The sounds ashore grew distant, the firing had ceased; and, feeling safer, the little party began to converse in a low tone, all save Dinny, whose deep, regular breathing told that he had fallen fast asleep in happy carelessness of any risk that he might run.
“How came you out here?” said Bart from his seat, after another vain effort to take Mary’s place.
“Ship,” she said laconically, and with a hoarse laugh.
“But who gave you a passage?” said Abel.
“Gave? No one,” she said, speaking in quite a rough tone of voice. “How could I find friends who would give! I worked my way out.”
“Oh,” said Bart; and he sat back, thinking and listening as the pole kept falling in the water with a rhythmic splash, and the brother and sister carried on a conversation in a low tone.
“I suppose we are safe now,” said Mary. “They never saw the boat, and they would think you are hiding somewhere in the woods.”
“Yes; and because they don’t find us, they’ll think the alligators have pulled us down,” replied Abel. “Where are we going?”
“To get right down to the mouth of this creek, and round the shore. There are plenty of hiding-places along the coast. Inlets and islands, with the trees growing to the edge of the sea.”
“And what then?” said Abel.
“What then?” said Mary, in a half wondering tone.
“Yes; where shall we go?”
There was an interval of silence, during which the boat glided on in the darkness, which seemed to be quite opaque.
“I had not thought of that,” said Mary, in the same short, rough voice which she seemed to have adopted. “I only thought of finding you, Abel, and when I had found you, of helping you to escape.”
“She never thought of me,” muttered Bart, with a sigh.
“Good girl,” said Abel, tenderly.
“Hush! Don’t say that,” she cried shortly. “Who is this man with you?” she whispered then.
“One of the sentries.”
“Why did you bring him?”
“We were obliged to bring him, or – ”
“Kill him?” said Mary, hoarsely, for her brother did not end his sentence.
“Yes.”
“You must set him ashore, of course.”
“Yes, of course. And then?”
“I don’t know, Abel. I wanted to help you to escape, and you have escaped. You must do the rest.”
“You’re a brave, true girl,” said Abel, enthusiastically; but he was again checked shortly.
“Don’t say that,” cried Mary, in an angry tone.
“What’s she mean?” thought Bart; and he lay back wondering, while the boat glided on, and there was a long pause, for Abel ceased speaking, and when his deep breathing took Bart’s attention and he leaned forward and touched him there was no response.
“Why, he’s fallen asleep, Mary!” said Bart, in a whisper.
“Hush, Bart don’t call me that!” came from the prow.
“All right, my lass!” said the rough fellow. “I’ll do anything you tells me.”
“Then don’t say ‘my lass’ to me.”
“I won’t if you don’t wish it,” growled Bart. “Here, let me pole her along now.”
“No; sit still. Is that man asleep?”
“Yes; can’t you hear? He’s fagged out like poor old Abel. But let me pole the boat.”
“No; she’ll drift now with the current and we shall be carried out to sea. If the people yonder saw us then they would not know who was in the boat. You have escaped, Bart?”
“Ay, we’ve escaped, my – ”
“Hush, I say!” cried Mary, imperiously; and Bart, feeling puzzled, rubbed one ear and sat gazing straight before him into the darkness where he knew the girl to be, his imagination filing up the blanks, till he seemed to see her standing up in the boat, with a red worsted cap perched jauntily upon her raven-black hair, and a tight blue-knitted jacket above her linsey-woolsey skirt, just as he had seen her hundreds of times in her father’s, and then in Abel’s boat at home on the Devon shore.
All at once Bart Wrigley opened his eyes and stared. Had he been asleep and dreamed that he and Abel had escaped, and then that he was in the Dell’s boat, with Mary poling it along?
What could it all mean? He was in a boat, and behind him lay back the soldier with his mouth open, sleeping heavily. On his left was Abel Dell, also sleeping as a man sleeps who is utterly exhausted by some terrible exertion. But that was not the Devon coast upon which the sun was shedding its early morning rays. Dense belts of mangrove did not spread their muddy roots like intricate rustic scaffoldings on southern English shores, and there were no clusters of alligators lying here and there among the mud and ooze.
It was true enough. They did escape in the night, and Mary had been there ready to help them with a boat; but where was she now? and who was this sturdy youth in loose petticoat-canvas trousers, and heavy fisherman’s boots?
