THE "DEVIL'S ISLAND."
Proud of my achievement, I shouldered the prize, and started to return
to the skiff.
I had not gone three steps, when I again stopped, to simply ask myself
the way. I saw that I had lost it.
The chase after the wounded eagle, both tortuous and prolonged, had
carried me out of sight of the deadwood as well as the light let down
through its leafless branches. I was once more in the midst of a
continuous twilight.
I looked for my tracks. Taking time and pains, I might have discovered
and retraced them. But the spread-fans of the palmettoes quite covered
the ground, and I had not the patience to put them aside for such
exploration. I supposed the island to be of only some forty or fifty
acres in extent; and, by keeping straight on in any direction, I must
soon come to its edge. Following this, would in time bring me to the
skiff.
Taking a straight shoot through the underwood, I walked briskly on,
and, as I expected, soon saw the sunlight gleaming before me.
There was an opening with water; but, as I drew near to it, I could see
it was not the river, but a sort of lagoon or pool of stagnant water.
I kept for a short distance along its edge, and discovered that it
communicated with a "bayou" that appeared to lead out into the river.
I fancied that it would take me the wrong way, and was turning to make
a traverse in the opposite direction, when something down under the
bank caught my eye. I first took it for a floating log; but on closer
scrutiny it proved to be an old canoe of the kind known as a "dug-out."
It was moored to the root of one of the great cypresses that
overshadowed the water. It was partially concealed by the outstretched
fronds of the palmettoes that grew around the root of the cypress.
On seeing the dug-out, I supposed there was some other party upon the
island; but, stepping down and examining it, I saw that its rude hawser
of twisted grape-vine must have been holding it there for months. Some
worthless, worn-out craft, abandoned, perhaps forgotten.
While making this reflection, my eye wandered to the opposite side of
the pool. There I observed other signs of human presence, though not
recent. There was a little spot of cleared ground, above a high bank
that looked as if it had been used for a landing. Fragments of coarse
canvas, such as is used for cotton "bagging," were strewn over it, and
there were the ashes of an old fire.
I thought it strange to see such relics in that solitary place, and
walked away, wondering what could have taken them there.
My speculations, however, were soon interrupted by the necessity of
finding my way back to the skiff, which proved more difficult than I
had expected.
Not till I had wandered about for a full half-hour, and scratched
my skin among the sharp spikes of the palmettoes, did I succeed in
reaching my place of debarkation, and then only by shouting myself
hoarse, and getting a responsive shout from the skiffman.
"I's glad, massa, you got safe 'board 'gen," said he, as I stepped into
the boat.
"Why?" I asked, wondering at the remark as well as the alacrity with
which the darky pulled away from the cottonwood.
"Kase I t'ink dat 'ere island a dangersome place."
"Dangerous place! In what way?"
"Doan' no, massa, doan' no. But folks do say de debbil hab been see'd
an' heerd dar ob nights. One ob Mass' Bradley's black people tole me
so. Mass' Bradley's plantation not far off on toder side, but none o'
dem niggas ebba goes on dat island. Nob'dy else ebba go dar. Sartin
shoo de place am ha'nted."
I could now comprehend why my companion had shown such aversion to
accompany me in my excursion.
I could not help smiling at his superstition, though I was not a little
chagrined at his not having sooner confided it to me, so that I might
have made a more careful exploration of the interesting locality.
When I thought of the gloomy obscurity of its shadows, the deep,
dark lagoon, that slept stagnant under its trees, the weird drapery
of Spanish moss, that thickly festooned their branches, I did not
so much wonder at the superstitious awe with which my sable-skinned
companion had been led to regard it. It was just the kind of spot to be
"haunted;" but no doubt the abandoned dug-out, and the other _reliquiæ_
I had observed, had I taken time to examine them, would have given a
clue to the "debbil," supposed by Jake and his colored acquaintance of
the Bradley plantation, to have made it his abiding-place.