That day they let him out of the bunk, greatly to his relief, for the place swarmed with fleas, and probably with worse vermin. His ankles were still loosely hobbled, but he was allowed to sit on the open stern deck.
His first glance was for familiar landmarks. He found none. The boat was lying in a little bay or bayou, perhaps a creek mouth, surrounded by dense thickets of titi and rattan. Through a tangle of overhanging willow he thought he saw the Alabama River outside, but anybody might have passed down the stream within fifty yards without suspecting the presence of the house boat, or even of the harbor where it lay.
He did not know the place. He was sure it was no part of the bayou near Craig’s camp. He recollected the thudding of engines he had heard or felt soon after being kidnapped. The house boat was moving then. They must have taken her out of the bayou, down the river for some miles, and laid her in this hiding place, which they had probably used before.
The boat was moored against a huge log that made a natural wharf. On an open sandy space ashore a cooking fire was burning. Not far from it two of the gang lay flat on their backs in the shade. Blue Bob stayed aboard, with the fourth of the party, a young man, little more than a boy, with a vacuous, animal face, and long, youthful down sprouting from his chin.
“Well—going to let me go ashore?” Lockwood remarked, by way of being conversational.
“Naw!” Bob growled, staring stupidly.
Lockwood tried again, getting no answer. Studying his captors, he decided that it was not so much animosity as sheer lack of words. They spoke little more to one another than to him. He observed them all that day with growing amazement; he thought he had never seen men so devoid of all the attributes of humanity. His amazement grew to a sort of horror. He felt as if he had fallen into the hands of some half-human animals, some soulless race without either understanding or mercy.
They spoke mainly in drawled monosyllables; they played cards and shot craps endlessly, but without excitement—perhaps having no money to stake. No doubt they were all devoured with malaria and hookworms; but all the same they could handle an ax with masterly dexterity, and on occasion they could be as quick as cats.
Half asleep as they generally seemed, Lockwood felt their eyes perpetually upon him. At every movement, some one turned his head like a flash, and every one of these men carried a gun, the handle protruding shamelessly from the hip pocket. Bob had two—one of them being Lockwood’s own automatic.
After several futile attempts, Lockwood gave up trying to get on any sort of relations with them. He watched them with dread and repulsion as they rolled dice on the dirty deck. One of the “bones” fell through a crack in the planking, and, trying to loosen a board to reach it, the youngest of the men broke the blade of his sheath knife. He tossed away the shortened blade with a curse, but the broken tip remained on the deck and Lockwood fixed his eyes on it.