Sleep overcame Tad at last, but when it did it was a strange, restless
slumber, full of dreams.
He seemed to be running, leaden-footed, down the bed of an interminable
brook, where at every step the deep, black mud sucked horribly at his
heels. He struggled forward, his heart almost bursting with effort, and
always behind him he could hear the fierce, wild baying of dogs.
The black swamp grew firmer about him, and there in the surface of
the mud he saw a huge track, broad, misshapen, with a great toe that
looked half like a thumb. And suddenly the cry of the hounds ended
in a whimper, and he was fleeing from a pack of huge black stooping
shapes that ran through the woods on their hind legs--more silent--more
terrible than dogs.
He rushed on, stumbled, tried to get up, and found that all the
strength had run out of his body. His pursuers were close upon him
now, enormous in the dark, their long arms stretched to seize him. He
tried to cry out, but no sound would come from his throat. Then through
the fringes of his dream he heard Poke give a frightened squeal that
turned into a growl, and there was a low, startled oath somewhere close
by. And suddenly Tad found himself awake.
He was sitting upright on his blanket in the flatboat, clutching what
he realized was the handle of the ax. Above him, black against the red
glow of the fire, loomed a vast ape-like figure, and there were half a
dozen others moving on the levee and in the boat. He found his voice,
then.
“Abe--Allen!” he screamed, and bounded back against the gunwale,
lifting the ax as he rose. One swift blow, shortened and cramped by
his position, was all he had time to deliver. Then his adversary was
upon him with great, smothering paws that gripped his wrists and almost
cracked the bones. The ax dropped from his hand, but he continued to
struggle, kicking, twisting, fighting for time. And when he looked
up he saw the moon flash on the white, grinning teeth of Congo, the
deaf-mute.
There was a roar and a crash in the fore part of the boat. Abe was in
the fight. He had laid hold of a four-foot oak log and was swinging it
at the end of his long, powerful arms like a cudgel. “Allen, bring the
guns!” he yelled, and leaped forward, tiger-like, upon the attackers.
Two of them went down under his rain of blows. Three others closed
on him savagely, striking with fists and knives, and for a second Tad
could see only a struggling tangle of bodies on the landing. Then Abe
rolled free and bounded to his feet once more. He was still swinging
the great club, and he put all his sinewy young strength into every
smashing blow. His wrath was terrible to see. Never in his life had
he fought as he was fighting now. The black marauders broke and fled,
stumbling, before that onslaught, and Abe followed, giving them no
quarter.
All these events had taken place in the space of a few seconds. Still
gripping Tad by the wrists, Congo had watched the swift, decisive
battle between his confederates and the tall white boy. As they gave
ground, he bared his teeth in a hideous snarl of fury. But he had his
own work to do. The instant the landing was clear, the giant African
seized Tad about the middle, swung him up under one huge arm, and
sprang for the shoreward side of the boat. Locked in a death struggle
with still another negro, Allen could give him no assistance. The boy
caught at the gunwale as they went up, and clinging desperately with
hands and feet, held his captor back for a second or two. Then his grip
was wrenched loose, and the big black scaled the landing and started
with him across the levee.
They were almost in the edge of the cane when Tad heard a thud of feet
behind them. With a hoarse indrawing of breath, Congo turned at bay.
Still clutching his prisoner with his left hand, the deaf-mute raised
his tremendous right arm to demolish the pursuer.
It must have been a long time before he used that arm again. Abe,
coming in on the run, struck downward swiftly, savagely, with the great
oak cudgel. Under that crushing impact the bones parted with a dull
crack, and Congo staggered, dropped Tad, and scuttled into the cane,
the broken arm dangling horribly at his side.
The breath had been squeezed half out of the boy, but as he rose he
managed to gasp “Allen!” and pushed Abe in the direction of the boat.
Allen, it seemed, had taken care of himself. He had been getting the
better of the encounter when his antagonist had seen the others in
flight and had jumped overboard and swum for it.
