Commodore Junk

“Mary, dear, are you there?”

“Yes, yes, Abel. Oh, my dear brother, say one kind word to me!”

“Kind word? Oh, my lass, my lass, say that you forgive me!”

“Forgive you? Yes. But quick, dear, before those men come back.”

“Tell me, then,” said Abel, speaking with his back to the jungle, and his head bent down as if ill, while Bart leaned over him, trembling like a leaf, “tell me how you came to be here.”

“I came over in a ship to Kingston. Then I went to New Orleans. Then to Honduras. And it was only a fortnight ago that I found you.”

“But how did you come here?”

“I’ve got a small boat, dear. I asked and asked for months before I could find out where you were. I’ve been to other plantations, and people have thought me mad; but one day I stumbled across the sailors of a ship that comes here with stores from the station, and I heard them say that there were a number of prisoners working at this place; and at last, after waiting and watching for weeks and weeks, I caught sight of you two, and then it was a month before I could speak to you as I did the other day.”

“And now you have come,” said Abel, bitterly, “I can’t even look at you.”

“But you will escape, dear,” said Mary.

“Escape!” cried Abel, excitedly.

“Steady, lad, steady. ’Member you’re ill,” growled Bart, glancing toward the nearest sentry, and then holding up the bottle as if to see how much was within.

“Yes, escape,” said Mary. “I have the boat ready. Can you come now?”

“Impossible! We should be overtaken and shot before we had gone a mile.”

“But you must escape,” said Mary. “You must get down here by night.”

“How?” said Bart, gruffly.

“You two must settle that,” said Mary, quickly. “I am only a woman; but I have found means to get here with a boat, and I can come again and again till you join me.”

“Yes,” said Abel, decidedly; “we will contrive that.”

“But is it safe, lass, where you are?”

“What do you mean?”

“They telled us there was the crocodiles all along that creek, and sharks out beyond, if we tried to run.”

“Yes,” said Mary, calmly, “there are plenty of these creatures about.”

“Listen,” said Abel, quickly, and speaking as decidedly now as his sister. “Can you get here night after night?”

“Yes,” said Mary. “I have been here every night since I spoke to you last.”

“Then keep on coming.”

“Yes,” said Mary; “I will till you escape.”

“You have the boat?”

“Yes.”

“And provisions?”

“Yes; a little.”

“But how do you manage?”

“I am fishing if any one sees me; but it is very lonely here. I see nothing but the birds,” she added to herself, “and sharks and alligators;” and as she said this she smiled sadly.

“Be careful, then,” said Abel. “Bart, old lad, we will escape.”

There was a loud expiration of the breath from the jungle, and Abel continued —

“I must get up and go on work, or they will be back. Mary, once more, you have a boat?”

“Yes.”

“And can come up here and wait?”

“Yes.”

Quick, short, decided answers each time.

“Then be cautious. Only come by night.”

“I know. Trust me. I will not be seen. I will do nothing rash. To-night as soon as it grows dark, I shall be here expecting you, for I shall not stir. At daybreak I shall go, and come again at night.”

“And mind the sentries.”

“Trust me, Abel. I shall not come now by day for six days. If at the end of six nights you have not been able to escape, I shall come for six days by day, hoping that you may be more successful in the daylight; for perhaps you will find that a bold dash will help you to get away.”

“But the risk – the risk?” panted Abel – “the risk, girl, to you!”

“Abel, dear, I am here to risk everything. I have risked everything to join you.”

“Yes,” he said, hoarsely. “But afterwards. If we do escape?”

“Leave the plans to me,” she said, with a little laugh. “I have boat and sail, and the world is very wide. Only escape. Take care; the men are coming back.”

Mary’s voice ceased; and Abel took hold of Bart’s arm, rose, raised his hoe, and walked with him to where they had left off work, to begin again slowly, the two men trembling with excitement now; for, as the overseer neared them, a bird began flying to and fro over the edge of the jungle, screaming wildly, evidently from the fact that somebody was hidden there.

The excitement of the bird, whose nest was probably somewhere near, did not, however, take the attention of the overseer, who came up, followed by the Irish sentry, stared hard at Abel, gave a short nod as if satisfied that one of his beasts of burden was not going to permanently break down, and then, to the horror of the young men, took off his hat, began fanning himself, and went and sat down in the very spot where Abel had talked with his sister!

