Truth was that Pompee, being black, was very superstitious. The vision he had seen on the Citadel had seemed to him a warning. He would much rather have left the place and gone back to his cabin. But loyalty to his young master forbade this. One thing he could do—he could refuse to lead Dorn into further peril and this he did with all his heart.
To Dorn, held as he was to enforced idleness under the most trying circumstances, the tinkling of a bell that sounded far down the trail was a godsend. He sprang down that trail expecting anything and everything. What he found was a very droll looking donkey, named Midas. Midas was laden with all manner of good things to eat, brought straight from Dorn’s own kitchen.
With Midas came Dorn’s flaxen-haired cousin Doris. Doris was from the States. She was of French descent but her people had lived so long in America that they had become truly American. Dorn liked Doris; in fact everyone liked her. She had a round, smiling face and laughing blue eyes. A friend never came within hailing distance of her but they heard her cheery “Whoo hoo!” and saw her arm swung high in greeting.
Doris was now in Haiti for a rather long visit, while her father was away in Europe on business, but she had entered so thoroughly into the life of the island that to her friends and relatives she already seemed a part of it.
Both Doris and her dark-eyed cousin Dot, Dorn’s sister, had wished to accompany Dorn and his friends on their exploring trip to the Citadel. This, Dot’s father would not permit. The best he would allow was an over-night visit when they brought the supplies. It happened that when the day came for leading the drowsy Midas up the mountain with his loaded hampers Dot was much needed in her father’s office. So Doris and a native girl, Nieta, had come in her stead. This had brought bitter disappointment to Dot. She had, however, found some comfort in the thought that on the night of Doris’ absence she could carry out a secret experiment which she had for a long time contemplated making.
So here was Doris and the dark Nieta. And here too was Midas with his full hampers. And here as well was the marvelous, mysterious Citadel which must be shown to the girls. Dorn had a full day of it with little enough time to think of his missing friends.
But we must not forget Curlie Carson. Lost from his friends, far away among the hills, confronted by what seemed the scene of a grim tragedy, he found himself at first all but overcome by fear and dread. The brilliant illumination caused by burning palm leaves, however, quickly drove from his mind the suggestion that something sinister and quite horrible had happened round the half burned out camp fire. A little back from the fire, beneath a mango tree, he discovered a broad, sharp-toed hoof.
“Hog,” he mumbled to himself.
The next moment he picked up a broad circle of yellow ivory with edge as keen as a knife blade.
“Hog,” he repeated. A suggestion of awe had crept into his tone. “Tusk of a wild hog. And what a monster! Wonder who had the hardihood to face that fellow and kill him. Whoever it was, he found friends enough to help him pick the bones. Wish—”
He turned to search about among the palm leaves and the bushes. To his great joy, he found, high and dry and quite clean upon a broad leaf where it had apparently been forgotten, a liberal slice taken from the great beast’s ham.
“Thanks, kind Providence. Don’t mind if I do.” He watched the palm leaf fire burn low. Then raking out a good bed of live coals, placed his gift from the gods upon it.
At once the evening air was fragrant with broiling pork steak. A half hour later when Curlie rose to go it was with a feeling that nature was good to all mankind.
“But where am I and where is Johnny Thompson?”
These questions he could not answer. He did believe that with good fortune he could find his own way back to camp. This plan, since there seemed to be no likelihood of his coming upon his missing friend, he proceeded to put into execution.
His small flashlight was still with him. By its light he was able to follow winding trails, avoid brambles and save himself from many a fall over hidden rocks and narrow stream beds.
He had been traveling so for some two hours, when of a sudden, appearing to come from nowhere, a sound smote his ear. A single boom of a native drum. It shattered the silence of the night and set small wild creatures scurrying.
“Now what?” He came to a sudden halt.
A moment of silence and there it was again. This time three strokes: Tum! Tum! Tum!
“Over to the right,” he told himself. “Natives. They may have Johnny. At worst it’s to be one of those forbidden native dances, and that’s something. Something that few enough white folks see these days.”
He waited until the drum sounded again. Tum—Tum—Tum—Tum. Then he struck straight away in the direction from which the sound appeared to come. Nor did he pause until the drummer was so near at hand that the drum seemed to be his own ears pulsating in wild rhythm.
