SUMNER DRIFTS AWAY ON A RAFT.
The display of layer upon layer of black plug tobacco such as Quorum
had been accustomed to using for longer than he could remember caused
the negro's eyes to glisten as though they saw so many ingots of pure
gold. For more than two weeks he had longed unavailingly for a fragment
of the precious weed. Now to have an unlimited quantity of it placed
before him so very mysteriously and unexpectedly seemed to him the
climax of everything most desirable and best worth living for. He
sniffed at it eagerly, inhaling its fragrance with long, deep breaths.
Then, producing a stubby black pipe from some hidden recess of his
tattered clothing, he asked, pleadingly, for "jes one lilly smoke."
"After supper," said Sumner. "Get supper ready first, and then you
shall smoke as much as you want to."
At this Quorum's countenance fell, and seating himself on the ground,
he remarked, stubbornly: "No, sah. Ole Quor'm do no cookin' wifout
him hab a smoke fust. No smoke, no cookin', no cookin', no suppah. Why
yo' no gib one plug ob terbakker fur dat 'possum, eh? Him monstrous
fine 'possum, but I willin' to sell him fur jes one lilly plug ob
terbakker. Yo' can't buy him so cheap nowhar else, specially on dis yer
oncibilized Niggly Wity Key."
"But it is not my tobacco," laughed Sumner, greatly amused at the old
man's attitude and arguments.
"Who he b'long to, den?" demanded Quorum, quickly.
"I'm sure I don't know," answered the boy.
"Den he yourn. You fin' him. You keep him. Hit all de same like er
wrack. Yo' catch him, nobody else want him, yo' keep him. Jes one lilly
smoke, Marse Summer--jes one; den de ole man go to cookin' de berry
bestes yo' ebber seen. Come, Marse Summer, jes one; dat's a honey-bug."
There was no resisting this pleading appeal, and cutting off enough
for a single pipeful from one of the plugs, Sumner handed it to the
negro, saying: "Well, then, if you must have it, take that, and hurry
up with supper the very minute you have finished your smoke. I never
was so hungry in my life, while Worth begins to look dangerously like a
cannibal. Come, Worth, we must fly round, and build another palmetto
shanty before dark. At this rate we'll have a town here before long."
Two hours of hard work found a second hut, much more pretentious than
the first, nicely roofed in. By this time the sun was setting, and
what was of infinitely more importance to the young canoemates, Quorum
announced that supper was ready. And what a feast he had prepared! Had
there ever been one half so good before? In the opinion, of the boys,
there certainly had not.
Quorum had felt no scruples about helping himself to the provisions so
liberally provided, and if the boys had noticed what he was doing, they
had not possessed the moral courage to interfere. As a result, he had
baked the 'possum stuffed with cracker-crumbs, bits of pork and onions
cut up fine, and well seasoned with salt and pepper, in a Dutch-oven.
The oven had been set on a bed of coals, and a fire of light-wood knots
built on its heavy iron lid. The 'possum had been surrounded with
sweet-potatoes, and both were done to a brown crisp. Then there was
coffee, with sugar and condensed milk, toasted hardtack with butter,
and bananas for dessert.
"Talk about eating!" said Sumner.
"Or Delmonico's!" added Worth.
As Quorum sat and watched them, a broad grin of happiness overspread
his features, while wreaths of blue smoke curled gently upward above
his woolly head. His pipe was again full, and he now had possession of
an entire plug of tobacco, for which he felt profoundly grateful to
some unknown benefactor.
Among other things in the hut, which the boys now called the
storehouse, they had discovered a bale of blankets. These they did not
hesitate to appropriate to their own use, and as they lay stretched
on them, under their new roof, blinking sleepily at the fire, their
comfort and happiness seemed almost to have attained perfection.
"Except for our canoes," said Sumner. "If we only had them, I, for
one, should be perfectly happy; and to-morrow I am going to make
preparations for finding them."
"How?" asked Worth; and for an hour or so they talked over their plans
for the future. The intervals between their remarks became longer and
longer, until finally, when Worth asked, "Whom do you suppose all those
provisions belong to, anyway, Sumner?" the latter answered: "Give it
up. I'm too sleepy to guess any more riddles to-night."