Bart stared till his eyes showed a ring of white about their pupils, and his mouth opened roundly in unison for a time. Then eyes and mouth closed tightly, and wrinkles appeared all over his face, as he softly shook all over, and then, after glancing at Abel and the Irish soldier, he uttered a low —
“Haw, haw!”
The figure in the boat swung round and faced him sharply, glancing at the two sleeping men, and holding up a roughened brown hand to command silence.
“All right,” said Bart, half-choking with mirth; and then, “Oh, I say, my lass, you do look rum in them big boots!”
“Silence, idiot!” she whispered, sharply. “Do you want that strange man to know?”
“Nay, not I,” said Bart, shortly, as he too glanced at Dinny. “But I say, you do look rum.”
“Bart,” whispered Mary, fiercely, and her eyes flashed with indignant anger, “is this a time to fool?”
“Nay, my lass, nay,” he said, becoming sober on the instant, “But you do look so rum. I say, though,” he cried, sharply, “what’s gone of all your beautiful long hair?”
“Fire,” said Mary, coldly.
“Fire! what! – you’ve cut it off and burnt it?” Mary nodded.
“Oh!” ejaculated Bart, and it sounded a groan.
“Could girl with long hair have worked her passage out here as a sailor-boy, and have come into that cane-brake and saved you two?” said Mary, sharply; and as Bart sat staring at her with dilated eyes once more, she bent down after gazing at Dinny, still soundly sleeping, and laid her hand with a firm grip on her brother’s shoulder.
He started into wakefulness on the instant, and gazed without recognition in the face leaning over him.
“Don’t you know me, Abel?” said Mary, sadly.
“You, Mary? – dressed like this!”
He started up angrily, his face flushing as hers had flushed, and his look darkened into a scowl.
“What else could I do?” she said, repeating her defence as she had pleaded to Bart. Then, as if her spirit rebelled against his anger, her eyes flashed with indignation, and she exclaimed hoarsely, “Well, I have saved you, and if you have done with me – there is the sea!”
“But you – dressed as a boy!” said Abel.
“Hush! Do you want that man to know?” whispered Mary, hoarsely. “My brother was unjustly punished and sent out here to die in prison, while I, a helpless girl, might have starved at home, or been hunted down by that devil who called himself a man? What could I do?”
“But you worked your passage out here as a sailor?” whispered Abel.
“Ay, and she could do it, too – as good a sailor as ever took in sail; and, Mary, lass, I asks your pardon for laughing; and if I wasn’t such a big ugly chap, I could lie down there and cry.”
He held out his great coarse hand, in which Mary placed hers to return his honest clasp, and her eyes smiled for a moment into his, while Abel sat frowning and biting his lips as he glanced at Dinny.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said, hesitatingly. “It seems – ”
“Heigh – ho – ho! Oh, dear me!” cried Dinny, opening his eyes suddenly, making Mary start and Abel mutter a curse.
There was only one of the two equal to the emergency, and that was Bart, who gave his knee a sounding slap and cried aloud —
“Jack Dell, my lad, you’ve behaved like a trump, and got us away splendid. I on’y wish, Abel, I had such a brother. Hallo, soger, where shall we set you ashore?”
“Set me ashore?” said the Irishman, nodding at Mary; “what for?”
“What for?” cried Bart. “To go back.”
“I’m not going back,” said the Irishman, laughing. “Sure, I want a change.”
“Change!” cried Abel. “You can’t go with us.”
“Sure, and you forced me to come, and ye wouldn’t behave so dirthily as to send me back?”
“But we’re escaping,” said Bart.
“Sure, and I’ll escape too,” said Dinny, smiling. “It’s moighty dull work stopping there.”
“But you’re a soldier,” said Abel.
“To be sure I am – a sowldier of fortune.”
“You’ll be a deserter if you stop with us,” growled Bart.
“The divil a bit! Ye made me a prishner, and I couldn’t help meself.”
“Why, I wanted you to go back last night!” growled Bart.
“To be ate up entoirely by the ugly bastes of dogs! Thank ye kindly, sor, I’d rather not.”
Dinny looked at Mary and gave her a droll cock of the eye, which made her frown and look uneasy.
“Sure, Misther Jack,” he said, coolly, “don’t you think they’re a bit hard on a boy?”
“Hard?” said Mary, shortly.
