CHAPTER VIII.

PRISONERS.

It would have been foolish for us to try to resist our captors, and we neither did nor said anything, except that Bill whispered cautiously, “Keep quiet, young masters; it’s our only chance.”

The two Indians who had seized Bill by the arms marched off with him, and Tom and I followed close behind with the rest of their number. We walked slowly, for Bill had suddenly become very lame, and walked with his left knee perfectly stiff. In about a quarter of an hour we reached a clearing where there was an Indian village, consisting of twenty or more huts made by covering a framework of poles with skins and old blankets. One large hut was covered with canvas, which must have been part of a ship’s sail.

A crowd of savages, who were chiefly women and children, came to meet us, and surrounded us as we stood waiting to see what would be our fate. Some of the women made hideous faces at us, but they behaved decently compared with a horrible old man, with a painted face, and a row of sharks’ teeth hung around his neck, who spit in our faces, and several times made believe to stab us with his long sharp knife.

After talking about us for a while the Indians took us to a hut where they bound us hand and foot with pieces of rope, making us sit down on the ground and tying our feet together and then tying our wrists under our knees. Then they placed a guard at the entrance of the hut and left us to ourselves.

“I’ve been lashed up in Blackbeard’s cabin two days at a time in just this fashion,” said Bill. “I wonder if they learned it of him. These bits of rope come from some wreck they’ve plundered. I hope it was Blackbeard who was wrecked.”

“What will they do with us, Bill?” asked I.

“They mean to torture us in the morning and then they’ll kill us. Most likely they’ll burn us at the stake. But they hain’t done it yet, you know, and they won’t if we can get away to-night.”

“Much chance of our getting away,” exclaimed Tom.

“It don’t look much like it,” said Bill, “but more unlikely things has happened. Master Jack knows a clipper of a prayer, and I know a sort of one, and probably you know one. I propose that we all turn to and take a spell at prayin’. It may fetch us out of this, for it fetched us out of that cave.”

We were all silent for a long while, and I don’t believe that more earnest prayers were ever said than those that were offered in that hut by old Bill the pirate, and his two miserable companions.

“Our being tied up don’t matter much,” said I, after a while, “for I could always slip my hands through any rope that was tied around my wrists, and, if that Indian would move away from the door for five minutes I would undertake to have our feet and hands free in less than that time.”

“Why, now I told you we weren’t killed yet by no manner of means. The only thing that troubled me was these lashin’s, for I couldn’t see my way to get out of this camp so long as we couldn’t move hand or foot. But don’t you move yet a while, Master Jack. Wait till night, when them heathens will be asleep. We’re safe to be left here till mornin’, and if we can manage that chap that is keepin’ guard over us, we can walk out of here some time to-night.”

“Then you think we will have to lie here till the Indians are asleep?” said I.

“Of course we will, and if you’ll take my advice you’ll heave a groan now and then, just as if you were sufferin’ terribly and had no hope of gettin’ off. Oh! I know them savages. Nothin’ pleases them so much as to see a feller suffer. I’d like to serve that medicine man out, though, before we go.”

“What is a medicine man?” I asked.

“He’s a sort of Indian parson and fortin’-teller and doctor,” replied Bill. “That chap with the sharks’ teeth is the medicine man, and he’ll be for puttin’ us to the worst kind of torture. It was pretty hard to have him spit in your face, and never be able to heave as much as a belayin’-pin at him. But we mustn’t let them hear us talk or they’ll think we’re plottin’ somethin’.” So saying, Bill groaned in a way that almost made me laugh, and then rolled over on his side and lay perfectly still.

After it was dark the Indians must have built a big fire in the middle of the village, for we could see the light and hear the flames crackle. Bill whispered that they were holding a council to decide what they would do with us.

“Or,” he added, “I ought to say how to do it, for they’ll never dream of lettin’ us save our scalps.”

