THE RESCUE
We lay in silence till at last, faintly, came the call of post one. I
listened, trying to catch the quality of his voice, knowing I soon
should have to imitate it. To the call of the next man I also listened.
The third did not concern us more than to know he was on duty. No others
called, so the guard had not been strengthened. These voices seemed to
arouse Smilax, for he raised himself up on one elbow, whispering:
"What time they say?"
"Ten o'clock," I answered.
"Good. We fix 'em 'leven; come."
So the game was on! I followed silently--and savagely; for, as I have
said, the human pawns who stood between me and my maid held no more
value than the ants.
For about ten minutes our progress went reasonably well, then Smilax
slowed to a pace of extreme caution and finally sank to his hands and
knees. In this manner we crawled a few hundred yards farther.
"Here your place," he put his lips close to my ear and whispered. "First
man not ve'y far; straight. You find out when he call once more, or
flash light. Watch when Two man call so you know where go next. No let
'em call 'leven. Good. Me go now." And he was off like a snake to take
up a position behind post two.
I felt about me and, finding the ground clear of any growth that might
produce a noise, moved stealthily forward, still on my hands and knees;
but, after each step, pausing and feeling ahead until my fingers seemed
to have grown as long and sensitive as antennae. In this way I must have
gone another two hundred feet when I saw a glimmer of white light. It
was the electric torch, and I knew the sentry must be looking at his
watch.
Fleeting as it had been it showed me that between us lay a patch of
saw-palmetto, and this was awkward as I could get no idea of its depth.
But since he did not call the post I knew that he would soon be taking
another look at the time, and kept warily on, my eyes alert to ascertain
the dimensions of that patch the instant his torch should flare. For I
must crawl around it; to go through would be impossible. Smilax could
have achieved it, but Smilax was a wonder.
The light showed again. I was within fifty feet of the patch now and saw
with a feeling of relief that it ended almost at the spot where my man
stood, or sat, or whatever he was doing. Still, the time had not come
for him to call the half hour, when I should be able to advance more
rapidly during the few seconds that his voice would make him insensible
to other slight sounds. Inch by inch, almost holding my breath, I
crawled. The pine needles let me slide along as though on a greased
floor. My left hand touched a saw-toothed stem, so I veered slightly to
the right, getting closer, all the while closer.
At the next flash I heard him clear his throat--that had ever
been his prelude to a call--and by the time his sing-song
"Post-one-half-past-ten-and-all's-well" ended I had made good
progress. Now, close up behind the point of palmettoes which acted
as a screen but was too sparse to offer interference, I realized
that he could be not more than ten feet away; and this was the best
I could hope to do, surely as close as I dared get.
But ten feet was too great a space to be crossed at a bound before he
might utter one cry that would alarm the camp. One cry, even half a cry,
meant ruin to us. It was not enough that this sentry die; he must die
without having uttered the merest sound. I determined, therefore, to
wait until his senses became focused, his breathing centered, on the
eleven o'clock call; for, so occupied, his mind would be a fraction of a
second slower in responding to an outside thought which came unawares to
him than if he were standing on the alert for sounds. This seemed to be
good psychology. When he cleared his throat to call eleven, therefore, I
would spring--and the gods be with me!
I own that for a little while my heart did pound unmercifully, but with
even less mercy I willed it to be calm. For the moment I almost
regretted having come so near, because it seemed preposterous to suppose
that he would not discover me. I could distinctly hear the slightest
move he made--but it must be remembered that I was listening to him,
whereas he did not suspect my existence. Once he knocked the dead ashes
from his pipe against the heel of his boot; then I thought he was
getting ready for a smoke, and soon after this he struck a match.
As the flame, sheltered by his two hands held cup-wise, flickered above
the bowl I got a look at him. He impressed me as being a well put up
fellow of considerable strength, who would not be conquered without
trouble. But never have I seen a face present a pantomime of more brutal
indifference. It was seamed with lines of cruelty; the coarse lips were
hideously puckered about the pipe stem; his eyes drooped in bestial
satisfaction as he sucked at it. While he was getting the light, thus
creating a noise in his own ears that would drown a slighter noise from
me, I took the opportunity to arrange my position somewhat, and now felt
satisfied. With clean ground beneath me, with only a thin screen of
palmetto leaves between us, how better could I have planned!
Minutes sped, and my senses seemed to have accumulated into a little
ball between my eyes. I may have trembled; I know that my nerves were
stretched to the very highest fighting pitch, they were in tune with my
determination. The next half hour would decide the salvation or
destruction of the girl I loved.