Parting the bushes, he peered into the open space beyond. Before him was a spot quite clear of trees and bushes. The grass had been cropped short by wild goats. And there in the center, squatting low, drum between knees, thumping the drum with naked hands, was not some swarthy native drummer but a slim white girl dressed in a bright blouse and plaid knickers.
“Of all places!” he thought. “Miles from human habitation. A girl and a drum at night.”
Still the girl drummed on. Like one in a trance she sat with eyes raised to the stars and sent out such rolls and thunder with such vibrations as the boy had not heard before.
But even as he listened in awed surprise there sounded a stealthy movement off to his right, another to his left. A twig snapped. A branch made a swishing sound.
He was becoming frightened. Was this some plot? Was the girl a plant, a lure to lead him on? He could not believe this. There was about her face, not a perfectly molded face, but well cut and strong, something of a look he had seen on the face of angels in an ancient painting.
No, the girl is not a part of a plot, for now in a second of silence, she too has caught a sound. Instantly her drum beats cease. She grips the drum by a strap and drags it noiselessly into the brush. Here she backs far into the shadows, straight toward the spot where Curlie stands. A step forward, a hand outstretched and he might touch her.
“Think she’d hear my heart beating,” he said to himself, but in the shadows he could not see her.
“Well,” he thought again, “the show is over. But I wonder?”
* * * * * * * *
During all this time, where was Johnny Thompson? Curlie had followed his trail over many a weary mile in vain. He had come upon a burned out camp fire and the remains of a feast of wild pig. This pig, as you have guessed, was that killed by Johnny. It was this very beast which had worked his liberation from the mysterious natives. He had not returned to camp, for Doris had journeyed to the Citadel, filled with high hopes of finding him there, only to have her hopes dashed to the ground. He was not there.
After retrieving his quiver of arrows and slaying the wild boar, Johnny had found himself free to go where he chose. Not one of the natives who had witnessed his marvelous archery and the deadly power of his bow dared resist him.
But where did he wish to go? For a moment he found himself engaged in a mental struggle. Strange as it may seem, he felt an almost overwhelming desire to stay and see this unusual affair through. There was something to be said for this course of action. The natives had, more than likely, saved his life by dragging him from the pit in the ancient fort. Not one of them all had laid violent hands upon him. They had shown him every respect. They had forced him to come with them; that was all.
What was there back of their actions? Had they been sent? If so who had sent them and why? All down the centuries since Columbus set the ensign of Spain upon these newly discovered shores, such procedures as this had come about. A queen of some distant tribe takes a fancy to some gallant young Spaniard. She sends a band of men for him. He is brought, whether he wills it or not, to the court. There, in time he is showered with riches and made a king.
A native chief learns that gold and odd bits of jewelry can be traded for steel knives, hawk’s bells and bright silk scarfs. His kingdom is far away. He sends a band to waylay a trader and bring him from afar, only to at last return him unharmed and laden with rich treasure.
“But that,” the boy told himself, “was very long ago. There’s no use romancing. Dorn and Pompee will be worried about me. Curlie will risk his neck to find me. I must return to camp.”
Some persons are natural scouts. To them an overturned pebble, a bent twig, moss on trees, a thousand simple things, are a sign. Johnny was not of this brotherhood.
Just as night began to fall he found himself descending a gently sloping hillside where the ground was red as a native clay pipe when, upon rounding a curve, he came within sight of a small, square house that gleamed white in the light of the setting sun.
“Good!” he exclaimed. “Now I shall not spend the night alone.”
In this he was mistaken. As he neared the place, no dog came out to bark a warning, no naked native children scurried through the doorway to their mother. The place was silent, deserted, lonely. Yet in the fact that this had once been a home; that children had once played with young goats before the door; that a mother had beaten corn for bread and a father had returned from a day of toil, Johnny found comfort. For this boy Johnny was an exceptional character. Himself a wanderer, he was ever dreaming of home, ever thinking of that time when, with loved ones about him, he would sit before his own hearth fire in a home he called his own.
Having explored the half ruined house and found its roof sound, he brought in dry banana leaves to make a bed on the shelf beneath the rafters.
