, “I won’t kill you, for that.”

“Against orders,” said the overseer, good-humouredly. “Well, can you see anything stirring?”

“Not yet, sor; but I hope I shall. Bedad, I’d be glad of a bit o’ sport, for it’s dhry work always carrying a gun about widout having a shot.”

“Yes; but when you do get a shot, it’s at big game, Dinny.”

“Yis, sor, but then it’s very seldom,” said the sentry, with a roguish twinkle of the eye.

“I can’t bear this much longer, Bart,” whispered Abel. “When I say Now! rush at them both with your hoe.”

“Wait till he’s going to shoot, then,” growled Bart.

The overseer bent down, and, sheltering himself beneath the tree, placed his hands out in the sunshine, one holding a roughly rolled cigar, the other a burning-glass, with which he soon focussed the vivid white spot of heat which made the end of the cigar begin to smoke, the tiny spark being drawn into incandescence by application to the man’s lips, while the pleasant odour of the burning leaf arose.

“Sure, an’ that’s an illigant way of getting a light, sor,” said the sentry.

“Easy enough with such a hot sun,” said the overseer, complacently.

“Hot sun, sor! Sure I never carry my mushket here widout feeling as if it will go off in my hands; the barl gets nearly red-hot!”

“Yah! Don’t point it this way,” said the overseer, smoking away coolly. “Well, can you see anything?”

“Divil a thing but that noisy little omadhaun of a bird. Sure, she’d be a purty thing to have in a cage.”

Abel’s face grew more ghastly as he gazed at Bart, who remained cool and controlled him.

“Bart,” whispered Abel, with the sweat rolling off his face in beads, “what shall we do?”

“Wait,” said the rough fellow shortly; and he hoed away, with his fetters clinking, and his eyes taking in every movement of the two men; while involuntarily Abel followed his action in every respect, as they once more drew nearer to their task-master and his guard.

“There’s a something yonder, sor,” said the soldier at last.

“Alligator!” said the overseer, lazily; and Abel’s heart rose so that he seemed as if he could not breathe.

“I can’t see what it is, sor; but it’s a something, for the little burrud kapes darting down at it and floying up again. I belayve it is one of they crockidills. Shall I shute the divil?”

“How can you shoot it if you can’t see it, you fool?” said the overseer.

“Sure, sor, they say that every bullet has its billet, and if I let the little blue pill out of the mouth o’ the mushket, faix, it’s a strange thing if it don’t find its way into that ugly scaly baste.”

The overseer took his cigar from his lips and laughed; but to the intense relief of the young men, perhaps to the saving of his own life, he shook his head.

“No, Dinny,” he said, “it would alarm the station. They’d think someone was escaping. Let it be.”

Dinny sighed, the overseer smoked on, and the hot silence of the tropic clearing was only broken by the screaming and chattering of the excited bird, the hum of insects, and the clink-clink, thud-thud, of fetters and hoe as the convicts toiled on in the glowing sun.

They kept as near as they dared to their task-master, and he smiled superciliously as he put his own interpretation upon their acts.

“The artful scoundrels!” he said to himself; “they want me to believe that they always work like this. Well, it helps the plantation;” and he smoked placidly on, little dreaming that every time Abel reversed his hoe, so as to break a clod with the back, the young man glanced at him and measured the distance between them, while he calculated how long to hold the handle of the tool, and where would be the best place to strike the enemy so as to disable him at once.

“You take the soldier, Bart,” said Abel, softly. “I’ll manage the overseer.”

“Right, lad! but not without we’re obliged.”

“No. Then, as soon as they’re down, into the wood, find Mary, and make for her boat.”

The heat was intense, the shade beneath the great cotton-tree grateful, and the aroma of the cigar so delicious that the overseer sank into a drowsy reverie; while the soldier gave the two convicts a half-laughing look and then turned to face the jungle, whose depths he pierced with his eyes.

Bart drew a long breath and gazed toward the dark part of the jungle, and there was an intense look of love and satisfaction in his eyes as he tried to make out the place where Mary lay, as he believed, hidden. The sight of the sentry on the watch with his gun ready had ceased to trouble him, for he had told himself that the clumsy fellow could not hit a barn-door, let alone a smaller mark; while Abel seemed to be less agitated, and to be resuming his normal state.

They were not twenty yards from the edge of the forest now, the sentry’s back was toward them, and the overseer was getting to the end of his cigar, and watching the watcher with half-closed eyes, and an amused smile upon his yellow countenance.

“Every bullet finds its billet,” he muttered to himself; and, stretching himself, he was in the act of rising, when the bird, which had been silent, uttered a shrill, chattering cry, as if freshly disturbed, and the soldier shouted excitedly —

“Theer, sor, I can see it. A big one staling away among the threes. For the sake of all the saints give the wurrud!”

“Fire, then!” cried the overseer; and the sentry raised his piece to the “present.”

Bart Wrigley had not been at sea from childhood without winning a sailor’s eyes. Dark as the jungle was, and more distant as he stood, it was not so black that he could not make out the object which had oaken the sentry’s notice, and at which he took aim.

One moment Bart raised his hoe to rush at the man; the next he had brought it down heavily on Abel’s boulders, sending him forward upon his face, and uttering a cry of rage as he fell.

It was almost simultaneous. The cry uttered by Abel Dell and the report of the sentry’s piece seemed to smite the air together; but Abel’s cry was first, and disarranged the soldier’s aim, his bullet cutting the leaves of the jungle far above the ground.

“Look at that now!” he cried, as he turned sharply to see Abel struggling on the ground, with Bart holding him, and the overseer drawing a pistol front his breast.

“Lie still!” whispered Bart. “It was not at Mary.”

Then aloud —

“Quick, here! water! He’s in a fit.”

As Abel grasped his friend’s thoughts he lay back, struggling faintly, and then half-closed his eyes and was quite still.

“It’s the sun, sir,” said Bart, as the overseer thrust back his pistol and came up. “Hadn’t we better get him back to the lines?”

“Yes,” said the overseer. “Poor devil! No, no! Back, back!” he roared, signalling with his hands as a sergeant’s guard came along at the double. “Nothing wrong. Only a man sick, and Dinny Kelly here had a shot at an alligator.”

“An’ I should have hit him, sor, if he hadn’t shouted. But think o’ that, now! The sun lights gentleman’s cigar one minute, and shtrikes a man down the next. But it’s better than the yaller fayver, anyhow.”

Five days had passed, and the prisoners were not sent again to the clearing, while, in spite of every effort, they found that their chances of eluding the guard set over them by night were small indeed.

Fettered by day, they were doubly chained by night. The building where they slept was strongly secured and guarded, and in spite of the newness of the settlement it was well chosen for its purpose, and stronger even than the prisoners thought.