He stepped forward, grasped the hand of the shiftless one, and gave it a fervent shake. Paul at once did the same, then followed Long Jim and Tom Ross. Shif'less Sol's face became beatific. He had received his silent tribute and it was enough. The flavor of it would be with him all the rest of his life.
"What did you fellers think?" he asked, "when them two big knives came fallin' down on the floor. I'd hev called to you, but I wuz afeard I'd stir up them two sentinels on the other side of the house."
"We knew it was you, Sol," replied Paul, "and we knew then that our escape was certain. Where did you get the knives?"
"I stole them from a tool house," replied Sol with pride. "I guess they use 'em to cut cane with, or something like that."
"We certainly cut dirt with 'em at a great rate," said Henry, "and here we are free, the five of us together again, but without arms except the two knives you threw to us."
The moonlight was deepening and the shiftless one stood in the center of it. His figure seemed suddenly to swell and the calm, victorious light of the supreme conqueror came into his eyes.
"Boys," he said, and his voice was even and precise, as a victor's should be, "when I undertook this here job o' settin' us on our feet agin, I undertook to do it all. I not only meant to put us on our feet, but to git us ready fur runnin', too. Boys, I hev took 'The Gall-yun' from the Spaniards ag'in an' she's waitin' fur us."
"What! what!" they cried in chorus. "You don't mean it, Sol?"
"I shorely do mean it. All the boats that they expect to use to-day wuz anchored in the bi-yoo or hay-yoo or whatever they call it. 'The Gall-yun,' our gall-yun, wuz at the end o' the line nearest to the big river. Nobody wuz on board, but she wuz tied to the boat next to her. I slipped on her—it was pow'ful dark then an' the Spaniards wuz keepin' a slip-shod watch, anyhow—cut the rope an' floated her down the stream, where I've tied her up under sech thick brush that nobody 'cept ourselves is likely to find her. She'll be thar, waitin' fur us, an' don't you doubt it. An' fellers all our rifles an' ammunition an' things are on her. It wuz the captain's boat, an' I s'pose he thought he might ez well hev them trophies, an' use 'em."
"Is this really true, Sol?" exclaimed Paul, although he did not doubt.