“Don’ know nuffin’ ’bout ‘suppose to dem,’ Massa Harry; but dere ubber tribes in de ’glades dan ours. Some ob dem don’ lak us neider.”
“Then you think they secured guides from some other tribe?” asked Frank.
“Mus’ ab,” rejoined Quatty, “none of my fren’s would guide dem.”
The nearest island rapidly assumed shape and resolved itself into a charming bower of tropical vegetation rising at its highest point about forty or fifty feet above the monotonous level of the ’glades As it grew nearer the boys were astonished to see that its summit was bare of trees and formed a plateau of some area which was flat as the top of a table. It was as if some giant had lopped off the top of it with a huge knife.
“That’s very extraordinary,” said Frank, as they gazed at it, “one would almost say that it had been formed artificially.”
The air-ship circled about the islet under Frank’s skilled control while the youthful aerial navigators scanned it with eager eyes. They could now plainly perceive that in the center of the flat top a sort of altar, about seven feet long by four feet high, had been erected.
“A sacrificial altar of some ancient tribe,” cried Harry.
“I’m not so sure,” replied Frank as the Golden Eagle II heeling over, circled slowly about the object of their mystification. “What do you know about this, Quatty?” he asked.
“Quatty thinks him used by Injuns to make smoke signals,” said the old negro scanning the altar narrowly. “When an Injun he wants to signal he builds a fire on dere and den makes de smoke rise or fade away by covering it wid a green branch,” he further explained.
“That is undoubtedly the correct explanation,” said Frank, “of course there was an ancient race of mound-builders in Florida and this may be one of their mounds, but I have never read that they had any sacrificial rites. As Quatty says, the Seminoles must have used this old mound-builders’ hill, which the aborigines may have utilized as a fort, or as a convenient place for signaling from.”