“Av coorse. They knocked me down and took away me mushket and bagnet, and there they are in the bottom of the boat. Then they made me get over the gate and eshcape wid ’em; and, now they’re safe, they want to put me ashore.”
“We can’t take you with us,” said Abel, shortly.
“Aisy, now! Think about it, sor. Ye’re going for a holiday, sure; and under the circumstances I’d like one too. There! I see what ye’re a-thinking – that I’d bethray ye. Sure, and I’m a Kelly, and ye never knew a Kelly do a dirthy thrick to anyone. Did I shout for help last night when you towld me not?”
“You were afraid,” growled Bart.
“Afraid! – me afraid! Did ye ever hear of a Kelly who was afraid? No, sor; I said to meself, ‘The poor boys are making a run for it, and I’ll let them go.’ Sure, and I did, and here ye are.”
“It would not be wise to go near the shore now,” said Mary, in a whisper to her brother. “You have nothing to fear from him.”
Abel glanced at the happy, contented face before him, and then turned to Bart.
“What do you say?” he asked.
“There’s no harm in him,” said Bart, with a suspicious look at the Irishman.
“Sure, an’ ye’ll find me very useful,” said Dinny. “I was at say before I ’listed, so I can steer and haul a rope.”
“Can you keep faith with those who trust you?” said Mary, quickly.
“An’ is it a Kelly who can keep faith, me lad? Sure, an’ we’re the faithfullest people there is anny where. And, bedad! but you’re a handsome boy, and have a way wid you as’ll make some hearts ache before ye’ve done.”
Mary started, and turned of a deep dark red, which showed through her sun-browned skin, as she flashed an angry look upon the speaker.
Dinny burst into a hearty laugh.
“Look at him,” he said, “colouring up like a girl. There, don’t look at me, boy, as if ye were going to bite. I like to see it in a lad. It shows his heart’s in the right place, and that he’s honest and true. There, take a grip o’ me hand, for I like you as much for your handsome face as for the way you’ve stood thrue to your brother and his mate. And did ye come all the way from your own counthry to thry and save them?”
Mary nodded.
“Did ye, now? Then ye’re a brave lad; and there ar’n’t many men who would have watched night after night in that ugly bit o’ wood among the shnakes and reptiles. I wouldn’t for the best brother I iver had, and there’s five of ’em, and all sisters.”
Mary smilingly laid her hand on Dinny’s, and gazed in the merry, frank face before her.
“I’ll trust you,” she said.
“And ye sha’n’t repent it, me lad, for you’ve done no harm, and were niver a prishner. And now, as we are talking, I’d like to know what yer brother and number noinety-sivin did to be sint out of the counthry. It wasn’t murther, or they’d have hung ’em. Was it – helping yerselves?”
“My brother and his old friend Bart Wrigley were transported to the plantations for beating and half-killing, they said, the scoundrel who had insulted and ill-used his sister!” cried Mary, with flashing eyes and flaming cheeks, as she stood up proudly in the boat, and looked from one to the other.
“Wid a shtick?” said Dinny, rubbing his cheek as he peered eagerly into Mary’s face.
“Yes, with sticks.”
“And was that all?”
“Yes.”
“They transported thim two boys to this baste of a place, and put chains on their legs, for giving a spalpeen like that a big bating wid a shtick?”
“Yes,” said Mary, smiling in the eager face before her; “that was the reason.”
“Holy Moses!” ejaculated Dinny. “For just handling a shtick like that. Think o’ that, now! Why, I sent Larry Higgins to the hospital for sivin weeks wance for just such a thing. An’ it was a contimptibly thin shkull he’d got, just like a bad egg, and it cracked directly I felt it wid the shtick. And what did you do?” he added sharply, as he turned to Mary. “Where was your shtick?”
“I struck him with my hand,” said Mary, proudly.
“More sorrow to it that it hadn’t a shtick in it at the time. Sint ye both out here for a thing like that! Gintlemen, I’m proud of ye. Why didn’t ye tell me before?”
He held out his hands to both, and, intruder as he was, it seemed impossible to resist his frank, friendly way, and the escaped prisoners shook hands with him again.
“And now what are ye going to do?” said Dinny, eagerly.
“We don’t know yet,” said Abel, rather distantly.
