The _Clotilde_ was taken directly to Twelve-Mile Island--a lonely, weird place by night. There the _R. B. Tainey_[21] waited; lights were smothered, and in the darkness quickly and quietly the _Clotilde’s_ cargo of one hundred and sixteen negroes was transferred to the steamboat, taken up the Alabama River to John Dabney’s plantation below Mount Vernon and not far from the shadow of the fort, where they were landed before noon of the next day. [Illustration: Drawn by Emma Roche. Kazoola.] At Twelve-Mile Island the crew of Northern sailors again mutinied. Captain Foster, with a six shooter in each hand, went among them, discharged them, and ordered them to “hit the grit and never be seen in Southern waters again.” They were placed aboard the tug. Meaher bought tickets and saw that they boarded a train for the North. The _Clotilde_ was scuttled and fired, Captain Foster himself placed seven cords of light wood upon her. Her hull still lies in the marsh at the mouth of Bayou Corne and may be seen at low tide. Foster afterwards regretted her destruction as she was worth more than the ten Africans given him by the Meahers as his booty. CHAPTER VIII THE TARKARS AT DABNEY’S PLANTATION Dabney’s plantation lay in the cane brake country--a part of the river region, so-called from the miles of towering cane. It was a wilderness, every part strangely alike, in which even those most familiar with it could be easily lost. Here, according to the narrative of James Dennison, the slave who was left in charge and who afterwards married Kanko--one of their number--and of the surviving Tarkars, they were kept for eleven days, but in a state of constant change, being transferred each day from one part of the swamp to another. They were allowed to speak only in whispers, for there was a chance that some one passing on the river might hear strange voices. At the end of the eleventh day clothes were brought to them and they were put aboard the steamer _Commodore_ and carried to The Bend in Clark County, where the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers meet and where Burns Meaher had a plantation. There they were lodged each night under a wagon shed, and driven each morning before daybreak back into the swamp, where they remained until dark. Understanding no word and knowing not what was expected of them, they were made to know the driver’s wishes by a shooing sound--such as would drive chickens or geese. In this strange land, among strange faces and an unknown tongue, the Tarkars say that at first they almost grieved themselves to death.