CHAPTER VI.
THE GIRL ON THE BEACH.
I was not very well satisfied with our trip over the walls of San Marco.In the first place, when the sea-beans, the rope and the grapnel wereall considered, it was a little too costly. In the second place, I wasnot sure that I had been carrying out my contract with Mr. Colbert inexactly the right spirit; for although he had said nothing about myduties, I knew that he expected me to take care of his son, and paid mefor that. And I felt pretty sure that helping a fellow climb up aknotted rope into an old fort by night was not the best way of takingcare of him. The third thing that troubled me in regard to this matterwas the feeling I had that Rectus had led me into it; that he had beenthe leader and not I. Now, I did not intend that anything of that kindshould happen again. I did not come out on this expedition to followRectus around; indeed, it was to be quite the other way. But, to tellthe truth, I had not imagined that he would ever try to make peoplefollow him. He never showed at school that such a thing was in him. So,for these three reasons, I determined that there were to be no morescrapes of that sort, which generally came to nothing, after all.
For the next two or three days we roved around the old town, and intotwo or three orange-groves, and went out sailing with Mr. Cholott, whoowned a nice little yacht, or sail-boat, as we should call it up north.
The sailing here is just splendid, and, one morning, we thought we'dhire a boat for ourselves and go out fishing somewhere. So we went downto the yacht-club wharf to see about the boat that belonged to oldMenendez--Rectus's Minorcan. There were lots of sail-boats there as wellas row-boats, but we hunted up the craft we were after, and, by goodluck, found Menendez in her, bailing her out.
So we engaged her, and he said he'd take us over to the North Beach tofish for bass. That suited us,--any beach and any kind offish,--provided he'd hurry up and get his boat ready. While he wasscooping away, and we were standing on the wharf watching him, alongcame Crowded Owl, the young Indian we had always liked--that is, eversince we had known any of them. He came up, said "How?" and shook hands,and then pulled out some sea-beans. The sight of these things seemed tomake me sick, and as for Rectus, he sung out:
"Do' wan' 'em!" so suddenly that it seemed like one word, and a prettysavage one at that.
Crowded Owl looked at me, but I shook my head, and said, "No, no, no!"Then he drew himself up and just stood there. He seemed struck dumb; butthat didn't matter, as he couldn't talk to us, anyway. But he didn't goaway. When we walked farther up the wharf, he followed us, and againoffered us some beans. I began to get angry, and said "No!" prettyviolently. At this, he left us, but as we turned at the end of thewharf, we saw him near the club-house, standing and talking withMaiden's Heart.
"I think it's a shame to let those Indians wander about here in thatway," said Rectus. "They ought to be kept within bounds."
I couldn't help laughing at this change of tune, but said that Isupposed only a few of them got leave of absence at a time.
"Well," said Rectus, "there are some of them that ought never to comeout."
"Hello!" said old Menendez, sticking his head up above the edge of thewharf. "We're ready now. Git aboard."
And so we scrambled down into the sail-boat, and Menendez pushed off,while the two Indians stood and watched us as we slowly moved away.
When we got fairly out, our sail filled, and we went scudding away on agood wind. Then said old Menendez, as he sat at the tiller:
"What were you hollerin' at them Injuns about?"
"I didn't know that we were hollerin'," said I, "but they were botheringus to buy their sea-beans."
"That's curious," he said. "They aint much given to that sort of thing.But there's no tellin' nothin' about an Injun. If I had my way, I'dhang every one of 'em."
"Rather a blood-thirsty sentiment," said I. "Perhaps some of them don'tdeserve hanging."
"Well, I've never seen one o' that kind," said he, "and I've seen lotsof Injuns. I was in the Seminole war, in this State, and was fightin'Injuns from the beginnin' to the end of it. And I know all about how totreat the rascals. You must hang 'em, or shoot 'em, as soon as you gethold of 'em."
This aroused all the old sympathy for the oppressed red man that dweltin the heart of young Rectus, and he exclaimed:
"That would be murder! There are always two kinds of every sort ofpeople--all are not bad. It is wrong to condemn a whole division of thehuman race that way."
"You're right about there bein' two kinds of Injuns," said the oldfellow. "There's bad ones and there's wuss ones. I know what I've seenfor myself. I'd hang 'em all."
