The slight scraping continued and presently the sharp-eyed Seminole saw the point of a knife appear through a board. The slit slowly widened, and a folded piece of paper was pushed halfway through. Osceola grabbed it and scanned the writing that covered both sides. He passed it to Bill, who accomplished the difficult feat of reading it while continuing his story of the football game. The handwriting, though tiny, was unformed and he guessed at once that the message was from Charlie. It ran:
“Dear Bill—Hans is my bath stewward. He is O.K. Have promissed Dad will make him rich for life if he helps you and the cheif. He will cut through the boards to your cell. Hang your blankits down over the edge of your upper bearth so as to deden sound. He will push through another knife so you can do some cuting. I think the other one better talk or sing or something so the centry can’t here you cuting. If you get away take Hans to. His name will be mud after this on board the Amtonia.
“Yours truley, “Charles Evans.”
Bill smiled broadly as he pocketed the boyish, misspelled note. Then, still keeping up his endless monologue anent football, he hung the blankets, forming a curtain which completely shut in the lower bunk. Osceola was already at work with a knife that Hans had passed through the opening.
Bill continued to talk for the next twenty minutes, but then he pulled aside one corner of the blanket. The bunk was like a bake oven. Osceola was sweating from every pore.
“My turn now. Come out, and don’t forget to talk.”
Osceola handed the knife to Bill, grabbed his clothes and slipped out of the bunk.
Immediately Bill climbed in and divested himself of the underclothes he wore. Because of the heat, neither of the lads had been clothed in more than their undershirts and shorts since their incarceration. As the blanket dropped back into place, he heard Osceola begin a recital of some hunting trip he had taken down in the Florida everglades. He was surprised to find how the double blankets deadened the sound of his friend’s voice.
It was pitch dark in the bunk. He was just beginning to wonder exactly where he should get to work when a light appeared through two parallel slits in the wall-boards. These, he saw, were about three feet long and perhaps a foot and a half apart. From the cabin beyond the voice of Hans came in a sibilant whisper.
“If the Herr Lieutenant will be good enough to start cutting across the boards from the bottom of one slit to the bottom of the other? I shall work on the top end. It is not necessary to tell the Lieutenant not to press too hard with his knife. The sound of splintering wood can be heard in the passage. There is no need to disturb the sentry—just yet.”
Bill heard the steward chuckle. Then, except for the very slight sound of the knives as they cut across the grain of the wood, no other came to his ears save the low mumble of Osceola’s voice beyond the blankets.