One half-naked black still lay on the levee, moaning piteously. He had
fallen a victim to Abe’s first attack, and there was an ugly bruise on
his head. The fire went out of the big backwoodsman’s eye as he came to
the side of the wounded negro. Stooping, he carried him to the landing,
washed his broken crown, and wrapped about his head a bandage made of
a piece of his own torn shirt.
Gradually the man returned to full consciousness, and his groaning was
quieted.
“We-all b’longs on de plantation above yere,” he said, in response to
Abe’s questioning. “A white man done promise he gwine git us free if we
he’p dat Congo nigger ketch de young white boy.”
Abe looked at him grimly. “Kin you walk?” he said. The darky got
painfully to his feet and stood looking at the tall young Hoosier in a
palsy of terror.
“What we’d ought to do is tie ye up an’ take ye on down to N’Orleans to
jail,” said Abe. “But in this fersaken country I s’pose they’d skin ye
alive, down thar, an’ that don’t seem hardly fair, either. Go on--march
yerself back whar ye belong, an’ git thar quick, ’fore they find out
ye’re gone.”
For a moment the negro stared at him, goggle-eyed with wonder. Then he
was off, running up the levee as fast as his shaky legs could take him.
“Wal,” said Allen, feeling of a barked elbow, “I reckon none of us is
very sleepy right now.” He went to the fire and threw on dry wood,
poking it till a bright blaze sprang up. “Great wallopin’ catamounts,
Abe, but you sartin did give ’em what-for!” he chuckled. “Next time you
aim to start a ruckus like that, I want to be sure I’m on your side.”
The big youngster ambled into the circle of firelight. “You know me
better’n that, Allen,” he grinned. “You never saw me _start_ a fight in
my life. But I figger when you do have to defend yerself, it pays to go
after the other feller hard enough to put the fear o’ the Lord in him.”
He turned to the boy by his side. “How about ye, Tad--all right?”
“Fine,” said Tad, “but say--how about yourself?” He seized his big
friend by the arm and swung him half around in the firelight. “Didn’t
you know you were bleeding?”
Abe put up a hand to his face and brought it away red and dripping. A
deep gash over his right eye was bathing the side of his head and neck
with blood.
“Huh!” he laughed, “I didn’t even know I had that one. I’ve been
thinkin’ all this time it was sweat I was tastin’. Must ha’ got cut
with a knife in that fracas with the three of ’em, here on the landin’.”
He went down to the river and dipped his head in the water, after which
Tad applied a tight bandage, and the bleeding soon stopped.
“Wal,” said Allen, “I don’t reckon they’ll be back, but I ain’t sleepy
enough to turn in jest yet. What say we mosey along a few miles?”
“Suits me,” Abe replied, “only before we go thar’s one thing I want to
look at.”
He selected a fat pine knot from the fire, and holding it as a torch
to light his steps, walked slowly back to the edge of the cane, where
Congo had vanished. They saw him stoop as if searching for something.
Then he called to them. Looking where he pointed in the soft black
earth, they saw a track--deep, gigantic, splay-toed--the same footprint
that had puzzled them that morning.
“That’s the feller,” said Abe. “You’ve seen him before, I reckon, Tad.
Wasn’t that Murrell’s nigger?”
“Yes,” said Tad, “he must have followed us all the way down from
Natchez.”
“But how in time did he keep up with us?” asked Abe. “He couldn’t ha’
been aboard of a boat, could he?”
Tad told them of the canoe he had glimpsed, stealing between the
islands when Abe was making his oar.
The big flatboatman nodded. “That was him, right enough,” he said.
“Only next time, Tad, don’t be scairt to come right out with what you
think. We might have saved ourselves a heap of exercise tonight if
we’d known they was layin’ for us.”
“Wonder if he planned to paddle clear back to Natchez with Tad in the
dugout,” said Allen as they went back across the levee.
“No,” Abe answered, thoughtfully. “I b’lieve it was three of Murrell’s
gang that I saw gallopin’ down the bluff road that afternoon. Most
likely they’re waitin’ somewhere close, maybe in Baton Rouge, fer this
tongueless, earless devil to bring Tad in. Let’s drift along.”
They put out their fire, went aboard the broadhorn, and cast off the
mooring-lines, glad to see the last of Madame Duquesne’s plantation.