The boys slept almost without moving until sunrise; but Quorum was
frequently aroused to repel the invasions of certain 'coons that, but
for his watchfulness, would have made free with the contents of the
storehouse. He also had to protect the fire against a heavy shower that
came on towards morning; and on each of these occasions he rewarded
himself with a few whiffs of smoke from his black pipe.
The next morning the two boys, leaving Quorum to devise traps for the
capture of the 'coons and prepare dinner, started out to collect some
of the planks they had seen the day before. With these Sumner proposed
to build a raft on which they could drift over to Indian Key with
that afternoon's ebb-tide. Once there, he anticipated no difficulty
in hailing some passing craft that could be chartered to search for
their canoes, and carry them back to Key West in case the search proved
fruitless.
[Illustration: QUORUM IS HAPPY.]
As the channel from Lignum Vitæ, through which the strongest
tide-currents flowed, led directly past Indian Key and close to it,
this plan seemed feasible. By noon the boys had towed around to the
cove in front of their camp two heavy squared timbers and a number of
boards. These they lashed together in the form of a rude raft. They
had no nails, and but a limited supply of line for lashing, so that
the raft was by no means so strong as they could wish. Neither was
it very buoyant, the material of which it was built being yellow pine,
already somewhat water-soaked and floating very low. To their dismay,
when it was completed, the boys found that instead of supporting three
persons, as they hoped it would, it was awash and unsafe with but two
of them on board.
"There's only one thing to be done," said Sumner, when this state of
affairs became evident, "and that is for me to go alone. When I get
hold of a craft of some kind, I can bring her here after you two; and
if I don't find one, it will be an easy matter for me to come back on a
flood-tide."
"But, Sumner, it seems awful for you to go 'way off there alone on such
a crazy raft at this. Do you think it is absolutely necessary?"
"Yes," answered the other, whose mind was now intent only upon
recovering his beautiful canoe, "I do think it is necessary for one
of us to go. We can't stay here forever, living off of some unknown
person's provisions. Besides, supposing those canoes should be wrecked
and discovered in that condition, and the report that we were lost
should reach Key West, how do you think our mothers would feel? Yes,
indeed, it is necessary that I should go, and I mean to start the
minute the tide serves."
Neither Worth nor Quorum could move Sumner from this determination,
and it was with heavy hearts that they watched him, about four o'clock
in the afternoon, step aboard the raft and shove out into the current,
that had just begun to run ebb. He was provided with a long pole and a
small box of provisions, the latter being placed in the middle of the
raft.
Its movement was at first heavy and sluggish, but as soon as it felt
the influence of the current, it was borne along with comparative
speed. Thus a few minutes served to take the solitary voyager beyond
earshot of his companions. For some time he could see them waving their
hats, but at length their forms faded from his sight, and he realized
that he was beyond reach of their assistance in case his undertaking
should fail. Now that he could no longer note the speed with which he
had left the island, his progress seemed irritatingly slow.
The channel was very crooked, and his clumsy craft frequently grounded
on the projecting sand-bars at its many turns. In each case valuable
time was lost in pushing it off and getting it again started. From this
cause his rate of progress was so slow that Indian Key was still some
distance ahead when the sun sank from sight in the western waters. Now,
for the first time, Sumner experienced a feeling of uneasiness, and a
doubt as to the success of his venture. He strove to add to the speed
of his raft by poling, but as the depth of water was generally too
great for him to touch bottom, nothing could be accomplished in that
way.
Now he began to notice the numbers of sea-monsters that were going out
with the tide and using his channel as their pathway to deeper waters.
On all sides were to be seen the triangular fins of huge sharks rising
above the surface so close to him that he could have touched them with
his pole. He also saw hundreds of sawfish, stingarees, devil-fish with
vampire-like wings, the vast bulks of ungainly jew-fish, porpoises, and
other evil-looking creatures of great size and phenomenal activity.
He shuddered to think what would be his fate if a slip or a mis-step
should precipitate him into the water among them. At length their forms
were hidden from him by the darkness, and only their splashings and
the gleaming trails of their progress through the phosphorescent water
denoted their swarming presence.
Suddenly, while his attention was fixed upon these, he became aware
that he was abreast of Indian Key and passing it. There was a shoal on
the opposite side, and plunging his pole into it, he made a mighty
effort to direct his raft towards land. All at once, without the
slightest warning, the brittle pole snapped, and only by a violent
effort did he save himself from plunging into the cruel waters.