“That’s jist me case,” said Dinny. “I’m tired of sogering and walking up and down wid a mushket kaping guard over a lot of poor divils chained like wild bastes. I tuk the shilling bekase I’d been in a skrimmage, and the bowld sergeant said there’d be plinty of foighting; and the divil a bit there’s been but setting us to shoot prishners, and I didn’t want that. Now, ye’ll tak me wid ye, only I must get rid o’ these soger clothes, and – look here, what are ye going to do wid thim chains?”
“Get rid of them,” said Abel, “when we can find a file.”
“I did not think of a file,” said Mary, with a disappointed look.
“There’s plinty of strange plants out in these parts,” said Dinny, laughing, “but I never see one that grew files. Only there’s more ways of killing a cat than hanging him, as the praste said when he minded his owld brogues wid a glue-pot. Come here.”
He took off his flannel jacket, folded it, and laid it in the bottom of the boat, but looked up directly.
“Ye’ve got a bit o’ sail,” he said, “and there’s a nice wind. Where are you going first?”
Mary looked at her brother, and Abel glanced at Bart.
“Ye haven’t made up yer minds,” said Dinny, “so look here. About twenty miles out yander to the west there’s a bit of an island where the overseer and two officers wint one day to shute wild pig and birds, and I went wid ’em. Why not go there till ye make up yer minds? It’s a moighty purty place, and ye’re not overlooked by the neighbours’ cabins, for there’s nobody lives there at all, at all, and we can have it our own way.”
“Wild pig there?” said Abel, eagerly.
“Bedad, yis, sor; nice swate bacon running about on four legs all over the place, and fruit on the trees, and fish in the say for the catching. Oh, an’ it’s a moighty purty little estate!”
“And how could we find it?” cried Mary.
“By jist setting a sail, and kaping about four miles from the shore till ye see it lying like a bit o’ cloud off to the south. Sure, and we could hang our hammocks there before night, and the mushket here all ready to shoot a pig.”
“Yes,” said Mary, in response to a glance from her brother.
“Then I’ll hoist the sail,” said Bart.
“Nay, let the boy do it,” said Dinny, “and you come and sit down here. I’ll soon show you a thing as would make the sergeant stare.”
Dinny drew a large knife from his pocket, and a flint and steel. The latter he returned, and, taking the flint, he laid his open knife on the thwart of the boat, and with the flint jagged the edge of the blade all along into a rough kind of saw.
“There!” he said; “that will do. That iron’s as soft as cheese.”
This last was a slight Hibernian exaggeration; but as Mary hoisted sail, and Abel put out an oar to steer, while the little vessel glided swiftly over the sunlit sea, Dinny began to operate upon the ring round one of Bart’s ankles, sawing away steadily, and with such good effect that at the end of an hour he had cut half through, when, by hammering the ring together with the butt of the musket, the half-severed iron gave way, and one leg was free.
“Look at that, now!” said Dinny, triumphantly, and with an air of satisfaction that took away the last doubts of his companions. “Now, thin, up wid that other purty foot!” he cried; and, as the boat glided rapidly toward the west, he sawed away again, with intervals of re-jagging at the knife edge, and soon made a cut in the second ring.
“Keep her a little farther from the shore, Abel,” said Mary, in a warning tone, as the boat sped westward.
“Ye needn’t mind,” said Dinny, sawing away; “the inhabitants all along here are a moighty dacent sort of folk, and won’t tell where we’re gone. They’re not handsome, and they’ve got into a bad habit o’ wearing little tails wid a moighty convanient crook in ’em to take howld of a tree.”
“Monkeys?” said Mary, eagerly.
“Yes, Masther Jack, monkeys; and then there’s the shmiling crockidills, and a few shnakes like ships’ masts, and some shpotted cats. There’s nobody else lives here for hundreds o’ miles.”
“Then you are safe, Abel,” said Mary, with the tears standing in her eyes.
“Yes, Ma – yes, Jack,” cried Abel, checking himself; and then meaningly, as he glanced at Bart, “you’re a brother of whom a man may well be proud.”
“Ay,” cried Bart, excitedly, “a brother of whom a man may well be proud.”
“Hurroo!” cried Dinny. “Howlt still, my lad, and I’ll soon be through.”
And the boat sped onward toward the west.
The island was found just as the Irishman had foretold, and as evening approached, without having even sighted a sail on their way, the little boat began coasting along, its occupants eagerly scanning the low, rock-reefed shore, above which waved a luxuriant tropic growth, but for some time no landing-place was found, while, though the sea was calm, there was a heavy swell to curl up and break upon the various reefs in a way that would have swamped their craft had they attempted to land.
