Bill Bolton Flying Midshipman Part 8

For a long while the two lay there on the filthy earthen floor without speaking. Most of the weary souls had found a temporary relief from their troubles in slumber. Except for the sound of their uneven breathing the place was still as a tomb. Through the barred windows came the occasional sound of a splash where some denizen of the great swamp slipped from a gnarled root into water, and once the scream of a bird sent echoes reverberating through the night.

Bill came to a decision.

"I'm going to take the first chance that offers," he whispered.

"Chance to escape?"

"Yes, Osceola. This hopeless slavery is worth any risk."

"I believe you are right-but think! Even if you can escape the guards, you will certainly die in the swamps."

"Not if you will come with me?"

"But even I, who know the ways of swamps, can't guide you to safety without a canoe-and there is absolutely no chance of securing one."

"I've got the germ of an idea," said Bill, "It still has to be worked out in detail. Also, it will, of course, depend on whether I am put to work on a dredge, or underground."

"You'll work on a dredge," affirmed Osceola. "We all do in this prison house."

"Good! And I am going to put the plan to test just as soon as I can.

Tomorrow, if the opportunity offers. _Will_ you join me?" Bill's tone was deadly earnest.

"Any death is better than this living one," replied Osceola in a voice that matched the former's.

"Then-it's a go?"

"You bet it is!" whispered the Seminole, and the two, after sealing the bargain with a handclasp in the darkness, lay down again on the hard ground and fell asleep.

CHAPTER VII-THE ATTEMPT

The first faint rays of morning filtered through barred windows and there came a rattling of locks on the prison-house door.

"Up and out, you lazy dogs!" shouted a harsh voice.

The overseer's whip cracked, bringing forth a scream from a weary wretch near him.

The slaves got to their feet and shuffled out of the evil-smelling place. Two of them, however, remained slumped on the floor. The overseer turned them over with his foot, then realized that these two would slave no more. He muttered a curse and followed the others into the square.

Here under the supervision of extra guards the slaves were drawn up in line. Bill, and the party who had arrived with him were unshackled and the woebegone crew was ordered to march on again.

Along the side of the square they stumbled, halted again at an open shed where a ship's biscuit and a small crock of water were handed to each man as he filed past. The line of slaves swung round toward their prison house. Back there once more, they sank to the ground and partook of their morning meal. Bill noticed that files of other slaves were being herded out of buildings on the farther side of the square, toward the food shed.

"Knock the maggots out of your biscuit and soak it in the water,"

advised Osceola, who was seated beside him. "You won't find it fit to eat otherwise."

Bill made a grimace. "I can't eat this filthy stuff, Osceola. Why, it's crawling with the beastly things."

"You'll get nothing more until one o'clock when we knock off for an hour," returned his friend. "And at that the ship's biscuits are better than the mess we get at noon. If you don't eat, you'll pa.s.s out in short order. Make it snappy, too-they don't give us much time."

Bill nodded and after ridding the biscuit of as many worms as he could find, gulped down half of the tepid water in his crock and dunked his breakfast in the remainder. While the stonelike substance was softening, he studied the young Seminole chief. By daylight, Osceola proved to be a tall, rangy fellow, with the finely cut features and the high cheek bones of his race. Like most of the slaves, he wore nothing but frayed trousers and Bill saw that his red-bronze back was crisscrossed with ugly welts from the lash.

When the biscuit was soft enough to eat, Bill crunched it between his teeth and forced it down with the rest of the water. The evil mess gagged him in spite of his hunger, but he could not afford to starve and lose his strength. By the time he had finished, the slave gang were ordered to their feet again.

Down to the shed they marched, and after depositing their empty water crocks on a table, they were crowded over to the wall of the compound.

An overseer, armed with shortstocked whip and automatic revolver unbarred the double doors of the stockade and swung them inward. The guards, armed like their leader, took their places on either side of the long line, and two by two the slaves moved forward on to the corduroy road.

This time, instead of going down toward the lagoon and the dock where the amphibian lay moored, they turned off on a side road. This wound through the swamp between great cypresses whose dark green foliage was intertwined with the lighter green of vines and air-plants, and other parasites. Exposed roots of the trees, interlocked with the roots of their neighbors, looked like giant snakes twisting in and out of the muck and water. Though the sun was but half an hour high the steaming swamp seemed to sap every ounce of Bill's vitality, and with it, the last shred of that hope to which he clung so desperately. In the cavernous gloom of the forest, the vile stench of rotting mangrove was nearly overpowering; and as they plodded on, the heat grew more and more oppressive.