He found ripe bananas in a little run below the house. Half content with this sparse supply of food, he sat down to listen. Nor did he listen long. From above him, on the sloping hillside which had once been a badly cleared cornfield, there came a sound much like a shrill scream.
Stringing his bow and nocking an arrow, he began scouting away up the hill. Now he peered out from behind a clump of young banana plants. And now a great boulder hid him. Now he crept rapidly over a patch of barren red soil. But ever he moved upward. Now and then to his listening ears came welcome sounds, cries, calls, duckings that told him that the quarry was not far away.
And now, as he lifted his head above a low-growing bush, he caught his breath as he murmured:
“Now! Now’s the time.”
Bending his bow for a quick aim, he let fly. Then such a screaming and whirring of wings! A whole covey of wild guinea fowl went wheeling and screaming away into the sunset. A whole covey? Not quite. A fat young cock lay still upon a flat rock. He had been shot through and through by one of Johnny’s arrows.
“Supper!” the boy exulted as he lifted the bird from the rock and retrieved his arrow.
There were dry branches to be had from the trees in the nearest run. These were rapidly converted into a heap of glowing coals. Lacking a kettle for boiling his fowl, Johnny first plucked off the feathers then rolled it in a two inch coat of red clay. After that he buried it, clay and all, beneath a great mound of glowing coals and sat down to await results.
“Life,” he told himself as he sat there with the abandoned home at his back, “is strange. Here was this chap who made this place a home. To him five dollars a year was a fortune. Wild guineas shot or snared, bananas and mangoes growing in the runs, corn from the hills, goat’s meat and goat’s milk, all to be had for the asking. These were his. And clothes,” he chuckled, “down here a long shirt and a broad smile makes a wonderful suit, better than the best dress suit a tailor ever made.
“But back where I came from,” he mused on, “a dress suit, a business suit, golf suit, top coat, winter coat, rain coat, high shoes, oxfords, golf shoes, tennis shoes, scarfs, shirts, collars, socks by the dozen. Men work days, nights and sometimes Sundays for a living wage. And how much is a living wage? Two thousand, three thousand, five thousand dollars. Poor souls! They grow gray and go to hospitals, sanitariums, and early graves. And here a man lives well enough on five dollars a year.”
Seizing a stout stick he scattered the coals to right and left. An oval mound of hard, baked clay lay before him. This he cracked with a rock and behold! Before him lay a feast fit for a king, a guinea fowl baked in clay among the coals.
As he lay down to sleep on that narrow shelf beneath the rafters, he tried to imagine the natures of those who had slept there before him. Their images did not linger long for he was soon lost in slumber.
Dorn looked at the Citadel and all connected with it through the big, round eyes of a young boy. Nothing would do but his fair-haired American cousin, Doris, must climb all those stone steps leading up to the top of the Citadel, there to peer down into the dark hole that had been Johnny’s prison and from which he had mysteriously vanished.
Doris exclaimed and shrank back from the darkness of the place. Then seized with a true girl’s impulse, she took a fishing line and hook from her knicker pocket and angled until she drew Johnny’s handkerchief up from those forbidding depths.
“What’s to be learned from that?” Dorn asked.
“Probably nothing,” replied Doris. “Anyway I have his handkerchief to remember him by if he is never seen again, haven’t I?”
“Remember him? You’ve never seen him.”
“But I can remember him all the same.”
This point Dorn did not care to discuss. So they moved onward over the moss grown roof of the ancient fortress until they stood upon the exact spot at which the shadowy giant of the night before had appeared.
“He stood right here,” said Dorn in an awed tone. “He moved right along there. And the little fellow, the bearer of the brass telescope, followed after.”
Doris had heard the story of the mysterious walking giant twice before, but to be standing at the very spot where the vision had appeared gave her an added thrill.
The sun was setting. Already half the world was in shadows. As she stood there she found her knees trembling.
“Let’s get away from here.” She moved forward unsteadily.
Behind her sounded the chattering of teeth mingled with mumbled whisperings.
“Nieta,” she said, “what in the world are you doing?”
“She is talking to her teeth,” whispered Dorn.
