CHAPTER IV.
TO THE RESCUE.
The next morning, I was awakened by Rectus coming into the room.
"Hello!" said I; "where have you been? I didn't hear you get up."
"I called you once or twice," said Rectus, "but you were sleeping sosoundly I thought I'd let you alone. I knew you'd lost some sleep bybeing sick on the steamer."
"That was only the first night," I exclaimed. "I've made up that longago. But what got you up so early?"
"I went out to take a warm salt-water bath before breakfast," answeredRectus. "There's an eight-cornered bath-house right out here, almostunder the window, where you can have your sea-water warm if you likeit."
"Do they pump it from the tropics?" I asked, as I got up and began todress.
"No; they heat it in the bath-house. I had a first-rate bath, and I sawa Minorcan."
"You don't say so!" I cried. "What was he like? Had he horns? And howdid you know what he was?"
"I asked him," said Rectus.
"Asked him!" I exclaimed. "You don't mean to say that you got up earlyand went around asking people if they were Mohicans!"
"Minorcans, I said."
"Well, it's bad enough, even if you got the name right. Did you ask theman plump to his face?"
"Yes. But he first asked me what I was. He was an oldish man, and I methim just as I was coming out of the bath-house. He had a basket of clamson his arm, and I asked him where he caught them. That made him laugh,and he said he dug them out of the sand under the wharf. Then he askedme if my name was Cisneros, and when I told him it was not, he said thatI looked like a Spaniard, and he thought that that might be my name. Andso, as he had asked me about myself, I asked him if he was a Minorcan,and he said 'yes.'"
"And what then?" I asked.
"Nothing," said Rectus. "He went on with his clams, and I came home."
"You didn't seem to make much out of him, after all," said I. "I don'twonder he thought you were a Spaniard, with that hat. I told you you'dmake a show of yourself. But what are you going to do with yourMinorcans, Rectus, when you catch them?"
He laughed, but didn't mention his plans.
"I didn't know how you got clams," he said. "I thought you caught themsome way. It would never have entered my head to dig for them."
"There's lots to learn in this town about fish, and ever so many otherthings besides; and I tell you what it is, Rectus, as soon as we getthrough with the fort,--and I don't know how long that will take us, forI heard on the steamer that it had underground dungeons,--we'll go offon a first-class exploring expedition."
That suited Rectus exactly.
After breakfast we started for the fort. It is just outside of the town,and you can walk all the way on the sea-wall, which is about a yard wideon top,--just a little too wide for one fellow, but not quite wideenough for two.
The United States government holds the fort now, of course, and calls itFort Marion, but the old Spanish name was San Marco, and we disdained tocall it anything else. When we went over the drawbridge, and across themoat, we saw the arms of Spain on a shield over the great gate of thefort. We walked right in, into a wide hall, with dark door-ways on eachside, and then out into a great inclosed space, like a parade-ground, inthe centre of the fort, and here we saw a whole crowd of Indians. Wedidn't expect to find Indians here, and we were very much surprised.They did not wear Indian clothes, but were dressed in United Statesmilitary uniform. They didn't look like anything but Indians, though,for all that. I asked one of them if he belonged here, and he smiledand said "How?" and held out his hand. We both shook it, but could makenothing out of him. A good many of them now came up and said "How?" tous, and shook hands, and we soon found that this meant "How d' ye do?"and was about all they knew of English.
"HOW?"]
We were lucky enough, before we got through shaking hands with our newfriends, to see Mr. Cholott coming toward us, and he immediately took usin charge, and seemed to be glad to have a job of the kind. There wasnothing about the fort that he didn't know. He told us that the Indianswere prisoners, taken in the far West by United States troops, and thatsome of them were the worst Indians in the whole country. They were safeenough now, though, and were held here as hostages. Some were chiefs,and they were all noted men,--some as murderers, and others in lessimportant ways. They had been here for some years, and a few of themcould speak a little English.
He then took us all over the fort,--up an inclined plane to the top ofthe ramparts, and into the Indian barracks on one of the wide walls,where we saw a lot of Cheyennes and Kiowas, and Indians from othertribes, sitting around and making bows and arrows, and polishingsea-beans to sell to visitors. At each corner of the fort was a "lookouttower,"--a little box of a place, stuck out from the top of the wall,with loopholes and a long, narrow passage leading to it, with a highwall on each side to protect from bullets and arrows the man who went tolook out. One of the towers had been knocked off, probably by acannon-ball. These towers and slim little passages took our fancygreatly. Then Mr. Cholott took us downstairs to see the dungeons. He gotthe key and gave it to a big old Indian, named Red Horse, who wentahead with a lighted kerosene-lamp.