“Hot, Paddy, hot!” he said to the soldier.

“Dinny, sor, av you plaze. Thrue for you, sor, and a taste of dhrink would be very nice for ye; but I shouldn’t sit there.”

“Why not?” said the overseer.

“Because the place swarms with them ugly, four-futted, scaly divils. I’ve gone the rounds here of a night, sor, and heard them snapping their jaws and thumping the wet mud with their tails till I’ve shivered again.”

“Yes, there’s plenty of them in the creek, Dinny.”

“Plinty, sor, ’s nothing to it. There niver seems to have been a blessed Saint Pathrick here to get rid of the varmin. Why, I’ve seen frogs here as big as turtles, and sarpints that would go round the Hill of Howth.”

“Well, look here, Dinny, cock your piece, and if you see anything stir, let drive at it at once.”

“Oi will, sor,” said the soldier, obeying orders; and, taking a step or two forward, he stood watchfully gazing into the dark jungle.

“Have you got your knife, Bart?” whispered Abel, whose face was of a peculiar muddy hue.

Bart nodded as he chopped away.

“Shall we make a rush at them, and stun them with the hoes?”

Bart shook his head.

“Mary’s too clever,” he whispered back. “She’s well hidden, and will not stir.”

“If that Irish beast raises his musket I must go at him,” whispered Abel, who was trembling from head to foot.

“Hold up, man. She heer’d every word, and won’t stir.”

“Silence, there. No talking!” cried the overseer.

“Let the poor divils talk, sor,” said the soldier. “Faix, it’s bad enough to put chains on their legs; don’t put anny on their tongues.”

“If I get you down,” thought Abel, “I won’t kill you, for that.”

“Against orders,” said the overseer, good-humouredly. “Well, can you see anything stirring?”

“Not yet, sor; but I hope I shall. Bedad, I’d be glad of a bit o’ sport, for it’s dhry work always carrying a gun about widout having a shot.”

“Yes; but when you do get a shot, it’s at big game, Dinny.”

“Yis, sor, but then it’s very seldom,” said the sentry, with a roguish twinkle of the eye.

“I can’t bear this much longer, Bart,” whispered Abel. “When I say Now! rush at them both with your hoe.”

“Wait till he’s going to shoot, then,” growled Bart.

The overseer bent down, and, sheltering himself beneath the tree, placed his hands out in the sunshine, one holding a roughly rolled cigar, the other a burning-glass, with which he soon focussed the vivid white spot of heat which made the end of the cigar begin to smoke, the tiny spark being drawn into incandescence by application to the man’s lips, while the pleasant odour of the burning leaf arose.

“Sure, an’ that’s an illigant way of getting a light, sor,” said the sentry.

“Easy enough with such a hot sun,” said the overseer, complacently.

“Hot sun, sor! Sure I never carry my mushket here widout feeling as if it will go off in my hands; the barl gets nearly red-hot!”

“Yah! Don’t point it this way,” said the overseer, smoking away coolly. “Well, can you see anything?”

“Divil a thing but that noisy little omadhaun of a bird. Sure, she’d be a purty thing to have in a cage.”

Abel’s face grew more ghastly as he gazed at Bart, who remained cool and controlled him.

“Bart,” whispered Abel, with the sweat rolling off his face in beads, “what shall we do?”

“Wait,” said the rough fellow shortly; and he hoed away, with his fetters clinking, and his eyes taking in every movement of the two men; while involuntarily Abel followed his action in every respect, as they once more drew nearer to their task-master and his guard.

“There’s a something yonder, sor,” said the soldier at last.

“Alligator!” said the overseer, lazily; and Abel’s heart rose so that he seemed as if he could not breathe.

“I can’t see what it is, sor; but it’s a something, for the little burrud kapes darting down at it and floying up again. I belayve it is one of they crockidills. Shall I shute the divil?”

“How can you shoot it if you can’t see it, you fool?” said the overseer.

“Sure, sor, they say that every bullet has its billet, and if I let the little blue pill out of the mouth o’ the mushket, faix, it’s a strange thing if it don’t find its way into that ugly scaly baste.”

The overseer took his cigar from his lips and laughed; but to the intense relief of the young men, perhaps to the saving of his own life, he shook his head.

“No, Dinny,” he said, “it would alarm the station. They’d think someone was escaping. Let it be.”

