Part 62 (1/2)
”I can and will do all this, sir,” replied the planter feebly. ”I thought I had explained as much.”
”Yes, yes,” cried the captain impatiently, ”but I want to know more about the bargain you wish to make.”
”What can I say more, sir?” replied the planter. ”Your protection, so that I may die in peace, trying to make some amends for the past.”
”H'm!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the captain thoughtfully.
The planter smiled.
”You are thinking, sir,” he said, ”that you cannot trust me, and that you will be able to root out this accursed trade without my help.”
”Perhaps so,” said the captain drily.
”Let me tell you, then, that you are setting yourself to cleanse an Augean stable. You are pitting yourself against men who have made these swampy forests, these nets of intertwining water-ways, a perfect maze of strongholds in which your little force of sailors would be involved in a desperate fight with Nature at her worst. Your officers and men here have had some slight experience of what they will have to deal with, but a mere nothing. I tell you, sir, that you have no idea of the difficulties that await you. I am speaking the plain truth. You cannot grasp what strong powers you would have to contend with. Ah, you, doctor, you should know. Tell your captain. You must have some knowledge of what Nature can do here in the way of fever.”
”Humph! Yes,” said the gentleman addressed. ”You are a proof positive.”
”Yes,” said the planter sadly; ”I am one of her victims, and an example of what a strong man can become whose fate has fixed him in these swampy shades.”
”I'll trust you, sir,” said the captain suddenly. ”I must warn you, though, that at the slightest suspicion you arouse of playing any treacherous trick upon me, your life will be the forfeit.”
”Of course, sir.”
”Then tell me this first; how am I to lay hands upon this overseer of yours? He is away somewhere in hiding, I suppose, on that lugger?”
”Oh no; that lugger is under the command of one of his men, a mulatto.
He has gone off in a canoe, as I expect, to bring round one of his schooners.”
”What for? Not to attack us here?”
”I expect so; but I can soon tell.”
”Ah, how?” asked the captain eagerly.
”By sending a couple of men whom I can trust, to find out.”
The captain rubbed his ear and stood looking at the planter thoughtfully, and then turning to the first lieutenant, he took his arm and led him right aft, speaking to him hurriedly for a few minutes before they returned to where the doctor stood evidently looking upon their visitor in the light of a new patient.
”Now, Mr--Mr Allen,” said the captain sharply, ”I have been consulting my chief officer, and he agrees with me that it will be wise to accept your offer; so tell me what you propose first.”
”To return to my little house.”
”How can that help us?” exclaimed Mr Anderson sharply. ”How are we to communicate with you right away in that swampy forest?”
”You misunderstand me,” said the planter. ”I mean I shall return to the place I have by the side of the bay here;” and he pointed across the water.
”I do not see where you mean.”