I ran in beside the skiff, stopped my motor and listened. I heard nothing but owls that seemed to have a voice in the deadly stillness like human beings in sore distress. I examined the skiff again. It was empty with the exception of the oars. I shouted time and again at the top of my voice, only to be answered by spectral owls. I could not leave my prisoners, so had to await for daybreak, at the first sign of which I took them ashore and chained them to a tree.
I then removed my boots to pour the water out, as they had been full since it began to rain. The prisoners begged for moonshine. They looked pitiful enough, wet to the skin, dirty and bloody. I gave them some, then filled a flask and started. The island was not wide and I went to the lower end and back, shouting repeatedly, without results.
When I did find them at the extreme upper end, Howard Byng presented a sorry spectacle, this wild Cracker man, with eyes bloodshot, clothed only with pants and shirt, for he had given the girls everything else. He had found them in the night, completely prostrated. Mrs. Potter was paralyzed with fear and could only moan, Norma was shocked into hysterics, lying with her head on Mrs. Potter's lap. They were in white summer attire and their soaked clothes clung to their bodies.
At the sight of me and daylight and several swallows of moonshine, Mrs. Potter revived enough to give serious attention to Norma, now in sort of a deathlike coma. By vigorous rubbing and finally a stimulant, she revived. Howard carried her in his arms, talking to her as he would a child, telling her she would "soon be home to mamma," while I steadied Mrs. Potter toward the boat, a half mile away. Until Norma was delivered safely home she was his woman.
At sight of the prisoners Mrs. Potter clung to me and groaned. Howard heard and tried to keep Norma from seeing them, but did not succeed. Her scream would have pierced any man's heart.
Mrs. Potter realized her sister's danger, braced herself, but was unable to do much more than wring her hands, moan and caress the young girl. It was an unpleasant experience, and I never want to go through it again. I know how to handle men, but drenched, starved, hysterical women were a sorry puzzle to me, to say nothing of the three prisoners upon whose delivery my reputation was staked.
Howard's problem was greater—he still held in his arms a slight, nervous child, less than fifteen, paralyzed with fear and exposure, who had again lapsed into a state of coma with attendant convulsions caused by the sight of the authors of her sad plight.
I was not wrong when I anticipated a scene upon our arriving home. I may have been rude to Mrs. Purdue, when she indignantly and weepingly demanded an explanation. I told her there was not a doctor within twenty miles and she had better take care of her children first, and ask for explanations later. Byng did not get off so well. The "Purdue man" finally came in with a bad bump on his head, and a story calculated to excuse his desertion. He had been hit with an oar, for which I felt glad, for I saw cowardice in his face, and I always did hate a deserter.
By the time I got my men in the hands of a marshal, and on the way to Atlanta, matters had straightened out. Mamma and Papa Purdue were quite normal again. Then it was that I thought I detected a subtle change in the atmosphere.