The last fetter had been laboriously sawn through, Dinny having persisted in continuing the task, and he now sat resting and watching the shore with a critical eye.
All at once, upon sailing round a jagged point to which they had to give a wide berth on account of the fierce race which swept and eddied among the rocks, a pleasantly-wooded little bay opened out before them with a smooth sandy shore where the waves just creamed and glistened in the sun.
“Look at that, now,” said Dinny. “That’s where we landed; but I was ashleep after pulling a long time at the oar, and I disremembered all about where we went ashore.”
“How beautiful!” said Jack, gazing thoughtfully at the glorious scene, and asking herself whether that was to be her future home.
“An’ d’yer caal that beautiful?” said Dinny, contemptuously. “Young man, did ye iver see Dublin Bay?”
“No,” said Jack, smiling in the earnest face before him.
“Nor the Hill of Howth?”
Jack shook his head.
“Then don’t call that beautiful again in me presence,” said Dinny.
“Puts me in mind of Black Pool,” said Bart, thoughtfully.
Further conversation was checked by the interest of landing, the boat being run up on the shore and hidden among the rocks, not that it was likely that it would be seen, but the position of the fugitives and the dread of being retaken made them doubly cautious, Bart even going so far as to obliterate their footprints on the sand.
“Now, then,” said Dinny, “you’ve got the mushket and the bagnet, and those two make one; but if I was you I’d cut down one of them bamboos and shtick the bagnet an that, which would make two of it, and it would be a mighty purty tool to kill a pig.”
The hint was taken, Bart soon cutting down a long, straight lance shaft and forcing it into the socket of the bayonet.
“Then next,” said Dinny, “if I was captain I should say let’s see about something to ate.”
“Hear that, Abel?” said Bart.
“Yes. I was thinking of how we could get down some cocoa-nuts. There are plenty of bananas.”
“Hapes,” put in Dinny; “and there’s a cabbage growing in the heart of every one of thim bundles of leaves on the top of a shtick as they call palms; but them’s only vegetables, captain, dear, and me shtomach is asking for mate.”
“Can we easily shoot a pig – you say there are some,” said Abel.
“And is it aisily shoot a pig?” said Dinny. “Here, give me the mushket.”
He held out his hand for the piece, and Abel, who bore it, hesitated for a moment or two, and glanced at Jack, who nodded shortly, and the loaded weapon was passed to the Irishman.
“Ye doubted me,” he said, laughing; “but niver mind, it’s quite nat’ral. Come along; I won’t shoot anny of ye unless I’m very hungry and can’t get a pig.”
He led the way through an opening in the rough el if, and they climbed along a narrow ravine for some few hundred yards, the roar of the sea being hushed and the overhanging trees which held on among the rifts of the rocks shutting out the evening light, so that at times it was quite dusk. But the rocky barrier was soon passed, and an open natural park spread before them, in a depression of which lay a little lake, whose smooth grassy shores were literally ploughed in every direction with shallow scorings of the soil.
“Look at that now,” said Dinny in a whisper, as he pointed down at some of the more recent turnings of the soft earth. “The purty creatures have all been as busy as Pat Mulcahy’s pig which nobody could ring. Whisht! lie down, ye divils,” he whispered, setting the example, and crouching behind a piece of rock.
The others hid at once, and a low grunting and squeaking which had suddenly been heard in the distance increased loudly; and directly after a herd of quite two hundred pigs came tearing down through a narrow opening in the rocky jungle and made straight for the lake.
They were of all sizes, from little plump fellows, half the weight of ordinary porkers, to their seniors – the largest of which was not more than half the dimensions of an English pig.
They trotted down to the water side, where they drank and rolled and wallowed at the edge for a few moments, and then came back in happy unconsciousness of the fate which awaited one of their number, and passing so near the hidden group that Dinny had an easy shot at a well fed specimen which rolled over, the rest dashing on through the trees squealing as if every one had been injured by the shot.
“We sha’n’t starve here,” said Dinny, with a grin of satisfaction, and before many minutes had passed a fire was kindled in a sheltered nook, where the flame was not likely to be seen from the sea, and as soon as it was glowing, pieces of the pig, cut in a manner which would have disgusted a butcher, were frizzling in the embers.