We debated this matter some time longer, but we could make no impressionon the old Minorcan. For some reason or other, probably on account ofhis sufferings or hardships in the war, he was extremely bitter againstall Indians. "You can't tell me," he replied to all of our arguments,and I think he completely destroyed all the sympathy which Rectus hadhad for the once down-trodden and deceived Minorcans, by this animositytoward members of another race who were yet in captivity and bondage. Tobe sure, there was a good deal of difference in the two cases, butRectus wasn't in the habit of turning up every question to look at thebottom of it.
The North Beach is the seaward side of one of the islands that enclosethe harbor, or the Matanzas River, as it is called. We landed on theinland side, and then walked over to the beach, which is very wide andsmooth. Here we set to work to fish. Old Menendez baited our lines, andtold us what to do. It was new sport to us.
First, we took off our shoes and stockings, and rolled up our trousers,so as to wade out in the shallow water. We each had a long line, one endof which we tied around our waists. Menendez had his tied to abutton-hole of his coat, but he thought he had better make our linesvery safe, as they belonged to him. There was a big hook and a heavylead to the other end of the line, with a piece of fish for bait, and weswung the lead around our heads, and threw it out into the surf as faras we could. I thought I was pretty good on the throw, but I couldn'tbegin to send my line out as far as Menendez threw his. As for Rectus,he didn't pretend to do much in the throwing business. He whirled hisline around in such a curious way that I was very much afraid he wouldhook himself in the ear. But Menendez put his line out for him. Hedidn't want me to do it.
Then we stood there in the sand, with the water nearly up to our kneesevery time the waves came in, and waited for a bite. There wasn't muchbiting. Menendez said that the tide was too low, but I've noticed thatsomething is always too something, every time any one takes me outfishing, so I didn't mind that.
Menendez did hook one fellow, I think, for he gave a tremendous jerk athis line, and began to skip inshore as if he were but ten years old; butit was of no use. The fish changed his mind.
Then we stood and waited a while longer, until, all of a sudden, Rectusmade a skip. But he went the wrong way. Instead of skipping out of thewater, he skipped in. He went in so far that he got his trousersdripping wet.
"Hello!" I shouted. "What's up?"
He didn't say anything, but began to pull back, and dig his heels intothe sand. Old Menendez and I saw, at the same moment, what was thematter, and we made a rush for him. I was nearest, and got there first.I seized Rectus by the shoulder, and pulled him back a little.
"Whew-w!" said he; "how this twine cuts!"
Then I took hold of the line in front of him, and there was no mistakingthe fact--he had a big fish on the other end of it.
"Run out!" cried Menendez, who thought there was no good of threefellows hauling on the line; and out we ran.
When we had gone up the beach a good way, I looked back and saw arousing big fish flopping about furiously in the shallow water.
"Go on!" shouted Menendez; and we ran on until we had pulled it high anddry up on the sand.
Then Menendez fell afoul of it to take out the hook, and we hurried backto see it. It was a whopping big bass, and by the powerful way it threwitself around on the sand, I didn't wonder that Rectus ran into thewater when he got the fir
st jerk.
Now, this was something like sport, and we all felt encouraged, and wentto work again with a will, only Menendez untied the line from Rectus'swaist and fastened it to his button-hole.
"It may pull out," he said; "but, on the whole, it's better to lose afishin'-line than a boy."
We fished quietly and steadily for some time, but got no more bites,when suddenly I heard some one say, behind me:
"They don't ever pull in!"
I turned around, and it was a girl. She was standing there with agentleman,--her father, I soon found out,--and I don't know how longthey had been watching us. She was about thirteen years old, and cameover with her father in a sail-boat. I remembered seeing them cruisingaround as we were sailing over.
"They haven't got bites," said her father; "that's the reason they don'tpull in."
It was very disagreeable to me, and I know it was even more so toRectus, to stand here and have those strangers watch us fishing. If wehad not been barefooted and bare-legged, we should not have minded it somuch. As for the old Minorcan, I don't suppose he cared at all. I beganto think it was time to stop.
"As the tide's getting lower and lower," I said to Menendez, "I supposeour chances are getting less and less."
"Yes," said he; "I reckon we'd better shut up shop before long."
