THE FRIEND IN THE CORN-CRIB.
It is hard to tell which was the most astonished and alarmed—Mr. Bell or
the two boys. Chase and Featherweight stood at the foot of the ladder,
looking up into the scowling, angry face that was bending over them, and
Mr. Bell folded his arms and looked savagely at them in return. For fully
five minutes no one spoke; but at the end of that time the leader of
the smugglers seemed to have determined upon something, for he beckoned
to Coulte and his sons, who came up immediately. “Go down there and tie
those boys,” said he. “Tie them hard and fast.”
Edmund went forward after a piece of rope, and Coulte and Pierre
descended the ladder, laid hold of the prisoners’ collars, and held on to
them without saying a word. Edmund presently came down with the rope, and
in two minutes more Chase and Featherweight were powerless.
“Now come up here,” said Mr. Bell, who had watched the whole of the
proceeding from the head of the ladder. “I have a word to say to you.”
Coulte and his sons ascended to the deck, and Mr. Bell began a
conversation with them which was carried on in a tone of voice loud
enough for the prisoners to hear every word that was said. Their minds
were at once relieved of all apprehension on one score, for they learned
that their captors did not intend to do them any bodily harm; but Mr.
Bell had formed some disagreeable plans concerning them, and their hearts
sank within them when they heard them unfolded and explained to Coulte
and his boys.
“Now, then,” said Mr. Bell, who seemed anxious to have done with what he
had to say, and to get the subject off his mind as soon as possible, “I
don’t want any time wasted in excuses or explanations, for I know all
about it. You have got yourselves and me into a nice scrape, and we must
get out of it the best way we can. As you captured Chase on your own
responsibility and without any orders from me, you can take care of him
yourselves. The crew will begin to return very soon, and they must not
find him here. You will take him off the vessel at once—this very moment.”
“But what shall we do with him?” asked Edmund.
“I don’t care what you do with him, so long as you don’t hurt him. I know
what I shall do with Fred Craven. I shall start with him for Cuba this
very night, and hire a Spanish sea captain, who trades between Havana
and Vera Cruz, to ship him as a foremast-hand, and take him to Mexico. I
don’t care what becomes of him after that. All I want is to get him out
of the country until I can have time to pack up and leave for Europe.
Come, Edmund, bring the yawl alongside and stand by to take your prisoner
ashore, and, Coulte, while he is doing that, you and Pierre take Craven
into the hold and stow him away there.”
The Frenchman and his boys, who were not at all pleased with this
arrangement, started off to obey the commands of their superior, and the
captives, who had listened eagerly to their conversation, turned and
looked at one another. “Good-by, old fellow,” said Featherweight, who
kept up a light heart in spite of the gloomy prospects before him. “Do
you suppose that we shall ever see each other again?”
“We will if they ever give us half a chance to get away from them,”
replied Chase. “They had better never take their eyes off of me. But I
say, Fred, I believe I’d rather be in my boots than yours.”
“I don’t doubt it. You will be on shore near friends all the time, and
your chances for escape or rescue will be much better than mine; for I
shall be shut up in a dark hole during a voyage of six hundred miles.
That’s not a pleasant idea, I tell you. Suppose the schooner should go
down in a storm while we are crossing the Gulf? They’d never think of
coming below to release me.”
“And if you reach Havana in safety, there’s the Spanish sea captain,”
chimed in Chase. “A voyage under him will be the worst part of the whole
business, according to my way of thinking. Some of these old ship-masters
are so brutal. They’ll knock a foremast hand down with a belaying-pin
without any provocation at all. There they come—good-bye! I wish I could
shake hands with you.”
