As De Leon reflected thus, the boat lay at anchor for the night on the broad bosom of that inland sea, Lake Okeechobee.
“I think,” he whispered to himself, “I ought to mention that message to my friend; it might lessen his distress, and yet how can I let him know how I have wronged him and tried to defraud him? I cannot do it.”
Three weeks later they stopped at a landing-place on the Kissimmee River, in order to secure some fresh food. They had passed through the great lake in safety, and also through its principal tributary to a point north of Fort Kissimmee. That stoppage was the first of any consequence since they had left Lake Okeechobee, and it is possible that the careful watch observed by De Leon having been without result up to that time, his vigils had grown somewhat careless.
This, however, is mere conjecture, but on the night of that landing, De Leon awoke from a heavy stupor to find the boatman raising his axe to slay his friend Montgomery. De Leon essayed to rise to his feet, yelling out an alarm to his friend as he did so. The assassin, however, had taken the precaution to tie some ropes across the other’s limbs, loosely enough so as not to awake him, yet in such a way as to prevent him rendering any sudden assistance to his friend.
The immediate result of De Leon’s alarm was to divert to himself the blow intended for his friend. For a moment the yellow, devilish face of the boatman bent over him with a look of indescribable malice, the next the axe descended full on poor De Leon’s helpless head, and with a groan he sank unconscious into the bottom of the boat.
The boatman turned in time to see that Montgomery was awake and feeling for his pistol, then, recognizing that the game was up, he jumped ashore.
When he got to the distance of about a hundred yards from the boat, and so out of pistol range, he raised his rifle, which he had taken up as he left the boat, and fired. Thanks, however, to poor De Leon’s thoughtfulness in saturating the ruffian’s cartridges, the latter’s murderous intentions were foiled although he tried shell after shell before he gave up as useless his efforts to kill Montgomery.
The latter, oblivious of the murderer’s persistent attempts to shoot him, was stooping over his wounded friend endeavoring to stay the frightful loss of blood from the blow given him by the native. The wound had not been what it had been intended to be—immediately fatal. When De Leon saw the axe descending he had moved his head so as to evade the full force of the weapon which had accordingly somewhat glanced in its stroke.
Still the wound, although not instantly fatal, bid fair to prove so ere long, and Montgomery groaned when he thought of his inability to render his friend skilled assistance.
When he saw that the hemorrhage still continued in spite of all his efforts, a feeling of desperate helplessness seized upon him and his eyes scanned the land to see whether any possible help was within sight.