"Oh!" cried out the girl, "just look at that fish! Father! Father! Justlook at it. Did any of you catch it? I didn't see it till this minute. Ithought you hadn't caught any. If I only had a fishing-line now, I wouldlike to catch just one fish. Oh, father! why didn't you bring afishing-line?"
"I didn't think of it, my dear," said he. "Indeed, I didn't know therewere any fish here."
Old Menendez turned around and grinned at this, and I thought there wasa good chance to stop fishing; so I offered to let the girl try my linefor a while, if she wanted to.
It was certain enough that she wanted to, for she was going to run rightinto the water to get it. But I came out, and as her father said shemight fish if she didn't have to walk into the water, old Menendez tooka spare piece of line from his pocket and tied it on to the end of mine,and he put on some fresh bait and gave it a tremendous send out into thesurf. Then he put the other end around the girl and tied it. I supposehe thought that it didn't matter if a girl should be lost, but he mayhave considered that her father was there to seize her if she got jerkedin.
She took hold of the line and stood on the edge of the dry sand, readyto pull in the biggest kind of a fish that might come along. I put on myshoes and stockings, and Rectus his; he'd had enough glory for one day.Old Menendez wound up his line, too, but that girl saw nothing of allthis. She just kept her eyes and her whole mind centred on her line. Atfirst, she talked right straight ahead, asking what she should do whenit bit; how big we thought it would be; why we didn't have a cork, andfifty other things, but all without turning her head to the right or theleft. Then said her father:
"My dear, you mustn't talk; you will frighten the fish. When personsfish, they always keep perfectly quiet. You never heard me talking whileI was fishing. I fish a good deal when I am at home," said he, turningto us, "and I always remain perfectly quiet."
Menendez laughed a little at this, and said that he didn't believe thefish out there in the surf would mind a little quiet chat; but thegentleman said that he had always found it best to be just as still aspossible. The girl now shut her mouth tight, and held herself moreready, if possible, than ever, and I believe that if she had got a biteshe would have jerked the fish's head off. We all stood around her, andher father watched her as earnestly as if she was about to graduate at anormal school.
We stood and waited and waited, and she didn't move, and neither did theline. Menendez now said he thought she might as well give it up. Thetide was too low, and it was pretty near dinner-time, and, besides this,there was a shower coming on.
"Oh, no!" said she; "not just yet. I feel sure I'll get a bite in aminute or two now. Just wait a little longer."
And so it went on, every few minutes, until we had waited about half anhour, and then Menendez said he must go, but if the gentleman wanted tobuy the line, and stay there until the tide came in again, he'd sell itto him. At this, the girl's father told her that she must stop, and soshe very dolefully let Menendez untie the line.
"It's too bad!" she said, almost with tears in her eyes. "If they hadonly waited a few minutes longer!" And then she ran up to Rectus and me,and said:
"When are you coming out here again? Do you think you will cometo-morrow, or next day?"
"I don't know," said I. "We haven't settled our plans for to-morrow."
"Oh, father! father!" she cried, "perhaps they will come out hereto-morrow, and you must get me a fishing-line, and we will come and fishall day."
We didn't stay to hear what her father said, but posted off to our boat,for we were all beginning to feel pretty hungry. We took Rectus's fishalong, to give to our landlady. The gentleman and the girl came closeafter us, as if they were afraid to be left alone on the island. Theirboat was hauled up near ours, and we set off at pretty much the sametime.
We went ahead a little, and Menendez turned around and called out to thegentleman that he'd better follow us, for there were some bad shoals inthis part of the harbor, and the tide was pretty low.
"All right, my hearty!" called out the gentleman. "This isn't the firsttime I've sailed in this harbor. I guess I know where the shoals are,"and just at that minute he ran his boat hard and fast on one of them.
He jumped up, and took an oar and pushed and pushed: but it was of nogood--he was stuck fast. By this time we had left him pretty far behind;but we all had been watching, and Rectus asked if we couldn't go backand help him.
"Well, I s'pose so," said Menendez; "but it's a shame to keep threedecent people out of their dinner for the sake of a man like that, whohasn't got sense enough to take good advice when it's give to him."
"We'd better go," said I, and Menendez, in no good humor, put his boatabout. We found the other boat aground, in the very worst way. The oldMinorcan said that he could see that sand-bar through the water, andthat they might as well have run up on dry land. Better, for thatmatter, because then we could have pushed her off.