“Her teeth!” The girl’s tone showed unfeigned amazement.
“Sure. Her snake’s teeth.”
“Snake—”
“You don’t understand,” said her cousin. “Nieta believes in the power of voodoo charms. Her uncle, who is now dead, left her a very ancient charm. She wears it round her neck in a leather sack. It is the teeth of a yellow snake killed at the back of a cave at high tide when the moon was dark. It has great power, so they say. She is afraid now, so she is asking the spirit of the yellow snake for protection.”
“Oh!” Doris shuddered. “I’d rather trust the ghost of that old emperor—if there truly is a ghost.”
“We saw him—Pompee and I.” Dorn’s voice carried conviction.
“But look!” said Doris, pointing to a spot where a patch of green moss had been torn up. “There’s a donkey’s track.”
“Can’t be,” said Dorn. “No donkey has been here. Think of his coming up those steps!”
“But he has,” said Doris. “Look! There’s another footprint. And over there’s another.”
“A fresh mystery,” said Dorn, acknowledging the proof.
“But we must be getting down. Don’t want to be caught up here in the dark.”
“No—o,” said Doris. “We do not.”
But we must not forget Curlie Carson and the strange girl who drummed so mysteriously in the night upon a native drum.
The show which Curlie had thought ended when the strange dark-haired girl stepped from the greensward stage to his corner of hiding was continued and that almost at once. Curlie found time to note only one further fact. Crouching close beside the girl was an unusually large dog.
“Hate to mix with him,” he thought.
The next instant his attention was drawn back to the narrow stretch of green. Figures were darting back and forth across the narrow clearing.
“Those can’t be wild creatures,” Curlie told himself. “There are none in the island like that. They’re natives. And the girl has called them with the drum. What can they be doing at such an hour in such a place?”
He dared not move. He studied the girl. She seemed frightened, about to flee; yet she remained there motionless. As they crouched there a fourth, a fifth, sixth, eighth, tenth, twelfth figure passed across the star-lit clearing.
In time he lost much of his fear. The natives were some distance away. There was the girl and her dog. The girl might need protection. He doubted this, and curiosity came to take the place of fear. So he lingered.
The thing he was about to witness might seem to belong to those long lost days on the Hudson that Washington Irving is so fond of writing about. Be that as it may the strange panorama of that hour will never pass from his memory.
Somewhere in the dark, a drum was struck. At the same instant a dusky figure darted to the center of the spot of ground before him and as if by magic flames leaped up. After that came the steady red glow of a slow fire.
Again the drum, again and yet again. Figures appeared. They began leaping about the fire. Like black ghosts they were now within the circle of light and now lost within the shadows.
“Why did they come to this spot?” he asked himself. “There are a thousand grass grown clearings in the hills.”
There could be but one answer to this. The girl had drummed. Had she meant them to come? If so, then why had she hidden? Why did she seem so much afraid?
At once his mind was filled with pictures of the past. All the sad and tragic history of the island of Haiti, all the bright days, too, passed before his mind’s eye.
The brief, bright, glorious days of the French Colony, bright for a few, dark for many slaves, came and went.
The drum was beating now. Rolling, throbbing, singing, if a drum may be said to sing, it was telling out the story of the uprising of the natives and the slaves; telling how just such a goat’s head drum had sent out the signals, how another, another and yet a hundred others had taken up the notes until all the island heard. Down through all the bright and bitter years, of rebellion, war, slavery and freedom, the drums had played their part.
“But now?” he thought as the drumming rose louder and the dancers leaped in wilder circles, “now what can they want? It is their land. This is a republic. They are free. True, there are the Marines. But they are the servants of this nation as well as our own. They are here to help the people find their way out.” There came a pause in his thoughts. There had been rumors of intrigue against the present government. In every land there are the dissatisfied ones, especially in a small republic.
“And this girl, this American girl,” he thought, “has called them together for this.” The thing seemed unbelievable, yet had he not seen her drumming the signal call?
His thoughts broke short off. From before him there had sounded a shrill whisper.
“If only we could get their goat.”
He heard the words plainly but could not believe his ears. The words had come from the girl’s lips. She had discovered him and had not cried out in fright. What a truly remarkable girl!
