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With heart-quaking trepidation they perceived at some distance the rude barricade of logs and the yellow streaks of earth hastily thrown up. The cautious Yemassees concealed themselves as though the swamp had swallowed them up. The chief made certain signs, and the lads understood his meaning. Jack Cockrell ripped a sleeve from his shirt and tied it to a stick as a flag of truce.
Some such theory as this is necessary to account for the tributes that were paid to his character and influence by the Creek chiefs who assembled at Savannah to make a treaty with Oglethorpe. Tomochichi was ninety-one years old when the Georgia Colony was founded, and he had gathered about him a number of disaffected Creeks and Yemassees, known as the tribe of the Yamacraws.
"A pirogue," said Joe, "and fashioned by Indians! What is the tribe hereabouts? Have ye a guess?" "Roving Yemassees, or men of the Hatteras tribe," answered Jack. "Yonder brace of savages will be scouts." "Aye, but there'll be no attack 'gainst this pirates' bivouac, right under the guns of the ships. The Indians are too wise to attempt it." "Look, Joe! Hand me the glass.
The chief raised his voice in a long, deep shout of summons and his band of fighting men emerged from their ambush in the swamp. There was no reason for delaying the movement against the pirates. The Yemassees were eager for the fray. They were about to advance through the swamp, cunningly hidden, while the Englishmen followed at a slower pace to spread out on the flanks.
And perhaps the word had sped of that expedition of Captain Stede Bonnet out of Charles Town when he had exterminated the Yemassees who had set out to harry and burn the near-by plantations.
To his excited questions the pirate replied: "There be old buccaneers from Hispaniola in my crew, may it please Your Excellency, fellows who hunted the Indians in their youth, tracked 'em like hounds through forest and bayou. Others served their time with the log-wood cutters of Yucatan. They laughed at the tricks of these Yemassees of the Carolinas."
Joe Hawkridge advanced with them, the stalwart chief between them, his empty hands extended in token of peace. The ambushed Yemassees, lying in the tall grass, were ready to let fly with musket balls and flights of arrows or to storm the knoll. A sailor on sentry duty gave the alarm and the lads saw a row of heads bob above the logs, and the gleam of weapons.
"A noble chief of the Yemassees who used us with all courtesy," said Jack. Captain Wellsby had drawn Joe Hawkridge aside and was swiftly enlightened concerning the alliance with the Indians. Presently they were holding a conference, all seated together in the shade of a tree. A tobacco pipe of clay, with a long reed for a stem, was lighted and passed from hand to hand.
"A few more steps and we shall come out on the shores of the San Juan, near to a small village of the Yemassees, in which there are many whose eyes have been opened to the truth. There we shall find shelter from the storm, and means to pursue our journey when the clouds are past. Let us hasten; the bearers with the litter are far ahead."
Upon this ridge they descried the camp of the Yemassees huts fashioned of poles and bark and boughs, a freshly killed deer hanging from a tree, smoke rising from beneath a huge iron kettle, plump, naked children scampering in play with several barking dogs, the squaws shrilly scolding them. Several warriors lazily emerged from the huts, yawning, brushing the long black hair from their eyes.
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