The electric torch flashed on a silver watch in his huge, dirty hand. I
held my breath, ready--but he did not call. Again I had to will my heart
to stop its sudden thumping; again I settled down to wait--though with
my legs crouched and my fingers resting on the sand, as I had "set" many
a time for a hundred yard dash. All I needed now was the word "Go!"
More minutes sped. At last he moved, and I guessed that he was reaching
into his pocket for the torch. It flashed, shining on the silver watch
as before. I heard the cover snap to with a click of finality; he
cleared his throat--and I bounded into the air.
He had no time to cry out before my fingers locked upon his throat as
jaws of iron. He staggered and caught my wrists, but did not immediately
begin the frantic struggle I expected. His rifle fell to the soft earth
with hardly a sound and, like a dead weight, he crumpled up; falling so
quickly that I nearly came down on top of him.
At first, suspecting this might be a ruse to break my grip, I squeezed
the tighter, holding his head up as far as my knees and shaking it with
the savageness that a terrier would shake a rat. There was no room for
compromises here. Grimly believing him to be beyond the point of giving
an alarm, I was not prepared for an attack when he came to life with an
energy born of desperation, wrapped his arms about my legs and with
tremendous strength jerked me forward, at the same instant striking me
in the back with his knee. Thus, to keep from pitching over his head, I
involuntarily lost my hold--the last of all things I would have done!
Yet the effect to so violent a choking seemed for the moment to have
paralyzed his power to call, and swiftly, as a darting hawk, I made
another grab for the throat that must at all costs be silenced. He had
covered it with his own hands and I could not pry away his fingers.
Again and again I tried, and now, with growing strength, he caught my
wrists and held them. Maddened by the specter of failure, I heard him
drawing in a labored breath that I knew would come out in a hideous
yell.
Success lay upon the fraction of a second. In a frenzy jerking one of my
hands free, and throwing the full weight of my body across his face to
momentarily smother the outcry, I twisted around, drew my knife, and
plunged it deep into his side. There was a convulsive tremor, and
silence. Yet, as the king snake had done, I also drew back warily,
listening. It had been enough.
Springing up, and trying to calm my breathing, I called:
"Post one, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!"
The last word had no more than been pronounced when I was moving
swiftly, silently on post number two. True to his intention, Smilax had
prepared the way.
"Post two, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!" I called in an altered
voice.
The sentry at post three, doubtless having a vein of humor or finding
any variation of his tedious duty agreeable, dwelt in his turn long and
almost lovingly over the "er-well," making it sound "e-e-er-well."
"How you like that?" he called, in a guarded tone, and receiving no
answer, laughed: "Then go ter hell with yer perlite manners."
A few minutes elapsed before I was conscious of a movement in the water,
slight, barely distinguishable. But my eyes had grown more and more
accustomed to the darkness and I thought that I made out something
coming toward the shore. Creeping a little forward and listening, I felt
that it was Smilax carrying Sylvia, and became certain of this when
someone was deposited there who began cautiously to climb the bank.
Smilax, evidently, had turned back for Echochee. But along this section
of the mainland the bank was steep, and the climber came with
difficulty--once slipping and making what I thought to be an awful
racket. Even the humorous sentry on post three heard it and,
providentially unsuspicious, called:
"Yer ain't bit yerse'f, have yer?"
I made no answer to this, trusting him to be satisfied with his own wit.
Yet now, following a most natural impulse, forgetting in our extreme
peril that Sylvia was unaware of my presence, I leaned above the top and
reached down to her; when, to my utter consternation, she gave a
piercing scream of terror. Quick as a flash the sentry at post three
yelled and fired his gun, and the sleeping camp became a bedlam of
cursing men.
"For God's sake," I whispered--but Smilax had turned back to us and was
beside her.
"Him friend," he said, hurriedly. "Only friend we got! Go with him
quick! Me get Echochee!"
While saying this he was pushing her up to me, at the same time holding
out a bag, or kind of traveling case, that she had dropped. I seized it
with one hand, and her arm with the other.
"Quick; go to camp," Smilax was saying. "Me get Echochee and give 'em
chase up coast. Be back soon; you wait there."
He had taken to the water again and was making for the Indian woman, who
I thought had started out to meet him. So I knew he would rescue her, as
surely as he was six and a half feet of muscle and endurance. The camp
had become thoroughly aroused by now, and lights were everywhere. Hoping
to reassure Sylvia, I whispered as Smilax would have spoken:
"Me friend; come quick!"
Above the confusion we could hear the voice of Efaw Kotee bellowing:
"Get the punts, you fools! Which way is she?"