It must have been very late, for the fire had died down and all was quiet when the medicine man came to our tent. He sent away the guard and, entering, sat down and stared at us. He was evidently gloating over his victims, and his sending away the guard meant that he intended to watch us himself.

He was an old man, but for all that he looked as if he was very tough and wiry. Still, I had made up my mind that I would risk freeing my hands, and jumping on him in hopes of getting possession of his knife, and frightening him into keeping quiet while I cut the ropes that held Bill and Tom. It was a mad plan, and would doubtless have failed, but, fortunately, I did not have to try it. The Indian had placed his knife on the ground beside him, probably in order to make us think that he intended to cut our throats. But he was half tipsy, and, after sitting awhile in the hut, he fell sound asleep.

I quietly slipped my wrists out of the rope, untied the rope from my ankles, and cautiously reached out and grasped the medicine man’s knife. Then, without making the slightest noise, I set Tom and Bill free, and handed Bill the knife.

Bill crept noiselessly up to the Indian, and had him by the throat with the point of the knife close to his eyes before the savage knew what was the matter. He had the good sense, however, to remain perfectly still, and it did not take long for me to tie his hands behind his back. Then Bill tore off a piece of his new flannel shirt and made a gag which he lashed on the Indian’s mouth so that he could not call for help if he wished to. Finally Bill tied a long rope around the Indian’s neck and then told me to cut a slit in the back of the hut and creep out.

We crept out on all-fours, Bill and the medicine man being the last to leave the hut. Not a soul except ourselves was stirring in the village, and as the hut stood close to the woods we were soon in the shadow of the trees and could stand upright.

“Do you know the way to the boat?” I asked.

“I should think so,” replied Bill. “What was I pretendin’ to have a stiff knee for except so as to be able to dig my heel into the ground and leave a mark?”

So that was why Bill had suddenly become lame. As he said, we had no difficulty in finding our way back to the wood-pile where we had been captured, and of course we knew the way from there to the boat.

As soon as we reached the boat Bill tied the Indian hand and foot just as we had been tied, and laid him under the thwarts. I supposed that we would lose no time in shoving off, but Bill was still bent upon carrying off the treasure, and he had brought his spade with him from the wood-pile.

“We’re safe enough for a while,” he said; “you can bet that the medicine man gave orders that nobody should come into our hut while he was there. That’s the way they always do. They won’t look for him till daylight, and we can get that chest out in a few minutes. Come on now and dig your very best, if you want to be rich men.”

I was so anxious to get away from the Indians that I would gladly have abandoned the treasure, and as for Tom, he had never really believed that it was there. However, it did not seem probable that our escape would be discovered for an hour or two at least, so I took the medicine man’s knife to dig with, for I had no stick, and we set to work.

In the course of a few minutes I struck something with the point of my knife which proved to be the lid of, not an iron chest as Bill had said, but a small iron-bound one. We had it out in almost no time, and Bill carried it to the boat without opening it. Then, casting loose, we shoved off.

We rowed about a quarter of a mile up the channel and then Bill tossed his spade into the bushes, where the Indians would be sure to find it. Next he turned the boat around and we rowed rapidly to the southward past the place where we had dug up the treasure chest.

“Them fellows will never think that we are going further south,” said Bill; “especially when they find that spade. They’ll paddle up the lake for a day or two before they give it up, and by that time we’ll be safe at sea.”

“And what are we going to do with our prisoner?” I asked.

“I’d like to string him up to a tree,” replied Bill, “but seein’ as I’ve knocked off piracy for good and all, I’ve knocked off piratical fashions too. We’ll take him with us till we get to the beach and then we’ll turn him loose. He won’t dare to go back to his tribe after this, for they won’t believe in a medicine man that let himself be captured by unarmed prisoners.”

The savage lay perfectly quiet in the bottom of the boat, and probably thought that we meant to torture and kill him. He was, I doubt not, greatly surprised when I gave him a bit of biscuit and a drink of water, but he said nothing.

