To retaliate would be suicidal. The man carried an automatic besides this fearful, wirebound cowhide lash that laid open the bare flesh with every stroke. Bill’s anger blazed at the cowardly blow, but at the same time his hopes of escape sank to lowest pitch. What could unarmed men do against these beasts? An uprising of all the slaves would be practically an impossibility, quartered as they were in separate prisons. He also began to understand that even the uprising of one prison-house gang was not to be considered. By the end of the day, these worn out men were sure to be apathetic to any such proposal. The fearful punishment meted out for failure would stop all but the most courageous from joining a concentrated revolt against their masters—the slim chances of success would deter the others.
Bill discarded all thoughts of such a plan. If he and Osceola were to escape, they must go it alone. Yet how could it be accomplished? He was still cogitating the matter, when the head overseer raised a police whistle to his lips and blew a sharp blast. Barrows and shovels were immediately stacked and the men lined up for their noonday meal.
This time a greasy mess of vegetables and small pieces of rubber-like meat were ladled on to wooden platters from a barrel on wheels. With this went a slab of stale bread and a crock of water. The stew, if it could be called that, was lukewarm and so rancid as to be almost uneatable. But Bill wolfed it down, following the others’ example, only sorry that no more could be had.
The gang ate their dinner squatting on the corduroy road, and as soon as they had finished, most of the toilers fell fast asleep.
“They prepare this mess for us once a week,” Osceola informed Bill. “Today is Thursday, and by Saturday the heat has soured it to such an extent that hungry as we are, we leave it alone. No man’s stomach can hold it then.”
Bill finished his bread and the last drop of his water.
“I should think it would pay Martinengo to feed us better,” he muttered wearily. “No wonder the men die off quickly, forced to such labor and undernourished this way.”
“It costs him little to kidnap new slaves,” grunted the Seminole. “All supplies have to be flown here by plane from Shell Island. But I’m too tired to talk, Bill. Better get what rest you can—the afternoon is always worse than the morning grind.”
He stretched out on the logs of the roadway, and a couple of minutes later, his regular breathing told that he was asleep.
Bill lay down, too, but his aching muscles, the smart of his back where the guard’s lash had cut the flesh, and his blistered hands made slumber an impossibility. Myriads of buzzing, stinging mosquitoes added to his discomfort and he was not sorry when the overseer’s whistle brought the men staggering to their feet again.