Dinny sighed, the overseer smoked on, and the hot silence of the tropic clearing was only broken by the screaming and chattering of the excited bird, the hum of insects, and the clink-clink, thud-thud, of fetters and hoe as the convicts toiled on in the glowing sun.

They kept as near as they dared to their task-master, and he smiled superciliously as he put his own interpretation upon their acts.

“The artful scoundrels!” he said to himself; “they want me to believe that they always work like this. Well, it helps the plantation;” and he smoked placidly on, little dreaming that every time Abel reversed his hoe, so as to break a clod with the back, the young man glanced at him and measured the distance between them, while he calculated how long to hold the handle of the tool, and where would be the best place to strike the enemy so as to disable him at once.

“You take the soldier, Bart,” said Abel, softly. “I’ll manage the overseer.”

“Right, lad! but not without we’re obliged.”

“No. Then, as soon as they’re down, into the wood, find Mary, and make for her boat.”

The heat was intense, the shade beneath the great cotton-tree grateful, and the aroma of the cigar so delicious that the overseer sank into a drowsy reverie; while the soldier gave the two convicts a half-laughing look and then turned to face the jungle, whose depths he pierced with his eyes.

Bart drew a long breath and gazed toward the dark part of the jungle, and there was an intense look of love and satisfaction in his eyes as he tried to make out the place where Mary lay, as he believed, hidden. The sight of the sentry on the watch with his gun ready had ceased to trouble him, for he had told himself that the clumsy fellow could not hit a barn-door, let alone a smaller mark; while Abel seemed to be less agitated, and to be resuming his normal state.

They were not twenty yards from the edge of the forest now, the sentry’s back was toward them, and the overseer was getting to the end of his cigar, and watching the watcher with half-closed eyes, and an amused smile upon his yellow countenance.

“Every bullet finds its billet,” he muttered to himself; and, stretching himself, he was in the act of rising, when the bird, which had been silent, uttered a shrill, chattering cry, as if freshly disturbed, and the soldier shouted excitedly —

“Theer, sor, I can see it. A big one staling away among the threes. For the sake of all the saints give the wurrud!”

“Fire, then!” cried the overseer; and the sentry raised his piece to the “present.”

Bart Wrigley had not been at sea from childhood without winning a sailor’s eyes. Dark as the jungle was, and more distant as he stood, it was not so black that he could not make out the object which had oaken the sentry’s notice, and at which he took aim.

One moment Bart raised his hoe to rush at the man; the next he had brought it down heavily on Abel’s boulders, sending him forward upon his face, and uttering a cry of rage as he fell.

It was almost simultaneous. The cry uttered by Abel Dell and the report of the sentry’s piece seemed to smite the air together; but Abel’s cry was first, and disarranged the soldier’s aim, his bullet cutting the leaves of the jungle far above the ground.

“Look at that now!” he cried, as he turned sharply to see Abel struggling on the ground, with Bart holding him, and the overseer drawing a pistol front his breast.

“Lie still!” whispered Bart. “It was not at Mary.”

Then aloud —

“Quick, here! water! He’s in a fit.”

As Abel grasped his friend’s thoughts he lay back, struggling faintly, and then half-closed his eyes and was quite still.

“It’s the sun, sir,” said Bart, as the overseer thrust back his pistol and came up. “Hadn’t we better get him back to the lines?”

“Yes,” said the overseer. “Poor devil! No, no! Back, back!” he roared, signalling with his hands as a sergeant’s guard came along at the double. “Nothing wrong. Only a man sick, and Dinny Kelly here had a shot at an alligator.”

“An’ I should have hit him, sor, if he hadn’t shouted. But think o’ that, now! The sun lights gentleman’s cigar one minute, and shtrikes a man down the next. But it’s better than the yaller fayver, anyhow.”

Five days had passed, and the prisoners were not sent again to the clearing, while, in spite of every effort, they found that their chances of eluding the guard set over them by night were small indeed.

Fettered by day, they were doubly chained by night. The building where they slept was strongly secured and guarded, and in spite of the newness of the settlement it was well chosen for its purpose, and stronger even than the prisoners thought.

“We shall never get away by night, Bart,” said Abel, gloomily, “unless – ”

He stopped and gazed meaningly at his companion.

“The knife?” responded Bart. “No, lad, we won’t do that. I shouldn’t like to go to Mary wet with blood.”