We first saw the dungeon where the Indian chief, Osceola, was shut upduring the Seminole war. It was a dreary place. There was another chief,Wild Cat, who was imprisoned with Osceola, and one night Osceola"boosted" him to a high window, where he squeezed through the bars andgot away. If Osceola had had any one to give him a lift, I suppose hewould have been off, too. Rectus and I wondered how the two Indiansmanaged this little question of who should be hoisted. Perhaps theytossed up, or perhaps Wild Cat was the lighter of the two. The worstdungeon, though, was a place that was discovered by accident aboutthirty years ago. There was nothing there when we went in; but, when itwas first found, a chained skeleton was lying on the floor. Through ahole in the wall we crept into another dungeon, worse yet, in which twoiron cages were found hung to the wall, with skeletons in them. Itseemed like being in some other country to stand in this dark littledungeon, and hear these dreadful stories, while a big Indian stoodgrinning by, holding a kerosene-lamp.
Mr. Cholott told us that one of the cages and the bones could now beseen in Washington.
After Mr. Cholott went home, we tramped all over the fort again byourselves, and that afternoon we sat on the outer wall that runs alongthe harbor-front of the fort, and watched the sail-boats and thefishermen in their "dug-outs." There were a couple of sharks swimming upand down in front of the town, and every now and then they would comeup and show themselves. They were the first sharks we had ever seen.
Rectus was worked up about the Indians. We had been told that, while agreat many of the chiefs and braves imprisoned here were men known tohave committed crimes, still there were others who had done nothingwrong, and had been captured and brought here as prisoners, simplybecause, in this way, the government would have a good hold on theirtribes.
Rectus thought this was the worst kind of injustice, and I agreed withhim, although I didn't see what we were going to do about it.
On our way home we met Rectus's Minorcan; he was a queer old fellow.
"Hello!" said he, when he saw Rectus. "Have you been out catchingclams?"
We stopped and talked a little while about the sharks, and then the oldman asked Rectus why he wanted to know, that morning, whether he was aMinorcan or not.
"I just wanted to see one," said Rectus, as if he had been talking ofkangaroos or giraffes. "I've been thinking a good deal about them, andtheir bold escape from slavery, and their----"
"Slavery!" sung out the old man. "We were never slaves! What do you meanby that? Do you take us for niggers?"
He was pretty mad, and I don't wonder, if that was the way he understoodRectus, for he was just as much a white man as either of us.
"Oh no!" said Rectus. "But I've heard all about you, and that tyrantTurnbull, and the way you cast off his yoke. I mean your fathers, ofcourse."
"I reckon you've hea
rd a little too much, young man," said the Minorcan."Somebody's been stuffin' you. You'd better get a hook and line, and goout to catch clams."
"Why, you don't understand me!" cried Rectus. "I honor you for it."
The old man looked at him and then at me, and then he laughed. "Allright, bub," said he. "If ever you want to hire a boat, I've got one. Myname is Menendez. Just ask for my boat at the club-house wharf." Andthen he went on.
"That's all you get for your sympathy with oppressed people," saidRectus. "They call you bub."
"Well, that old fellow isn't oppressed," I said; "and if any of hisancestors were, I don't suppose he cares about remembering it. We oughtto hire his boat some time."
That evening we took a walk along the sea-wall. It was a beautifulstarlight night, and a great many people were walking about. When we gotdown near the fort,--which looked bigger and grayer than ever by thestarlight,--Rectus said he would like to get inside of it by night, andI agreed that it would be a good thing to do. So we went over thedrawbridge (this place has a drawbridge, and portcullises, andbarbicans, and demi-lunes, and a moat, just as if it were a castle or afort of some old country in Europe),--but the big gate was shut. Wedidn't care to knock, for all was dark, and we came away. Rectusproposed that we should reconnoitre the place, and I agreed, although,in reality, there wasn't anything to reconnoitre. We went down into themoat, which was perfectly dry, and very wide, and walked all around thefort.
We examined the walls, which were pretty jagged and rough in someplaces, and we both agreed that if we _had_ to do it, we believed wecould climb to the top.
As we walked home, Rectus proposed that we should try to climb in somenight.
"What's the good?" I asked.
"Why, it would be a splendid thing," said he, "to scale the walls of anold Middle-Age fort, like that. Let's try it, anyway."
I couldn't help thinking that it would be rather a fine thing to do, butit did seem rather foolish to risk our necks to get over the walls atnight, when we could walk in, whenever we pleased, all day.
But it was of no use to say anything like that to Rectus. He was full ofthe idea of scaling the walls, and I found that, when the boy did getworked up to anything, he could talk first-rate, and before we went tosleep I got the notion of it, too, and we made up our minds that wewould try it.
