What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise

by George Cary Eggleston

It was safe for the boys to speak now, and Tom thought it best for all of them to come down out of the trees before the man with the game leg, who had started slowly back toward the camp, should reach their neighborhood.

“Come down off your roosts, fellows,” he directed, “and secrete yourselves well in the bushes. The ‘others’ are coming to-night, sure enough. Be careful to hide yourselves so that a flash from that dark lantern won’t search you out. By the way, after they come and we see all we can, we must get out of here. I can’t speak then, but notice when you see me moving away, and follow my example. Now, no more talking, even in a whisper.”

The man with the game leg did not return immediately, as Tom had expected. Instead, he made his way up the bank of the cove and around its bend, to a point only two or three hundred yards away. Obviously that was to be the landing place, hidden as it was by the bend and the dense forest growth from all possible observation on the part of boats in the sound outside. The man with the game leg had gone to the mouth of the cove only to send his signals to his companions outside. Now that they had been seen and answered, he had gone to the landing-place, there to await their coming.

Fortunately for the purposes of the boys, the landing was in full view from their hiding place, and after the man with the game leg had gone thither they had only that one point to watch while they waited.

The wait was a long one, and perhaps it seemed longer because a drizzling rain had set in, soaking them to the skin. After a long time, however, the man with the game leg turned his dark lantern and flashed it once down the cove.

By its light the watchers made out three large boats slowly moving up the cove, apparently with carefully muffled oars, as their strokes could not be heard even at the short distance that now separated them from their destination. As they approached the landing with obvious care, there were frequent flashes from the dark lanterns that all of them seemed to be carrying, and by these flashes Tom and his companions saw that the boats were piled high with freight of some kind, so bestowed as to occupy every inch of space except what was necessary for the use of the men at the oars. Of these there were only two in each boat, each plying a single oar, while a third, perched upon a freight pile at the stern, was steering. Thus there were nine men in the three boats, who, with the man on shore, constituted a rather formidable company for four boys to face if they should decide to attack the Hunkydory’s camp, as the man with the game leg had threatened.

Whence the boats had come, Tom could not in any wise guess, and of course he could not discuss the matter with his comrades while hiding there in the bushes under a life-and-death necessity of keeping perfectly silent. Two things he was sure of: the boats could not have come very far, with only two oarsmen to each of them, and they could not have traversed any but smooth waters, with their freight piled high above their gunwales, as it was.

As soon as the boats were landed, the men began unloading them and carrying their freight to the camp, which was evidently to be its hiding place for a time at least. In the main it seemed to consist of light boxes or packages, many of them bound together into single large bundles which one man could carry. There were also some kegs, which seemed pretty heavy, as the men carried them on their shoulders. But it was difficult to make out anything more definite than this, as the darkness was dispelled infrequently by flashes from a dark lantern, and then only for a fraction of a second at a time.

When the greater part of the freight had been brought to the camp the man who seemed to be in authority over the rest set some of them to work bestowing it in the hovels, of which there appeared to be several, each securely hidden in the thick undergrowth so that a person casually passing that way would never have suspected their existence. Even while this work was in progress the man in charge permitted as little show of light as possible. When all was done a hamper of provisions was brought from one of the boats, together with a demijohn, and the whole crew assembled around the midnight spread, eating and drinking in the dark, except when now and then it became necessary to permit a little show of light for a moment.

At first they feasted in silence, too, but after awhile the liquor they were drinking seemed to go to their heads and they quarreled among themselves a good deal. Some of them wandered about now and then as if searching the bushes jealously.