"On the mainland," someone yelled.
"Then catch her," he bellowed again, with a string of blasphemous oaths.
This decided her, and she whispered wildly:
"Hurry! Take me where Tachachobee said!"
We dashed through the forest, I leading, she close behind. Nor had we
any time to spare, for before we had gone a hundred yards two quick
shots rang out. It was "li'l crack-crack" speaking, I felt sure of it.
Shots answered rapidly in threes and fours. The automatic spoke again,
this time farther to the north, drawing more shots from the angry
pursuers; but I knew that among trees so thick and in darkness so
impenetrable Smilax and Echochee ran little chance of being hit. At the
prairie, made vaguely lighter by a hazy, half grown moon, we crouched in
the grass and waited.
You have never, I suppose, been afraid to breathe, flattened against a
wall, or huddled in a shadowy place, listening to the growls and grunts
and sniffs of the man-beast hunting you? No, of course not.
Men were now tearing through the forest like a herd of stampeded horses,
shooting, yelling, cursing, while at brief intervals the automatic told
them which way to go. Farther and farther the chase went, all the time
following the coast and leading away from us till, after twenty minutes,
the yells were hardly discernible and the shots sounded like faint
little pops of a nursery gun. But they were as rapid as ever, telling us
that the pursuit had in no way diminished. Smilax, undoubtedly master of
the situation, would lead them on and on; either close by Big Cove so
those aboard the _Whim_--had she made harbor--could take a hand, or
finally lose them somewhere in the treacherous Everglades. Then he would
came back for us. I felt no great uncertainty for Smilax and Echochee.
I now straightened up--taking care that she should not see my face--and
listened to satisfy myself that no one had stayed behind to be roaming
in the forest near us, then whispered:
"Come!"
In silence, she following, we crossed the two mile space, and I drew a
deep breath of thankfulness when we at last stepped beneath the black
trees of my "island."
I knew that she had taken me for a Seminole--at least, the probability
seemed to be strong in that direction. The darkness again was too
intense for her to see my features, and, since I had been fairly
successful in speaking the choppy English of the Indian, I determined to
continue the deception until morning. For she had become somewhat
accustomed to the "trusted friend" by now, whereas re-introductions at
this hour would be exceedingly awkward, if not quite disastrous to her
peace of mind. So, without a halt, I walked on through the trees until
we came to her tent. At the door of this I put down her bag, then
stepped back and for a second at arm's length flashed my electric torch
on it, again being careful to keep my face in shadow.
"You safe here," I said. "Tachachobee make this camp for you. Me and him
camp little way off. To-night me watch to see when him and Echochee
come. No one find you; you sleep well. Tachachobee good man; me and him
friends. You no be 'fraid."
"Thank you," she said wearily. Ah, how tired her voice did seem!
"There water; good to drink. You hungry?" I asked.
"No, thank you,--what is your name?"
This was a poser, for I had not thought up a name. But, of course, Jack
came first into my mind, so I answered:
"Jackachobee."
"No, thank you, Jackachobee," she said, "I'm not hungry."
"You want gun?" I asked again.
"I have one," she answered.
"Good. Then you sleep; no one find you here. In morning take time; when
ready for breakfast walk back this way a hundred steps and whistle like
plover. Then me come and show you way. Sleep good."
Thus, feeling very well satisfied with my Indian impersonation--which,
nevertheless, had its faults--I left her; turning and going to the fort,
there choosing a place where I could keep guard all night against
possible danger.
Long and earnestly did I listen for some sound of the chase, but the
night had grown absolutely still except for a soft breeze rustling the
palm fronds above my head and the prairie grass in front of me. Yet I
felt secure in the belief that Smilax had not been taken. Without
question, he and Echochee were still in flight, heading toward some safe
refuge; coaxing, by shot or cry, the furious pack that tore hopefully
after them. I knew that my vigil here was unnecessary--that with all
senses focused on the chase no straggler would by any chance be coming
this far out into the prairie--but I had told Sylvia it would be kept.
As I sat there, joyous over the conquest we had made, but more supremely
happy because she was safe and near me, thinking tumultuous things which
were a credit to mankind, hoping hopes that man has never realized, I
raised my face to the sky and thanked God.
Creature of incongruities! I thanked God for putting her safely into my
keeping, when my fingers had not yet been washed after their bath in a
fellow creature's blood! The cave man had gone abroad at dusk to find a
mate, and human pawns who stood in his way had been of no more
consequence than ants!
Thus it has always been for the women we love. Thus it should be.