The next day we walked around the walls two or three times, and found aplace where we thought we could get up, if we had a rope fastened to thetop of the wall. When General Oglethorpe bombarded the fort,--at thetime the Spaniards held it,--he made a good many dents in the wall, andthese would help us. I did climb up a few feet, but we saw that it wouldnever do to try to get all the way up without a rope.
How to fasten the rope on the top of the wall was the next question. Wewent in the fort, and found that if we could get a stout grapnel overthe wall, it would probably catch on the inside of the coping, and giveus a good enough hold. There is a wide walk on top, with a low wall onthe outside, just high enough to shelter cannon, and to enable thegarrison to dodge musketry and arrows.
We had a good deal of trouble finding a rope, but we bought one, atlast, which was stout enough,--the man asked us if we were going to fishfor sharks, and didn't seem to believe us when we said no,--and we tookit to our room, and made knots in it about a foot apart. The fort wallsare about twenty feet high, and we made the rope plenty long enough,with something to spare. We didn't have much trouble to find a grapnel.We bought a small one, but it was strong enough. We talked the matterover a great deal, and went to the fort several times, makingexaminations, and measuring the height of the wall, from the top, with aspool of cotton.
It was two or three days before we got everything ready, and in ourtrips to the fort we saw a good deal of the Indians. We often met themin the town, too, for they were frequently allowed to go out and walkabout by themselves. There was no danger, I suppose, of their trying torun away, for they were several thousand miles from their homes, andthey probably would not care to run to any other place with no largerstock of the English language than one word, "How?" Some of them,however, could talk a little English. There was one big fellow--he wasprobably the largest of them all--who was called "Maiden's Heart." Icouldn't see how his name fitted, for he looked like an out-and-outsavage, and generally wore a grin that seemed wicked enough to frightensettlers out of his part of the country. But he may have had a tenderspot, somewhere, which entitled him to his name, and he was certainlyvery willing to talk to us, to the extent of his ability, which was notvery great. We managed, however, to have some interesting, though ratherchoppy, conversations.
There was another fellow, a young chief, called Crowded Owl, that weliked better than any of the others, although we couldn't talk to him atall. He was not much older than I was, and so seemed to take to us. Hewould walk all around with us, and point out things. We had bought somesea-beans of him, and it may be that he hoped to sell us some more. Atany rate, he was very friendly.
We met Mr. Cholott several times, and he told us of some good places togo to, and said he'd take us out fishing before long. But we were in nohurry for any expedition until we had carried out our little plan ofsurprising the fort. I gave the greater part of our money, however, toMr. Cholott to lock up in his safe. I didn't like old Mr. Colbert's planof going about with your capital pinned to your pockets. It might dowhile we were travelling, but I would rather have had it in drafts orsomething else not easily lost.
We had a good many discussions about our grapnel. We did not knowwhether there was a sentinel on duty in the fort at night or not, butsupposed there was, and, if so, he would be likely to hear the grapnelwhen we threw it up and it hit the stones. We thought we could get overthis difficulty by wrapping the grapnel in cotton wool. This woulddeaden the sound when it struck, but would not prevent the points of thehooks from holding to the inner edge of the wall. Everything now seemedall right, except that we had no object in view after we got over thewall. I always like to have some reason for doing a thing, especiallywhen it's pretty hard to do. I said this to Rectus, and he agreed withme.
"What I would like to do," said he, "would be to benefit the innocentIndian prisoners."
"I don't know what we can do for them," said I. "We can't let them out,and they'd all go back again if we did."
"No, we can't do that," said he; "but we ought to do something. I'vebeen around looking at them all carefully, and I feel sure that thereare at least forty men among those Indians who haven't done a thing towarrant shutting them up."
"Why, how do you know?" I exclaimed.
"I judge from their faces," said Rectus.
Of course this made me laugh, but he didn't care.
"I'll tell you what we could do," said he; "we could enter a protestthat might be heard of, and do some good. We could take a pot of blackpaint and a brush with us, and paint on one of the doors that open intothe inner square,--where everybody could see it,--something like this:'Let the righteous Indian go free.' That would create talk, andsomething might be done."
"Who'd do it?" said I. "The captain in command couldn't. He has no powerto let any of them go free."
"Well, we might address the notice to the President of the UnitedStates--in big black letters. They could not conceal such a thing."
"Well, now, look here, Rectus," said I; "this thing is going to cost toomuch money. That rope was expensive, and the grapnel cost a good dealmore than we thought it would; and now you want a big pot of blackpaint. We mustn't spend our money too fast, and if we've got toeconomize, let's begin on black paint. You can write your proclamationon paper, and stick it on the door with tacks. They could send thateasier to the President than they could send a whole door."
"You may make as much fun as you please," said Rectus, "but I'm going towrite it out now."
And so he did, in big letters, on half a sheet of foolscap.