The appearance of Coulte and Pierre, who came down the ladder at this
moment, put a stop to the conversation. The former carried an axe in
his hand and glared at Chase as if he had half a mind to use it on him;
but he had brought it down there for a different purpose. He picked up
the lantern, and walking around behind the ladder inserted the edge of
the axe into a crack in the deck, and after a little exertion succeeded
in prying open a small hatch which led down into the hold of the vessel,
and which fitted into the deck so nicely that a stranger might have
walked over it a hundred times without discovering it. After placing his
lantern upon the deck, so that its rays would shine into the opening, the
Frenchman jumped through the hatchway and held up his hands; whereupon
Pierre lifted Featherweight from the deck and lowered him down into the
arms of his father, who laid him away in the corner of the hold as if he
had been a log of wood. This done, he carefully examined the prisoner’s
bands, and having looked all around to make sure that everything was
right in the hold, sprang out of the opening, struck the hatch a few
blows with his axe to settle it in its place, and then ascended to the
deck. Featherweight heard him when he returned and carried Chase up the
ladder; knew when his companion in trouble was lowered over the side
into the yawl, and also when Mr. Bell left the vessel. After that silence
reigned, broken only by the footsteps of Edmund, who paced the deck
above. Featherweight waited and listened for a long time, hoping that
the man would come below and talk to him—anything was better than being
shut up alone in that dark place—and finally stretched himself out on the
boards and tried to go to sleep.
Chase, who did not possess half the courage and determination that
Featherweight did, and who was inclined to look on the dark side of
things, began to be lonesome and down-hearted when he found himself
standing on the shore with Coulte and Pierre; and when he saw that they
continued to direct angry glances toward him, as though they regarded him
as the cause of all their trouble, he became alarmed, and told himself
that perhaps after all he would be much safer in Featherweight’s boots
than in his own. His mind would have been much relieved if he had only
known what his captors intended to do with him, but they did not show a
disposition to enlighten him, and he was afraid to ask them any questions.
As soon as Edmund, who brought them off in the yawl, had returned to the
schooner, Coulte started on ahead to act as an advance guard, and to give
warning, in case he saw any one approaching, while Pierre busied himself
in untying Chase’s feet so that he could walk. After that he took his
prisoner’s arm and conducted him through the woods until they reached a
well-beaten bridle-path, leading from the cove to Coulte’s plantation,
which was about four miles distant. At the end of an hour’s rapid walk
they arrived within sight of the clearing, and discovered the old
Frenchman standing on the porch in front of the house waiting for them.
He was on the lookout, and when Pierre came into view he waved his hat as
a signal for him to approach.
“When a man is engaged in business of this kind, he can’t be too
particular,” said Pierre, now speaking for the first time since he left
the schooner. “There may be some of your friends around here, for all I
know, and if they should see me marching you up to the house with your
hands bound behind your back, they would suspect something; so I will
untie you, but I wouldn’t advise you to try any tricks.”
Chase had not the least intention of trying any tricks, for he was too
completely cowed. While Pierre was untying his hands, he looked all
around in the hope of seeing some friend approaching; but, with the
exception of the old Frenchman, there was no one in sight. For all that,
however, there was somebody near who saw all Pierre’s movements, and
understood the meaning of them. Chase passed within ten feet of him, when
he walked to the porch where Coulte was standing, the concealed friend
watching him closely, and mentally resolving that he would seize the very
first opportunity to make a demonstration in his favor.
Chase had passed many a happy hour under the old Frenchman’s roof. In
company with Bayard Bell and his cousins he had eaten more than one good
dinner there, and had spent whole evenings listening to the stories of
Coulte’s hunting adventures; but he had never entered the house under
circumstances like these, nor had he ever before met with so cold a
reception. The Frenchman did not take his pipe out of his mouth, give a
long whistle, indicative of pleasure, and exclaim in his broken English,
“I been glad to zee you, Meester Shase,” as he usually did, but followed
him sullenly into the house, and without saying a word began to tie
him—an operation in which he was assisted by Pierre. When this had been
done, he picked up a lighted candle that stood on the table, raised a
trap-door in one corner of the room, and descended a flight of rickety
steps that led into the cellar, closely followed by Pierre, who carried
Chase on his shoulders. The prisoner was laid upon the floor in a dark
corner, and then the Frenchman and his son ascended to the room above
and sat down to smoke their pipes, and talk the matter over. Their
conversation came plainly to Chase’s ears through the wide cracks in the
floor, and through the trap-door which they had left open, and, although
it was carried on in the French language, he understood every word of it.