Abel’s countenance grew dark and deeply hard, for at that moment, in his despair and disappointment, he felt ready to go to any extremity, knowing, as he did, that his sister was waiting for him, holding out her hands and saying, “Come!”

Only another day, and then she would give up expecting them by night, and take to watching for them by day, when the attempt seemed hopeless.

And so it proved, for during the following week the prisoners were only once in the coffee-plantation, and so strictly watched that they felt that to attempt an evasion was only to bring destruction upon their hopes, perhaps cause Mary’s imprisonment for attempting to assist prisoners to escape.

“It’s of no use, Bart,” said Abel at last, despondently. “Poor girl! Why did she come?”

“Help us away,” said Bart, gruffly.

“Yes, but all in vain.”

“Tchah! Wait a bit.”

“Do you think she will still come and wait?” said Abel, dolefully.

“Do I think th’ sun ’ll shine agen?” growled Bart. “Here’s a fellow! Born same time as that there lass, lived with her all his days, and then he knows so little about her that he says, ‘Will she come agen?’”

“Enough to tire her out.”

“Tchah!” cried Bart again, “when you know she’ll keep on coming till she’s an old grey-headed woman, or she gets us away.”

Abel shook his head, for he was low-spirited and not convinced; but that night his heart leaped, for as he lay half asleep, listening to the thin buzzing hum of the mosquitoes which haunted the prisoners’ quarters, and the slow, regular pace of the sentry on guard outside, there was the faint rattle of a chain, as if some prisoner had turned in his unquiet rest, and then all was silent again, till he started, for a rough hand was laid upon his mouth.

His first instinct was to seize the owner of that hand, to engage in a struggle for his life; but a mouth was placed directly at his ear, and a well-known voice whispered —

“Don’t make a sound. Tie these bits of rag about your irons so as they don’t rattle.”

Abel caught at the pieces of cloth and canvas thrust into his hand, and, sitting up in the darkness, he softly bound the links and rings of his fetters together, hardly daring to breathe, and yet with his heart beating tumultuously in his anxiety to know his companion’s plans.

For an attempt it must be, Abel felt, though up to the time of their going to rest after the day’s work Bart had said nothing to him. He must have made a sudden discovery, and there was nothing for it but to obey in every way and trust to what was to come.

Abel felt this as he rapidly knotted the rag round his chains, and as he was tying the last knot he felt Bart’s hand upon his shoulder, and his lips at his ear.

“Quiet, and creep after me. Keep touching my foot so’s not to miss me in the dark.”

Abel’s heart thumped against his ribs as he obeyed, taking Bart’s hand first in a firm grip, and then feeling a short iron bar thrust between his fingers.

Then he became conscious from his companion’s movements that he had gone down upon his hands and knees, and was crawling toward the end of the long, low, stone-walled building that served as a dormitory for the white slaves whose task was to cultivate the rough plantation till they, as a rule, lay down and died from fever or some of the ills that haunted the tropic land.

Just then Bart stopped short, for there were steps outside, and a gleam of light appeared beneath the heavy door. Voices were heard, and the rattle of a soldier’s musket.

“Changing guard,” said Abel to himself; and he found himself wondering whether the sergeant and his men would enter the prison.

To add to the risk of discovery, there was a shuffling sound on the left, and a clink of chains, as one man seemed to rise upon his elbow; and his movement roused another, who also clinked his chains in the darkness and growled out an imprecation.

All this time Bart remained absolutely motionless, and Abel listened with the perspiration streaming from him in the intense heat.

Then there was a hoarsely uttered command; the light faded away, the steps died out upon the ear; there was a clink or two of chains, and a heavy sigh from some restless sleeper, and once more in the black silence and stilling heat there was nothing to be heard but the loud trumpeting buzz of the mosquitoes.

Softly, as some large cat, Bart resumed his crawling movement, after thrusting back his leg and touching Abel on the chest with his bare foot as a signal.

The building was quite a hundred feet long by about eighteen wide, a mere gallery in shape, which had been lengthened from time to time as the number of convicts increased, and the men had about two-thirds of the distance to traverse before they could reach the end, and at their excessively slow rate of progress the time seemed interminable before, after several painful halts, caused by movements of their fellow-prisoners and dread of discovery, the final halt was made.

“Now, then, what is it?” whispered Abel.

