Part 24 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXV.

THE CHAPEL.

The boys worked with the utmost swiftness, expecting every moment to see the captain and Chris appear, but, luckily, those two, wearied by their hard work, had paused to rest before returning with their load.

”Thirty-one,” counted Walter as he lowered the last grinning skeleton into the pit. ”There seems a kind of stern justice in their present position, Charley,” he continued. ”Now, they are resting side by side with those whom they tortured and enslaved while living.”

”They paid terribly for their cruelty,” said his chum, fingering the flint arrow-heads he had found by the skeletons. ”The whole story is as plain as print. The thirty men whose bones we have just disposed of, enslaved and tortured members of what was at that time a great race, working them as slaves in building these walls, and in that terrible quarry. I confess to a feeling of admiration for them, in spite of their cruelty. They must have been great warriors, though so few in numbers, to hold at bay one of the bravest of the Indian tribes.”

”I wonder why they remained in this awful swamp,” said Walter, musingly.

”Case of necessity, perhaps,” Charley replied, thoughtfully. ”They had probably lost many men by the time they reached this island, and had concluded that to continue on meant utter annihilation, while here they, with their superior arms and suits of mail, could stand off the enemy. So they decided to remain and make the best of it. With the labor of the Indians they captured from time to time they proceeded to fortify the island and make it more secure.”

Walter gazed at his chum admiringly. ”You talk as though you saw it all in front of your eyes,” he declared.

Charley did not heed the interruption. ”Years went by,” he continued, musingly, like one in a dream, ”years in which they grew more and more confident of their own power, and learned to despise their red foes.

But the Seminoles were only waiting with the patience of their race.

Mark the cunning of the savage. There comes a day and night of feasting and rejoicing in the Spaniards' religious calendar. Work and worry is laid aside and they gather in their homes to feast and rejoice. Night comes and as the sun sets the sentries cast a look around. Nothing is in sight. There is nothing to fear. They join the merry-makers, and care and their suits of mail are laid aside, and merriment prevails. The Indians' hour has come. Over the walls swarm a red horde, creeping towards the unsuspecting feasters. One long war-whoop, a shower of arrows, cries of agony, and all is over.”

Charley stopped. ”I've been talking like a five cent novel,” he said, sheepishly.

”I'll bet that is just the way it really happened,” his chum declared.

”That explains why the fort was empty.”

”Perhaps,” Charley said, ”but here comes Chris and the captain, and we'll have to change the subject.”

”I 'spect you-alls don't pay no 'tention 'tall to dis dinner,” grumbled Chris. ”De fire's all out, mighty nigh.”

”We are not good cooks like you, Chris,” said Charley soothingly, and the vain little darky grinned at the compliment.

”Golly, I reckon dat's so,” he declared pompously, ”you chillens sho'

don't know nothin' 'bout cookin'. Spect you-alls mighty near starve to death if it warn't for dis n.i.g.g.e.r. You chillens jes' get out, an' I'll finish gettin' de dinner.”

The boys, relieved of the cooking, turned their attention to other tasks. They carried the two canoes into the empty fort and placed them bottom up in one corner. The other goods they piled up in the shade of a tree.

Charley then disappeared but soon came back with a large kettle he had noticed when removing the skeletons. ”It's copper,” he said, exhibiting it proudly, ”with a little cleaning it will be as good as when it was made. We need it for boiling water, for we have got to clean house this afternoon.”

While he carried the copper to the spring and scrubbed l.u.s.tily away with sand to remove the green verdigris with which it was thickly coated, Walter attempted the manufacture of a mop. Selecting a straight piece of the root of a scrub palmetto, which grew in abundance around the wall, he trimmed it with his knife into the desired shape and size. Laying the piece, thus prepared, upon a large stone, he pounded one side of it l.u.s.tily with a piece of rock. A few minutes sufficed to pound out the pith and leave the harsh fiber exposed.

By the time the two lads had completed their respective tasks, Chris announced that dinner was ready and all fell to with appet.i.tes sharpened by the morning's work.

As soon as dinner was finished, the copper kettle was filled with water and placed upon the fire. By the time the water had come to a boil, the party was sufficiently rested to attack the house cleaning.

The building nearest the fort was selected as their future abode, and never did mansion receive a more thorough scouring. Walter plied the brush, while the captain dashed the water about, and Chris wiped the floor dry with armfuls of Spanish moss. Charley, on account of his still lame shoulder, was excused from this labor.

Leaving his companions thus busily employed, Charley took his way to the building that had aroused his curiosity in the morning, the one in which they had found no skeletons.

This building was a trifle larger than its fellows and differed very little from them in external appearance, except that from its roof projected a little tower. It was the inside, however, which had excited our young hunter's curiosity. At one end was a kind of raised platform and the s.p.a.ce between it and the entrance was filled with benches of stone. Charley reverently removed his hat ad he entered, for he had guessed the character of the place during his morning visit.

It was a chapel that the hardy adventurers of long ago had erected for the wors.h.i.+p of their Maker.