“Well,” said Pierre, after a long pause, “what’s to be done? Have you
thought of anything?”
“I have,” replied his father. “We’ll adopt Mr. Bell’s plan, only we’ll
have to carry it out on a smaller scale. He’s going to take his prisoner
to Cuba; but as we have no boat large enough to make so long a journey,
we’ll have to take ours to Lost Island, and leave him there.”
“Why, that’s only forty miles away!” exclaimed Pierre.
“That’s plenty far enough. He can’t swim that distance; there’s nothing
on the island that he can make a boat of; he will be out of the path of
vessels going to and from New Orleans, and I’d like to know how he will
reach the main shore again. He’ll stay there three or four days at any
rate, and that’s all we want. By the end of that time we will have sold
off our property, and taken ourselves safe out of the country; for, of
course, we can’t stay here any longer. If he gets back in time to upset
some of Mr. Bell’s plans, why, that’s no business of ours.”
“But how can we go to the island without a vessel?”
“We’ve got as good a vessel as we want. We’ll go in the pirogue. We’ll
have to take care that the boy doesn’t freeze or starve to death before
he is taken off the island,” continued Coulte, “and so we will give him
an axe, a flint and steel, a blanket or two, and provisions enough to
last him a week. When they are gone he must look out for himself.”
Another long pause followed, during which Pierre was evidently thinking
over the plan his father had proposed. Chase thought it over too, and
the longer he pondered upon it, the more earnestly he hoped that Pierre
would find some serious objection to it, for it did not suit him at all.
In the first place, there was the voyage of forty miles in the pirogue,
the bare thought of which was enough to make Chase’s hair stand on end.
The pirogue was a large canoe capable of holding about twenty men. It
was furnished with a sail and centre-board, and before a light wind
could run, as the students used to say, “like a scared deer.” She had
considerable breadth of beam for a vessel of that description, and could
not be easily overturned; but still she was not the craft that Chase, if
he had been allowed to have his own way, would have selected for a voyage
of forty miles across the Gulf, especially at that season of the year.
There were not many chances in a thousand that she would accomplish the
journey in safety.
In the next place there was the prospect of a lonely residence on the
island, and that, under the existing circumstances, was by no means a
pleasant thing to look forward to. Lost Island was a most inhospitable
place. No one lived on it, and Chase had never heard of a vessel stopping
there. It was low and sandy, and in calm weather there were perhaps a
thousand acres of it out of water; but during a storm the waves washed
all over the lower end of it, leaving in sight only a solitary bluff,
about a hundred feet high, which was the only spot on the island that
was covered with timber. Like most boys of his age, Chase had read and
admired Robinson Crusoe, and if his captors had only given him a gun,
plenty of ammunition, and a companion like his friend Wilson or the jolly
little Featherweight, he would have had no objections to imitating that
adventurer’s manner of life for a short time. There would be something
romantic in it, and they would have so much to talk about when they came
back! But to be put off there by himself in the dead of winter, with only
a week’s provisions, and a fair prospect of starving to death when the
supply was exhausted, was a different matter altogether. He could see
no fun or romance in that, and he didn’t want to go to Lost Island! but
Pierre evidently thought it just the place for him, for, after turning
the matter over in his mind for some minutes, he said to his father:
“Your plan is the best that could be adopted. We’ll start this very
night, and we’ll go down now and put the pirogue in the water and get
every thing ready. I will go after the sail and oars, and you can lock
up the house.”
Pierre left the cabin, and his father raised the trap-door and went down
into the cellar to take another look at the prisoner. He tightened up a
little on the ropes with which he was confined, and when he went out of
the cellar he piled the bureau, table and all the chairs upon the door so
that it could not be raised from below. Having thus, as he thought, put
it out of Chase’s power to ascend out of the cellar, even if he succeeded
in freeing his hands and feet, Coulte locked the door of the house and
joined Pierre, who stood with a sail on one shoulder and a pair of oars
on the other, ready to start for the bayou where the pirogue lay.
