When she returned to the group, she found them already seated about a board table, plunging into the food like hungry animals. Susie, who sat with her bandaged ankle propped up on a box, was the only one who ate with any manners at all. But it had been a long time since Linda had tasted food, and she was too hungry to be deterred by the sight of "Beefy" putting his fingers into his plate. So she sat down next to Susie, and silently started to eat.
She found the meal exceedingly good, and was surprised at her own appetite, for she hardly expected to be able to enjoy anything under the circumstances.
The lantern threw a weird, ghastly light over the strange, ugly faces about her, and the silence was unbroken, except by the noise and clatter of eating. A tenseness took possession of her; she wished desperately that somebody would say something. It was exactly like a horrible dream, whose spell could not be destroyed. And still no one uttered a word until the meal was concluded.
"You girls can go to bed now," Slats announced, finally. "I'll carry you over, Susie, and give you a gun, in case Linda tries to sneak off in the night." He smiled with vicious triumph.
"I'm afraid that wouldn't do me any good," replied Linda, trying to make her voice sound normal. "I haven't an idea where I am."
"On Black Jack Island, in the Okefenokee Swamp," he again told her. "With water all around you. Get that! You can't get away, without a boat or a plane. And I'm tellin' you now, I seen to it that your Bug's bone-dry!"
With a conceited grin, he leaned over and picked up his wife so roughly that she cried out in pain.
When they were alone, the girls took off some of their outer garments, and lay down on their cots. Linda longed to talk, but she was afraid to begin, for fear it would only lead to some sort of punishment. So she lay still, trying to forget her troubles, to believe everything would come out right in the end, when her father paid the ransom.
She was just dozing off, when she was abruptly aroused by agonized sobs from her tent-mate. She sat up and asked her companion whether there was anything she could get her. But Susie did not answer; she continued to cry wildly like a child of six.