Bill was conscious of the amphibian’s upward swing as she leveled off
preparatory to landing. Her tail dropped slightly and a second or two
later she was gliding through smooth water propelled by her own
momentum.
Electric lights flashed in the prison cabin, illuminating the place with
blinding suddenness and making it impossible to see further into the
black night outside the porthole.
The plane’s momentum decreased and she stopped with a slight jar. Orders
were shouted. Men called to each other to pull on this rope and that.
Then the door to the cabin swung open, the prisoners trooped from their
cells, and marched up a gangway on to a large wooden dock.
Lanterns glowed in the darkness. Bill caught a glimpse of black water,
then he found himself shuffling along a narrow corduroy road with the
rest. Great trees arched intertwining branches overhead and cast an even
deeper gloom on their path. From time to time the swaying lantern of a
guard cast its beam on gnarled trunks covered with creepers which reared
upward from black water. There was the rank stench of rotting vegetation
in the humid air. Before Bill tramped the log road twenty feet, he was
wringing wet with perspiration.
They swung to the right and up a sharp incline, halting before a high
stockade. Thick plank doors in the wall of tree-trunks opened inward and
the party entered the enclosure. Here arc lights on high wooden
standards flooded the yard with brightness. Numerous one-story buildings
were set about a large open square of hard baked earth. So far as Bill
could see there were no trees within the stockade, nor had any attempt
been made to beautify the place. Most of the buildings were of unpainted
boards, although the squared logs of several of the largest proved them
of more solid construction.
Few people were about. The enclosure was as bare and uninviting as a
military training camp. It was toward one of the log buildings that the
prisoners were hustled. A guard unbarred an ironbanded door and they
were thrust within the building. With a clang the door slammed and at
last the band from Shell Island were left to their own devices.
Bill looked about him. The only light came from the arc lights’ rays
which shone through barred windows set high in the four walls. This
meager illumination cast the place into somber twilight. Their new
quarters consisted of a not too roomy, barn-like, rectangular space, the
peak of whose slant roof was lost in the shadows overhead. The terrific
heat, the reek of perspiring humanity added to the rank odor of the
swamp was almost overpowering.
As Bill’s eyes gradually became accustomed to the gloom, he soon
discovered that the newcomers were to have plenty of company. Dark
figures sprawled in all sorts of attitudes on the damp earthen floor.
Most of them seemed sunk in the slumber of exhaustion. A few talked in
low tones as though the humidity had sapped all vitality from their
voices. From a dark corner came the uncontrolled sobbing of a man in
agony.
Bill picked his way over the huddled bodies toward one of the posts in
the middle of the room, that helped to support the roof. The clanking
chain that connected the ankle cuffs impeded his progress, caught on a
projection and sent him headlong on top of another figure crouched on
the ground near the post.
“Sorry!” apologized Bill, hauling himself off his victim. “I certainly
didn’t—”
“No harm done,” replied a pleasant, though languid voice.
Bill leaned back against the upright and crossed his legs.
“Decent of you to take it that way,” he observed.
“Too much effort to fight,” remarked the unknown with surprising candor.
“This beastly place saps one’s pep. After you’ve been here a while,
you’ll feel that any unnecessary effort just isn’t worth while. Came in
just now with that new batch, didn’t you?”
“That’s right—how did you guess it?”
“You’re still carrying the iron-ware. Those beasts will take it off in
the morning. They always leave you weighted down the first night.”
The man’s voice was deep and resonant. He spoke with the accents of
education which prompted Bill to continue the conversation.
“My name is Bill Bolton,” he said, by way of a starter.
“Not Bolton, the Naval Academy end?”
“You _are_ some guesser!” Bill’s tone showed his surprise. “I made the
team last fall; but how did you happen to place me that way?”
“I played against you in the Carlisle game last year. I’ve got a number
now, but before I came here I was Osceola, Chief of the Turtle Clan of
the Seminole Nation.”
“Carlisle’s All-American half back! I remember you now—I should say I
do. How in the world did you get here?”
“Pretty much the same way we all do. I was kidnapped. And the worst of
it is that now these devils have got us, there’s no possible chance of
escape.”
“What is this joint, anyway?”
“You mean you’ve no idea what you’re in for?”
“Not the foggiest. The men on Shell Island spoke of ‘workings’
somewhere—”
“These are the workings, Bolton—gold workings.”
“But I thought I was in Big Cypress.”
“You are.”
“But—surely you can’t have a gold mine in the middle of a swamp!”
“There you’re wrong. Martinengo not only has a gold mine, and a most
profitable one, at that—he also runs suction dredges.”
“How come?” Bill was intensely interested.
“The rock floor of the Everglades and these cypress swamps is usually
found at a depth not exceeding six feet; but in some places it is twice
that far down,” replied the young Seminole chief. “There is gold in the
rock below the swamp near here. Martinengo has workings in that rock.”
“Coffer dam?”
“Yes, a coffer dam has been built to keep the water out. The rock near
the top is fairly soft and that is probably why the muck on the bottom
of the swamp hereabouts contains gold. The colors or particles of the
metal run very fine, but they are profitable to mine. At least
Martinengo finds it so. For that work suction dredges are used. Oh,
you’ll get better acquainted with the whole business soon.”