The log roadway was never more than ten feet wide, and sometimes, where it was built to run between two mighty trees, it was even narrower. It wound an uneven pa.s.sage through the swamp, until about a mile from the stockade, it came out on a lagoon, dotted with cypress-covered islands.

Here, sunlight brightened the long stretches of open water, and Bill saw that lovely orchids bloomed on many of the trees, and that the matted upper branches of the cypresses were brilliant with ma.s.ses of flowers.

Then a black blob on a root near the road uncurled itself, one of the guards tossed a stick and a huge snake slid into the water.

The roadway extended along the lagoon's edge for half a mile. Though it ended abruptly at this point, Bill saw that preparations were in view to extend it further.

"Those are the gold dredges," affirmed Osceola, indicating three hulks which looked like crosses between coal barges and ca.n.a.l boats. "Those big funnels at the ends, sticking into the water, are the suction pipes."

"How do the dredges work?" Bill inquired as they drew nearer.

"They are driven by stationary steam engines," explained the young Chief. "Muck and water are sucked up from the lagoon's bottom, then forced through screens and allowed to flow in shallow streams over wide inclined surfaces called tables. These tables are corrugated in such a way that all heavy substances in the silt, like fine particles of gold, are caught in the channels and washed down on to the blankets, while the lighter stuff pa.s.ses over the side."

"A bit too technical for me," said Bill. "What are blankets?"

"I'm not much on mining, but here, blankets are just what they sound like. They are covered with quicksilver to which the gold particles become attached. Later the quicksilver is washed from the blankets, and the gold taken from it by some process I don't know about. I may have missed a few details-probably have. I've only worked on the dredges three days."

"Then we aren't _all_ gold-miners?"

"Oh, no. Slaves do all the work of the camp. At present, some of the strongest of us are extending this road farther along the lagoon. But we've arrived-stop talking now, for it means the whip, during working hours."

The line halted opposite the dredges moored to the bank, and a certain number of the slave gang were ordered aboard. Axes were pa.s.sed out to others, who went on board flat-boats and poled out toward the young growths of the cypress islands.

Bill hoped that he would be one of this number, for, with an axe in his hands, many things might be possible. Instead, when his part of the line moved up to where the head overseer was issuing directions, the man pointed to a stack of iron wheelbarrows. After taking an empty barrow apiece, the two friends trundled them in a long line of barrow men down a planked incline to the muck heap formed by the gold dredges. Men with shovels were already stationed here and Bill found that with the impetus of the guards' whips behind them, each man had his barrow filled with mud and rubble in less than no time.

As soon as his own was filled he trundled it up another series of planks to the roadway. Along this the continuous stream of sweating barrow-pushers led him to the end of the road. Here, under the direction of overseers, the loads were dumped into the virgin swamp. It looked to Bill as though the black water would swallow up all the mud they could carry and more, but before many trips had been completed, he could plainly make out the progress of the roadbed.

Soon the labor became a back-breaking, seemingly endless grind. Never once was the weary, sweating crew given a chance to rest. At the slightest lagging, the overseer's wirebound lash descended upon the defenseless back of the transgressor. Loads were heavy and the strain on little-used muscles was terrific, especially on the stretch of planking from the incline up to the road. Before an hour had pa.s.sed, Bill ached in every limb. Blisters quickly formed on his perspiring hands; he felt dizzy and sick.

All at once a red hot iron seared him across the back and shoulders, and with a yell of pain Bill sprang forward. From behind him came the guard's warning:

"Snap into it, y' lazy hound-or I'll cut your liver out!"

To retaliate would be suicidal. The man carried an automatic besides this fearful, wirebound cowhide lash that laid open the bare flesh with every stroke. Bill's anger blazed at the cowardly blow, but at the same time his hopes of escape sank to lowest pitch. What could unarmed men do against these beasts? An uprising of all the slaves would be practically an impossibility, quartered as they were in separate prisons. He also began to understand that even the uprising of one prison-house gang was not to be considered. By the end of the day, these worn out men were sure to be apathetic to any such proposal. The fearful punishment meted out for failure would stop all but the most courageous from joining a concentrated revolt against their masters-the slim chances of success would deter the others.

Bill discarded all thoughts of such a plan. If he and Osceola were to escape, they must go it alone. Yet how could it be accomplished? He was still cogitating the matter, when the head overseer raised a police whistle to his lips and blew a sharp blast. Barrows and shovels were immediately stacked and the men lined up for their noonday meal.

This time a greasy mess of vegetables and small pieces of rubber-like meat were ladled on to wooden platters from a barrel on wheels. With this went a slab of stale bread and a crock of water. The stew, if it could be called that, was lukewarm and so rancid as to be almost uneatable. But Bill wolfed it down, following the others' example, only sorry that no more could be had.