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."