Bill said nothing for a minute or two. Presently he observed: “What I
don’t understand yet, is why Martinengo kidnaps people and keeps them
prisoners in this horrible place.”
“Because,” Osceola answered slowly, “the mines are made doubly
profitable by using slave labor.”
“What!” exploded Bill, leaning forward.
“Slave labor, my friend. And you and I are two of the slaves. It is
cheaper for that gangster Martinengo and his brothers to kidnap negroes,
Indians and poor whites than to hire miners. The work is terrific and
the climate frightfully unhealthy. These devils would have to pay a very
high wage to legitimate workmen. As it is, we don’t live long, here.
What with long working hours in a climate that approximates a Turkish
bath, the cruelty meted out by the overseers, starvation rations, the
general filth and the hopelessness of our position—well, two or three
months of it is about as long as the average man can stand. Swamp fever,
snake bite and other diseases usually cut the time shorter.”
“It’s deadly.” Bill’s voice, when it came, was very low. “And to think
that this is going on in the United States of America! Surely, though,
the government will eventually put a stop to it?”
“Maybe,” returned Osceola apathetically, “but it isn’t likely that you
and I will live to see it. If the federal government has done anything
to break up organized crime that’s terrorizing the country, I haven’t
heard of it. By the way, how did these people get hold of you?”
Bill told him, and ended by stating his worries concerning his father.
“Martinengo probably means to get money out of Mr. Bolton before
shipping him over here. He’ll never let him go free, no matter what he
may promise. If the secret of Shell Island ever leaks out, it means an
end to Martinengo’s profits here.”
“Were you taken on the Island?”
Osceola laughed contemptuously. “I was a fool, Bolton. My ambition since
I was a small boy has been to do something for my people. Once we were
great warriors, today we are a degenerate, ignorant race. White man’s
fire-water and lack of education have made us go backward while the rest
of the world has progressed. I meant to educate myself first, and when I
had acquired knowledge, I felt I would then be fitted to take up my
task. So I went to school and won a scholarship at Carlisle. I still
have two more years to go there before graduation. Shortly after the
summer holidays began this year,—I had gone back to my people—I took my
gun to bring in some waterfowl.
“Well to cut the tale short, I ran into a man-hunting gang of
Martinengo’s. They pretended they were lost and I offered to lead them
back to Whitewater Bay. I suspected nothing. They took me off guard,
carted me over to Shell Island with some other poor fellows—and
eventually I was put to work here.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Six weeks ago yesterday. We Seminoles stand it better than the others.
Most of us are fever-proof, probably because we have lived in the
Everglades for generations.”
“Haven’t you tried to escape?” Bill asked him, and voiced the thought
that had been uppermost in his mind ever since he left Shell Island.
“I’ve thought about it,” the young chief admitted, “especially when I
first came here. Everybody does, I suppose, but the thing is next to
impossible. Trackless swamp all around—it would be sure death to face it
without a boat or canoe. And even if a craft of some kind could be
obtained, you would starve to death. About a month ago, two men escaped
but they were caught and brought back.”
“Punished?”
“They were.”
“What happened to them?”
“Condemned to two hundred lashes apiece with an overseer’s wirewrapped
whip. We slaves were forced to witness the—execution.”
“Execution!”
“That’s what it amounted to. Both of the poor chaps were, mercifully,
dead before the first hundred lashes could be administered. Human flesh
and blood couldn’t stand it. The whips these beasts use cut a man to
ribbons. We all get a taste of it, no matter how hard we work. I have no
shirt any more. You’ll see my back in the morning.”
For a long while the two lay there on the filthy earthen floor without
speaking. Most of the weary souls had found a temporary relief from
their troubles in slumber. Except for the sound of their uneven
breathing the place was still as a tomb. Through the barred windows came
the occasional sound of a splash where some denizen of the great swamp
slipped from a gnarled root into water, and once the scream of a bird
sent echoes reverberating through the night.
Bill came to a decision.
“I’m going to take the first chance that offers,” he whispered.
“Chance to escape?”
“Yes, Osceola. This hopeless slavery is worth any risk.”
“I believe you are right—but think! Even if you can escape the guards,
you will certainly die in the swamps.”
“Not if you will come with me?”
“But even I, who know the ways of swamps, can’t guide you to safety
without a canoe—and there is absolutely no chance of securing one.”
“I’ve got the germ of an idea,” said Bill, “It still has to be worked
out in detail. Also, it will, of course, depend on whether I am put to
work on a dredge, or underground.”
“You’ll work on a dredge,” affirmed Osceola. “We all do in this prison
house.”
“Good! And I am going to put the plan to test just as soon as I can.
Tomorrow, if the opportunity offers. _Will_ you join me?” Bill’s tone
was deadly earnest.
“Any death is better than this living one,” replied Osceola in a voice
that matched the former’s.
“Then—it’s a go?”
“You bet it is!” whispered the Seminole, and the two, after sealing the
bargain with a handclasp in the darkness, lay down again on the hard
ground and fell asleep.