"There aint nuthin' to be done," he said, after we had worked at thething for a while, "but to jist wait here till the tide turns. It'spretty near dead low now, an' you'll float off in an hour or two."
This was cold comfort for the gentleman, especially as it was beginningto rain; but he didn't seem a bit cast down. He laughed, and said:
"Well, I suppose it can't be helped: but I am used to being out in allweathers. I can wait, just as well as not. But I don't want my daughterhere to get wet, and she has no umbrella. Would you mind taking her onyour boat? When you get to the town, she can run up to our hotel byherself. She knows the way."
Of course we had no objection to this, and the girl was helped aboard.Then we sailed off, and the gentleman waved his hat to us. If I had beenin his place, I don't think I should have felt much like waving my hat.
"THE GENTLEMAN WAVED HIS HAT TO US."]
Menendez now said that he had an oil-skin coat stowed away forward, andI got it and put it around the girl. She snuggled herself up in it ascomfortably as she could, and began to talk.
"The way of it was this," she said. "Father, he said we'd go outsailing, and mother and I went with him, and when we got down to thewharf, there were a lot of boats, but they all had men to them, and sofather, he said he wanted to sail the boat himself, and mother, she saidthat if he did she wouldn't go; but he said pooh! he could do it as wellas anybody, and wasn't going to have any man. So he got a boat without aman, and mother, she didn't want me to go; but I went, and he stuck fastcoming back, because he never will listen to anything anybody tells him,as mother and I found out long ago. And here we are, almost at thewharf! I didn't think we were anywhere near it."
"Well, you see, sis, sich a steady gale o' talkin', right behind thesail, is bound to hurry the boa
t along. And now, s'pose you tell us yourname," said Menendez.
"My name's Cornelia; but father, he calls me Corny, which mother hatesto hear the very sound of," said she; "and the rest of it is MaryChipperton. Father, he came down here because he had a weak lung, andI'm sure I don't see what good it's going to do him to sit out there inthe rain. We'll take a man next time. And father and I'll be sure to behere early to-morrow to go out fishing with you. Good-bye!"
And with this, having mounted the steps to the pier, off ran MissCorny.
"I wouldn't like to be the ole man o' that family," said Mr. Menendez.
That night, after we had gone to bed, Rectus began to talk. We generallywent to sleep in pretty short order; but the moon did not shine in ourwindows now until quite late, and so we noticed for the first time thecurious way in which the light-house--which stood almost opposite onAnastasia Island--brightened up the room, every minute or two. It is arevolving light, and when the light got on the landward side it gave usa flash, which produced a very queer effect on the furniture, and onRectus's broad hat, which hung on the wall right opposite the window. Itseemed exactly as if this hat was a sort of portable sun of a very mildpower, which warmed up, every now and then, and lighted the room.
But Rectus did not talk long about this.
"I think," said he, "that we have had about enough of St. Augustine.There are too many Indians and girls here."
"And sea-beans, too, perhaps," said I. "But I don't think there's anyreason for going so soon. I'm going to settle those Indians, and you'veonly seen one girl, and perhaps we'll never see her again."
"Don't you believe that," said Rectus, very solemnly, and he turnedover, either to ponder on the matter, or to go to sleep. His remarksmade me imagine that perhaps he was one of those fellows who soon gettired of a place and want to be moving on. But that wasn't my way, and Ididn't intend to let him hurry me. I think the Indians worried him agood deal. He was afraid they would keep on troubling us. But, as I hadsaid, I had made up my mind to settle the Indians. As for Corny, I knowhe hated her. I don't believe he spoke a word to her all the time wewere with her.
The next morning, we talked over the Indian question, and then went downto the fort. We hadn't been there for three or four days, but now we haddecided not to stand nagging by a couple of red-skinned savages, but togo and see the captain and tell him all about it. All except theproclamation--Rectus wouldn't agree to have that brought in at all. Mr.Cholott had introduced us to the captain, and he was a first-ratefellow, and when we told him how we had stormed his old fort, he laughedand said he wondered we didn't break our necks, and that the next timewe did it he'd put us in the guard-house, sure.
"That would be cheaper for you than buying so many beans," he said.
