I became wearied watching them, and soon after lost sight of them altogether.
After the bales that had been rolled out upon the bank were treated as described, all three—Stinger having completed his task of purification—entered inside the ark, and for several hours I saw no more of them.
I could guess, however, how they were engaged. The bringing ashore only the odd bales had been to make room for operations inside, where I had no doubt that the whole cargo was receiving the Bradley brand.
The quickness with which they appeared to execute their work of unroping, stitching and retying, told that it was not the first time of their having been similarly employed; and the pieces of old canvas strewed about the place, and which I had noticed on my former visit to the island, were now recalled to my recollection. In that solitary spot more than one shipment of cotton had changed its plantation-mark.
I could now understand what had appeared to puzzle his acquaintances—how Mr. Nat Bradley had so rapidly prospered on his new plantation. His boast of being able to make two bales in Mississippi for one in Tennessee I could no longer look upon as an idle vaunt. Under my eyes was the explanation.
It was a long, tedious, terrible vigil. Astride the limb of a tree, hungry, athirst, smarting under the pulsations of a fevered wound, a prey to apprehensions that by some sinister chance I might be discovered in my place of concealment, I thought that the day would never come to an end. And even when it should end, what certainty had I of being able to make good my escape? The dug-out on which I was placing my dependence might be no longer there, or if it was, I might not succeed in starting it from its moorings? I might be detected in attempting to pass the flat, which lay between the canoe and the narrow creek that communicated with the river.
Besides these, there were other probable contingencies—scores of them—to distress and keep me in constant apprehension, and in this state I passed the remainder of the day.
Just as the twilight gloom was beginning to darken over the island, I saw something to cheer me. I saw the three men come forth out of the cavernous opening in the side of the ark, each carrying an armful of spoiled canvas, which I recognized as the cast sides of the cotton-bales. I saw them make these up into a huge bundle, load it with heavy mud, tie a rope round the whole mass, and fling it into the lagoon, where, like a stone, it sunk to the bottom! After this the odd bales were rolled aboard, the staging drawn in, the hatch-door shut to, and the huge ark yielding to a pair of oars passed slowly and silently from my sight!
As soon as sure that they were gone for good, I descended from the tree, and waiting till the darkness had come down, I groped my way toward the place where I remembered having seen the dug-out.
I was not disappointed. I found the old craft, still resting neglected upon the water, either not seen, or not cared for, by the pirates, who had passed away.