The answer he received was a hand laid across his mouth, and his heart began to beat more wildly than ever, for Bart caught his hand, drew it toward him, and as it was yielded, directed the fingers downward to the stone level with the floor.

Abel’s heart gave another bound, for that stone was loose, and as he was pressed aside he heard a faint gritting, his companion’s breath seemed to come more thickly, as if from exertion, and for the next hour – an hour that seemed like twelve – Abel lay, unable to help, but panting with anxiety, as the gritting noise went on, and he could mentally see that Bart was slowly drawing out rough pieces of badly-cemented stone – rough fragments really of coral and limestone from the nearest reef, of which the prison barrack was built.

Three times over Abel had tried to help, but the firm pressure of his companion’s hand forcing him back spoke volume, and he subsided into his position in the utter darkness, listening with his pulses throbbing and subsiding, as the gritting sound was made or the reverse.

At last, after what seemed an age, a faint breath of comparatively cool air began to play upon his cheek, as Bart seemed to work steadily on. That breath grew broader and fuller, and there was a soft odour of the sea mingled with the damp coolness of a breeze which had passed over the dewy ground before it began to set steadily in at the opening at which Bart had so patiently worked, for that there was an opening was plain enough now, as Abel exultantly felt.

In his inaction the torture of the dread was intense, and he lay wondering whether, if they did get out, Mary would still be waiting, expecting them, or their efforts prove to have been in vain.

At last, just when he felt as if he could bear it no longer, Bart’s hand gripped him by the shoulder, and pressed him tightly. Then in the darkness his hand was seized and guided where it hardly wanted guiding, for the young man’s imagination had painted all – to a rough opening level with the floor, a hole little larger than might have been made for fowls to pass in and out of a poultry-yard.

This done, Bart gave him a thrust which Abel interpreted to mean, “Go on.”

Abel responded with another, to indicate, “No; you go.”

Bart gripped him savagely by the arm, and he yielded, crept slowly to the hole, went down upon his breast, and softly thrust his head through into the dank night air, to hear plainly the sighing and croaking of the reptiles in the swamp, and see before him the sparkling scintillations of the myriad fireflies darting from bush to bush.

He wormed himself on, and was about to draw forth one hand and arm, but always moving as silently as some nocturnal beast of prey, when it suddenly occurred to him that the glow of one of the fireflies was unusually large; and before he had well grasped this idea there was the regular tramp of feet, and he knew that it was the lantern of the guard moving across to the prison barrack, and that they must come right past where he lay.

He must creep back and wait; and as the steps steadily approached and the tramp grew plainer he began to wriggle himself through, getting his arm well in and his shoulders beginning to follow till only his head was outside, and the dull light of the lantern seeming to show it plainly, when to his horror he found that some portion of his garment had caught upon a rough projection and he was fast.

He made a tremendous effort, but could not drag it free, for his arms were pressed close to his sides and he was helpless. If Bart had known and passed a hand through, he might have freed him, but he could not explain his position; and all the time the guard was coming nearer and nearer, the lantern-light dancing upon the rough path, until it would be hardly possible for the nearest soldier to pass him without stumbling against his head.

Discovery, extra labour, the lash, more irons, and the chance of evasion gone; all those displayed, as it were, before Abel Dell’s gaze as he thought of his sister waiting for them with that boat all plainly seen by the gleaming light of that lantern as the soldiers came steadily on.

It was absolutely impossible that the sergeant and his four men, whom the light had revealed quite plainly to Abel Dell, could pass him without something unusual occurred. The sergeant was carrying his lantern swinging at arm’s length, on his left side, and the bottom as he passed would only be a few inches above the prisoner’s head.

Abel knew all this as he pressed his teeth together to keep down the agonising feeling of despair he felt already as the men came on in regular pace, with the barrels of the muskets and their bayonets gleaming, and he expected to hear an exclamation of astonishment with the command “Halt!” – when something unusual did happen.

For all at once, just as the back of Abel’s head must have loomed up like a black stone close by the sergeant’s path, and the rays of light glistened on his short, crisp, black hair, there came a loud croaking bellow from down in the swamp by the crook, and Dinny exclaimed aloud:

“Hark at that now!”

“Silence in the ranks!” cried the sergeant fiercely; and then, as if the Irishman’s words were contagious, he, turning his head as did his men towards the spot whence the sound proceeded, exclaimed, “What was it?”