As to the two Indians, he told us he would see to it that they let usalone. He didn't think that Maiden's Heart would ever harm us, for hewas more of a blower than anything else; but he said that Crowded Owlwas really one of the worst-tempered Indians in the fort, and he advisedus to have nothing more to do with him, in any way.
All of this was very good of the captain, and we were very glad we hadgone to see him.
"I tell you what it is," said Rectus, as we were coming away, "I don'tbelieve that any of these Indians are as innocent as they try to makeout. Did you ever see such a rascally set of faces?"
Somehow or other, I seldom felt sorry when Rectus changed his mind. Ithought, indeed, that he ought to change it as much as he could. Andyet, as I have said, he was a thoroughly good fellow. The trouble withhim was that he wasn't used to making up his mind about things, anddidn't make a very good beginning at it.
The next day, we set out to explore Anastasia Island, right opposite thetown. It is a big island, but we took our lunch and determined to dowhat we could. We hired a boat and rowed over to the mouth of a creek inthe island. We went up this creek quite a long way, and landed at alittle pier, where we made the boat fast. The man who owned the boattold us just how to go. We first made a flying call at the coquinaquarries, where they dig the curious stuff of which the town is built.This is formed of small shells, all conglomerated into one solid massthat becomes as hard as stone after it is exposed to the air. It musthave taken thousands of years for so many little shell-fish to pilethemselves up into a quarrying-ground. We now went over to thelight-house, and climbed to the top of it, where we had a view that madeRectus feel even better than he felt in the cemetery at Savannah.
When we came down, we started for the beach and stopped a little whileat the old Spanish light-house, which looked more like a cracker-bakerythan anything else, but I suppose it was good enough for all the shipsthe Spaniards had to light up. We would have cared more for the oldlight-house if it had not had an inscription on it that said it had beendestroyed, and rebuilt by some American. After that, we considered itmerely in the light of a chromo.
We had a good time on the island, and stayed nearly all day. Toward theend of the afternoon, we started back for the creek and our boat. We hada long walk, for we had been exploring the island pretty well, and when,at last, we reached the creek, we saw that our boat was gone!
This was astounding. We could not make out how the thing could havehappened. The boatman, from whom we had hired it, had said that it wouldbe perfectly safe for us to leave the boat at the landing if we tied herup well and hid the oars. I had tied her up very well and we had hiddenthe oars so carefully, under some bushes, that we found them there whenwe went to look for them.
"Could the old thing have floated off of itself?" said Rectus.
"That couldn't have happened," I said. "I tied her hard and fast."
"But how could any one have taken her away without oars?" asked Rectus.
"Rectus," said I, "don't let us have any more riddles. Some one may havecut a pole and poled her away, up or down the creek, or----"
"I'll tell you," interrupted Rectus. "Crowded Owl!"
I didn't feel much like laughing, but I did laugh a little.
"Yes," I said. "He probably swam over with a pair of oars on purpose tosteal our boat. But, whether he did it or not, it's very certain thatsomebody has taken the boat, and there isn't any way, that I see, ofgetting off this place to-night. There'll be nobody going over so latein the afternoon--except, to be sure, those men we saw at the other endof the island with a flat-boat."
"But that's away over at the upper end of the island," said Rectus.
"That's not so very far," said I. "I wonder if they have gone back yet?If one of us could run over there and ask them to send a boatman fromthe town after us, we might get back by supper-time."
"Why not both of us?" asked Rectus.
"One of us should stay here to see if our boat does come back. It musthave been some one from the island who took it, because any one from themainland would have brought his own boat."
"Very well," said Rectus. "Let's toss up to see who goes. The winnerstays."
I pitched up a cent.
"Heads," said Rectus.
"Tails," said I.
Tails it was, and Rectus started off like a good fellow.
I sat down and waited. I waited a long, long time, and then I got up andwalked up and down. In about an hour I began to get anxious. It was morethan time for Rectus to return. The walk to the end of the island andback was not much over a mile--at least, I supposed it was not. Couldanything have happened to the boy? It was not yet sunset, and I couldn'timagine what there was to happen.
After waiting about half an hour longer, I heard a distant sound ofoars. I ran to the landing and looked down the creek. A boat with a manin it was approaching. When it came nearer, I saw plainly that it wasour boat. When it had almost reached the landing, the man turned around,and I was very much surprised, indeed, to see that he was Mr.Chipperton.