“If only we could get their goat,” she repeated, for all the world as if she had known him always, and as if he should understand what she meant.
Once more Curlie’s heart leaped. Who was this strange girl? What could she mean?
For the answer to this second question, he had not long to wait.
“They’ve got a goat, a very black goat.” The girl’s whisper was low but distinct. “They’re going to sacrifice it. It’s a voodoo custom, you know. There are always the witch doctors to lead them on. And besides, just now there is Pluto. Pluto is a big, bad man, a sort of leader, who wants money and power. He thinks he can drive the Marines away and overturn the government. He will make these people mad with wild dances. ThenPapa Louwill sacrifice the black goat which they think will bring them success.”
“We can’t get their goat.” Curlie whispered.
“There may be a rebellion,” the girl urged. “Lives may be lost. If only we could somehow break up the meeting; the meeting I must have called without meaning to. If only we could!”
“There’s the dog,” suggested Curlie.
“Yes,” said the girl. “He is my protector. He’s very good. He won’t hurt you. But I wouldn’t think of sicking him on. He’d be killed.”
For a moment, save for the mad tum-tum of the drum, there was silence. Then Curlie, leaning close, asked in a low tone:
“Will he howl?”
“Who?”
“Your dog. Can you make him howl?”
“Why yes, I think so.”
“Make him howl then.”
“Why?”
“Make him howl. There’s no time for explaining.”
“Be ready to fly,” Curlie added. “Follow me. I know a secret way down the mountain.”
With trembling fingers the girl drew a small harmonica from her pocket. Then she touched the dog who had all this time stood tense at her side.
“Now, Leo, old boy,” she whispered hoarsely as the throb of the drum rose louder and a chanted song rose and fell like the wild waves of the sea. “Now Leo, do your bit.”
She put the tiny musical instrument to her lips and sent forth a piercing discordant screech.
The next instant Leo stood on his haunches and pointing his nose to the stars let out such a mournful wail as only a tropical dog knows.
The effect was electrical. With a loudbam, the drum beats ceased. The song broke off short. For ten seconds silence, deep and ominous, hung over the jungle. Then again came that unearthly screech and the dog’s answering wail.
This last was too much. Came the sound of rushing through the brush, the bleating of a black goat being dragged over the rough trail by his masters. All this grew indistinct in the night. Then again silence.
“There won’t be any rebellion now,” said Curlie. “At least not right away. They thought it was theLoupe Garoe. That is a bad sign.”
“TheLoupe Garoe?” said the girl.
“Yes,” said Curlie. “But we’d better be getting down. Some of them might suspect. It wouldn’t be nice to be found here.”
“These natives,” Curlie said as they crept along down a steep trail, “as you know of course, are very superstitious. It’s a pity. One who is afraid of many things is never happy. Voodooism is really a sort of Devil worship.
“They are afraid to offend theMama Louand thePapa Lou, who are witch doctors. But most of all they are afraid of theLoupe Garoe, who doesn’t exist at all, except in their imaginations. When your dog howled they thought him theLoupe Garoewho, so they believe, is half wolf and half man. He carries off little children and when he is about it is a very bad sign.”
“I have heard all that,” said the girl, “but I didn’t think of it in the way you did. You are a wise one. I thank you.
“If only we could get their goat,” she said after a time. “Goats that are all black are hard to find and according to their superstitious notions, only an all black goat will suffice for a sacrifice before some desperate undertaking.”
In a moment of stress and great danger, perfect strangers become comrades for the hour. Once the danger is passed they more often than not become strangers once more. It was so with Curlie and the girl, or so it seemed to Curlie. He had hoped she would tell him who she was and where she lived. She did not. She told him nothing.
One thing he did not need to be told. They had not been scouting down the trail for a half hour before he realized that she needed no directing from him. She was far better acquainted with the jungle than he. Once when he hesitated at a forking of the way, she forged straight on. At another time she gripped his arm just in time to save him from a dangerous fall. At this time he learned one more fact; slender girl that she was, there was power in her good right arm. Hers was the grip of a man.
“I go this way,” she said quite suddenly when, after an hour of almost unbroken silence, they came to a fork in the trail.