“Now that there was a chest buried there, after all, and we’ve actually found it, I wonder what is in it?” said Tom. “It can’t be gold, that I know, for I lifted it and it don’t weigh but very little.”

“There’s diamonds and rubies and pearls in it—you can be sure of that,” replied Bill. “And they’re worth a sight more than gold. It stands to reason, don’t it, that nobody would bury a chest unless it had treasure in it? I ain’t in any hurry to open it, for it’s safe in our hands now, and the first thing we’ve got to do is to get safe to blue water.”

It must have been about two o’clock when we left the Indian village, for it began to grow light very soon after we had begun to row. We rowed steadily for at least four hours, winding in and out among a countless number of islands, so that I began to be afraid that Bill would lose the way.

“No danger of that,” he said, when I spoke to him about it. “It took four of us four hours to pull up from the place where the river leaves the Everglades to the place where the diamonds were buried, and I remember we kept due north by compass. Now we’ve only two oars, but then our boat is lighter than the other boat was, and what it took her four hours to do we ought to do in five. We’ll keep on a while longer, and when we find the river we’ll stop and take a rest. It can’t be far off now.”

Indeed, in what I should think must have been just about five hours of rowing we found the channel turning to the left, and with a very perceptible current, so that there could be no doubt that we were in Bill’s river. We rowed on a few miles further and then the current became so strong that we let the boat drift, and Bill and I being both very tired of rowing, lay down to take a nap while Tom steered the boat.

When we awoke, and Tom took his turn at sleeping, we got out the oars again and pulled leisurely along. The river was very much like Blackbeard’s river, though somewhat smaller, and Bill said it was very much shorter. We met with no adventures while on the river, and saw no signs of savages. Toward the end of the day we came in sight of the sea and found that the river ended in a stagnant pool of water, separated from the sea by a narrow line of sand beach.

“There’s goin’ to be some heavy work for us,” said Bill. “The sea has dammed up the river, and we’ll have to haul the boat over the sand. We’ll have our supper first, and then camp on the beach till mornin’. There’s lots of turtles all along the shore here, and they’re as good eatin’ as anythin’ that comes to the king’s table.”

Bill told the truth about the turtles. We caught a good-sized one and broiled it, shell and all, over a fire made of the brush-wood that the river had brought down, and Tom and I agreed that we had never tasted anything so delicious.

We took our prisoner ashore, and tied his feet together with a short rope, so that he could walk very slowly, and gave him a share of our supper. Then we tied him securely for the night, lashing him in the boat, and we were then ready to sleep on the sand.

“Bill,” said I, “before we turn in, I, for one, should like to see what’s in the chest.”

“So should I,” said Tom.

“All right then, young masters,” said Bill; “we’ll have it open in a jiffy, and after that we’ll fasten it up again, and divide the diamonds after we get to a settlement. If we divide them now, somebody will lose his share while we’re knocking about in the boat, and I’m willin’ to trust Master Jack with chest and all till we go ashore for good.”

This was agreed to, and Bill brought the chest out of the boat and proceeded to pry the lid open with his knife. “Those Spaniards,” said he, “was always good judges of precious stones, and I don’t doubt that at this identical minute the vally of a million pounds is in this chest.”

The lid came open easily, and I never again expect to see such a look of dreadful disappointment as came over poor Bill’s face. For instead of precious stones, the chest contained nothing but a human skull, mounted with a few shillings worth of old silver.

“It’s a Saint’s skull!” exclaimed Tom. “Some pirate thought it was a great treasure, and buried it to keep it out of the way of the Indians. I always thought it was strange that pirates should go such a distance into the woods to bury gold, when the beach is always handy.”

Bill said not a word, but walked away about a quarter of a mile down the beach and threw himself on the sand, and Tom and I thought that the kindest thing we could do was to leave him alone until morning.

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