Watch and Wait Part 10

"Your name is Thucydides."

"Tucydimes!"

"No, Thucydides," laughed Dan--for we will adopt his suggestion, and call him no longer by his plantation name.

"Hossifus! Hab to git up afore breakfast to speak dat word in season for dinner," chuckled Cyd.

"You are called Cyd for short, as I am Dan. There is nothing bad about the word."

"It's a very good name, Cyd," added Lily.

"Goshus! If you say so, Missy Lily, it's all right. If it suits de fair seck, it suits me," said Cyd, shaking his fat sides with satisfaction.

"Dis chile don't keer what you calls him, if you only calls him to supper."

"Now, Cyd, I will answer the questions you asked when we were getting under way."

"Yes, what ye got all dem boats draggin arter us fur?"

"Don't you see the reason, Cyd?"

The boy scratched his head, but he could not see. As we have before observed, he had not been in the habit of doing his own thinking, and, consequently, he was not skilled in reasoning from effect to cause.

"Suppose we had left the boats, Cyd," added Dan.

"Den we shouldn't hab em wid us, keepin de boat back."

"At six o'clock in the morning, Colonel Raybone will be ready to start on his trip. He will go down to the pier, and expect to find us all there."

"Gossifus! we shan't be dar!" exclaimed Cyd, whose imagination was lively enough to enable him to picture the scene that would ensue.

"What then, Cyd?"

"Golly! Ma.s.sa Kun'l up and rave like he neber did afore," replied Cyd, who appeared to enjoy the idea.

"Well, what then?"

"Dunno. He can't help hisself," chuckled Cyd.

"Suppose we had left the boats?"

"Mossifus! He tell four stout boys to git in de club-boat, and streak it down de riber like an alligator arter a possum. Yah! ha, ha!" roared Cyd, holding on to his sides.

"Do you see why I have taken all the boats?"

"Yes, Dandy--Dan; I sees into it jes like a millstone. You'se got a long head, Dan. But what ye gwine to do wid de paint?"

"We shall live in the swamp till the colonel has done looking for us.

This boat is white now, and we will paint her green, so that she can't be seen so easily."

"Dat's good, Dan; but de kun'l won't stop lookin fur us till he finds out something."

"I mean that he shall find out something. He will suppose that we have gone to the north. He will never suspect that we have come this way.

Here we are," said Dan, suddenly rising in the boat, as she came to a narrow opening on the southerly bank of the river.

Running the boat up to the bank of the bayou, he ordered Cyd to make her fast to a tree on the sh.o.r.e.

"What's gwine to be done now, Dan?" asked Cyd, when he had obeyed the order.

"We shall follow the big river no farther. Now, I want to make Master Raybone think we have gone up that way, which leads to the Mississippi.

I left some papers in my room, which will convince him that I intended to go that way. Now, Lily, we must leave you for a little while," added Dan, as he drew the bateau alongside. "We will not be gone more than an hour."

Dan and Cyd got into the bateau, and towed the other boats about two miles up the river, where they secured them in such a position that they seemed to be abandoned. When the search for them was made, these boats would be found two miles from the course the fugitives had actually taken. They then pulled back to the Isabel, and got under way again.

Their course was now changed, and the boat pa.s.sed down the narrow cut-off, which soon widened into a broad stream. The wind, which had been quite fresh when they started, had now subsided to a gentle breeze; but as the country was more open than on the Big River, as it was called, they still moved along at the rate of three or four miles an hour.

At five o'clock in the morning--Dan had a silver watch which had been presented to him by Master Archy--they reached the entrance of Lake Chicot. It was about daylight, and as there was a plantation on the western bank, it was not deemed prudent to proceed any farther, for if the boat was seen, it would at once be recognized as that of Colonel Raybone.

The westerly side of the lake was low, swampy ground, covered with a thick growth of trees and an undergrowth of cane. The skipper of the Isabel ran along this sh.o.r.e till he found a stream flowing into the lake. Hauling up the centre board, he ran his craft into this creek. As the sails would not draw, being sheltered by the trees and cane, the two boys worked the boat up the stream with their oars till she was completely concealed from the opposite sh.o.r.e, or from the lake, if any boat should happen to pa.s.s during the day.

Here the careful skipper intended to lie until the friendly shades of another night should permit them to proceed on the voyage to a more secure haven.

CHAPTER X.

BREAKFAST ON BOARD THE ISABEL.

"Now, Cyd, get up the furnace, and make a fire," said Dan, as soon as the sails of the Isabel had been furled, and the boat carefully secured to a tree on the sh.o.r.e.

"Sartin," replied Cyd, as he took off the hatch of the stow-hold. "Who's gwine to be de cook, Dan?"

"Do you know how to cook, Cyd?"

"Hossifus! I don't know nossin at all 'bout it."

"Neither do I; and I think Lily does not. I will try my hand at the business first. We can make some coffee, boil the potatoes, and fry the bacon. I am sure I can do that."

"So kin Cyd."

"Just as soon as we get to the place where we are going, we will divide the work between us. You shall be cook one week, and I will the next week. Now bring up the bacon, the potatoes, and the coffee."

Old Jake, who was to do the cooking for the excursionists, had provided every thing that would be needed for the purpose. In a short time the fires were blazing in the two furnaces, the coffee and the potatoes were boiling upon one, and the other was in readiness for the frying-pan, when the other articles should be in a sufficiently forward state to require its use.

Though Dan had never actually turned his hand to the business of cooking, he had so often seen the various operations performed, that he was competent to do it himself, after acquiring a little experience. He was a keen observer, and whenever he saw any thing done, he could generally do it himself.

In the forward part of the cabin of the Isabel, reaching from the foremast to the centre-board, was a fixed table; and while Dan was cooking the bacon, Cyd prepared it for the morning meal. They had every thing which could be found in any well-ordered house, and the table had more the appearance of that of a first-cla.s.s hotel than one provided for the use of the runaway slaves.