Pierre little dreamed how near he came to discovering something, while he
was securing the sail and oars that belonged to the pirogue. They were
kept in one of the corn-cribs—a log building about twenty feet long and
fifteen feet high, which was filled with corn in the ear to a level with
the eaves. A ladder on the outside of the building led up to a small door
ten feet from the ground. As Pierre mounted this ladder he was surprised
to see that the door, which he was always careful to keep closed, was
ajar; and when he reached in to get the sail he found that, instead of
being rolled up as it was when he left it, it was spread out over the
corn. He thought, too, that the sail had increased wonderfully in weight
since the last time he handled it, for it was all he could do to pull
it out of the crib. But he got it at last, and the oars too; and after
closing and fastening the door he backed down the ladder to the ground.
No sooner had the sound of his footsteps died away than a boy, who was
snugly hidden among the corn, lifted a very pale face and turned it
towards the door, and after picking up his hat, which had been knocked
off his head by the sail when Pierre drew it out of the crib, cautiously
raised himself to a sitting posture, and waited to recover from the
fright he had sustained. He listened intently all the while, and having
satisfied himself at last that Pierre did not intend to return to the
crib, he crept carefully over the corn to the opposite end of the
building, and, looking out between the logs, saw him and his father
disappear in the woods on the opposite side of the clearing.
“Now, that’s what I call a close shave,” said he, drawing a long breath.
“I’d give something to know what they would have done with me if they
had found me here. That fellow who pulled the sail off me is one of
those who attacked us last night in Mr. Gaylord’s yard. I know him, if
he hasn’t got his pea-jacket and tarpaulin on. I wonder where they are
going, and whether or not they will be away long enough for me to do
something for Chase.”
It was Leonard Wilson who spoke. Instead of riding straight for
Bellville, as Chase hoped and believed he would, he had loitered about
in the woods all night, turning over in his mind a hundred wild schemes
for assisting his distressed friend, and at no time had he been more than
five miles away from him.
The last we saw of Wilson, he was riding down the road post-haste, eager
to put a safe distance between himself and the double-barrelled pistol
that one of Chase’s captors drew from his pocket. After he had run his
horse a few hundred yards it occurred to him that he was exhibiting
anything but a courageous spirit by deserting his companion in that
inglorious manner, when he had a gun slung at his back, both barrels of
which were heavily loaded with buckshot. As this thought passed through
his mind, he pulled up his horse with a jerk, and being determined
to make same amends for his cowardly behavior, faced about and went
tearing down the road towards the gate, unslinging and cocking his gun
as he went. It was his intention to ride boldly into the yard, level
his double-barrel at the heads of Chase’s assailants, and demand his
immediate release; but the plan was conceived a little too late in the
day to be successfully carried out; for when he reached the gate, he
found that both Chase and his captors had disappeared.
“Never mind,” soliloquized Wilson, who thought that he understood the
matter as well as though it had been explained to him; “I am not beaten
yet. Those two fellows are Coulte’s boys, and they have made a mistake
and captured Chase instead of Walter Gaylord. But they shan’t keep him
long. Bayard said yesterday that Coulte is very much afraid of the law,
and I’ll test the truth of that assertion the first thing to-morrow
morning. If I catch the old fellow by himself, I will tell him if he
doesn’t have Chase set at liberty, I will lodge him in jail in less than
two hours. I ought to go to his house this very night, and I would, if I
were not afraid that I should find his boys there. I should not dare to
threaten them for fear they might not scare as easily as the old man.”
While these thoughts were passing through Wilson’s mind he was riding
along the road toward the residence of the old Frenchman, still closely
followed by Chase’s horse, which galloped after him like a dog. He
approached as near the house as he dared, and then halted in a little
ravine and set about making himself comfortable for the night. He started
a fire with the flint and steel he always carried in the pocket of his
shooting-jacket, built a blind to protect him from the cold north wind
that was blowing, hobbled the horses and turned them loose in the cane
to graze, and after collecting a supply of fire-wood, sufficient to last
until morning, he scraped together a pile of leaves to serve as a bed,
pulled his overcoat over him and tried to go to sleep. But that was a
matter of some difficulty. The recollections of the exciting events
of the day, and his anxiety concerning the success of his plans for
effecting Chase’s release, banished sleep for the better part of the
night, and it was four o’clock before he closed his eyes.
He awoke just as the sun was rising, and as soon as his eyes were
fairly open he was on his feet making preparations for visiting the old
Frenchman’s house. He pulled on his overcoat, slung his gun over his
shoulder, and stood for some minutes looking first at his saddle and
bridle which lay on the ground near him, and then toward the cane, where
he could hear his horse browsing, debating in his mind whether he had
better ride or walk. He finally decided on the latter course. His first
care must be to ascertain whether or not Coulte was at home, and if so
if he was alone; and, in order to accomplish this, he must approach
as near the cabin as he could without being discovered. If he went on
horseback, he would certainly be seen by any one who might happen to be
in the house before he was half way across the clearing; but if he went
on foot, he could make use of every tree and stump to cover his approach.
Having settled this point, Wilson set off at a brisk walk, and in half an
hour more was concealed in one of the old Frenchman’s corn-cribs waiting
to see what would turn up. He found the house deserted, Coulte having
started off at the first peep of day to visit the schooner, and ascertain
how his boys have succeeded in their efforts to capture Walter Gaylord.
“I don’t know where the old fellow has gone,” said Wilson to himself,
taking up a position in the crib from which he could see every part of
the house, “but there is one thing certain, and that is that he can’t
remain away for ever. I’ll stay here and wait for him. If he comes back
alone I will go out and speak to him; but if his boys come with him I’ll
keep close. The wind blows cold through these cracks, but this sail will
serve me as an extra overcoat.”
Wilson covered himself up with the sail, and for the next two hours
remained quiet in his concealment, awaiting the old Frenchman’s return
and wondering where he was, and why he stayed away so long. Coulte made
his appearance at last, and he came alone, too; but his actions indicated
that there was some one behind him whom he was expecting every moment. He
walked nervously up and down the porch, stopping every moment or two to
gaze at the woods and to run his eyes suspiciously around the clearing,
as if fearful that there might be some one approaching whom he did not
care to see. Wilson, whose curiosity was aroused, began to watch the
woods also, and presently discovered Pierre and Chase approaching. He
kept his gaze fastened on them as they walked past the corn-crib into the
house, and when Coulte and his son, after confining Chase in the cellar,
seated themselves in the doorway to hold their consultation, Wilson
listened eagerly, and was greatly disappointed because he was too far off
to hear what they said. He was frightened, indeed, when he saw Pierre
arise from his seat and approach the crib, but supposing that he wanted
some corn for his horse, and that when he got it he would go away again,
he drew the sail over his head and held fast to it to keep the wind from
blowing it off. Pierre seized the mast and gave a pull at the sail, but
could not start it.
“What’s the matter here?” he growled, twisting the mast about and turning
it over as if he thought it had caught against the side of the crib.
“If I let go and he lifts up the sail, it will be all over with me,”
soliloquized Wilson; and the thought frightened him, and he held on with
more determination than ever. “Why don’t he get his corn and clear out?”
But Pierre wanted something besides corn. He wanted the sail, and he was
determined to have it, too. After a few unsuccessful attempts to lift it
from the corn he grew surprised and angry, and throwing all his strength
into his arms he gave a quick jerk and pulled the canvas out of Wilson’s
grasp. The latter gave himself up for lost, and was very much amazed as
well as relieved when he heard Pierre close the door and go back down the
ladder. He could scarcely realize that he had escaped, until he saw him
and his father disappear in the woods on their way to the bayou where the
pirogue lay.