Curlie found himself sorely tempted to say, “So do I.” But this he knew would be an untruth.
Since he valued truth and above all prized this girl’s opinion, he said, “I go up.”
“All right. Good night, and thank you.” He found his hand caught for a second in a firm clasp. The next instant she was gone; swallowed up by the night.
“That’s a queer girl; but a real one,” he told himself as he toiled up the trail. “Wonder why she beat out those signals on the drum if she didn’t want those natives to meet? Who is she? Where’s her home? Will we meet again?” He hoped so. Yet in this strange old world one never could tell.
The night was well spent. His eyes were heavy with sleep. At this elevation there were no flying pests. The trail was still long. It would be there in the morning.
Selecting a gently sloping bank beneath a tropical oak, he gathered moss from low hanging branches to form a pillow. He then threw himself upon the earth, closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Johnny Thompson did not in the least mind being lost. Truth was he got much joy from it. The sky was so blue, the morning air, as he left the abandoned native home, so crisp and balmy, he felt like singing a song.
True, he disliked worrying his friends, but the island of Haiti is not the world. He would find his way back in time. He had breakfasted well on cold guinea meat, parched corn and bananas. His bow and quiver of arrows were slung across his back. The trail was before him.
“With wild fruit and game I could live a half year through,” he told himself.
For some time he made his way through rough uplands, where trees and brush obstructed his travel and only wild trails helped him on his way.
At last, however, he came upon an ancient man-made trail that led over a ridge and down upon the other side.
“Now I shall find my way to somewhere,” he told himself. But this trail ran through rough uncultivated land. Mid-afternoon found him apparently some distance still from human habitation.
“Oh well,” he sighed dropping down beside a cool spring, “the afternoon is hot. Guess I’ll rest a while. The evening will be cool.”
Had he persevered for another quarter of a mile he most surely would have met with a surprise; for there browsing close to the trail was a donkey, and on his back were two empty hampers. A few yards up the bank in the deep shade, he might have discovered two unusual patches of color, one orange, the other red. The orange spot was a white girl’s jacket, the red a native girl’s dress. Had he explored still further he would have found that the two girls were resting from the heat of the day. And these girls, as you may have guessed, were Doris and Nieta. They had chosen to return home from the ancient fort by a new and little used trail. Midas had not liked the plan. He had shown his displeasure by using a snail-like pace and by offering to eat every tree and bush that grew beside the trail.
At last, quite worn out by her constant flogging of the obstinate donkey Doris had given in to his whims and had allowed him to wander as he willed while she and Nieta rested.
“You can’t lose a donkey,” she had said to Nieta. “Not completely. He’ll always find his way home. And he has nothing on his back but empty hampers.”
They had been sitting there for some time dreamily gazing at the wavering patterns of sunlight and shadows woven on the mossy earth or looking up into the treetops when Doris gave a sudden start. Her eye had caught a peculiar gleam of white light.
“What can it be?” she asked herself. “There is nothing about a palm tree to reflect light that way.”
She puzzled about this for some time. Then, since her keen eyes did not succeed in detecting the cause, she fell to wondering about Midas who had disappeared down the trail. “If he’s gone home by himself it will be a blessing,” she told herself.
“There are no lions and tigers to fear here. There are some very terrible snakes and lizards five feet long and wild hogs with tusks like razor blades, but they’re not likely to trouble us. We—” She broke short off to stare. Once more in the midst of dense foliage she had caught that white flash of light. So white! So intense! Like the flash that comes from a mirror, only sharper and brighter. She caught her breath. There it was again. Here it was, there. Now, like a glimmering ghost, it was gone.
“Quick as lightning.” She glanced through the leafy branches to the sky. Pale blue the sky was, not a cloud. She had suspected lightning. “But no,” she told herself, “it’s four hours before shower-time.” Showers come with a convenient regularity in Haiti.
She studied the scanty leaves and many dry pods that hung directly above her. They had seated themselves beneath a “chattering woman,” or so this odd tree is called. It was loaded with dry pods. These pods rattle and chatter in the wind. At this moment there was no wind.
Slowly her eyes roved over the dangling pods. Then, of a sudden, her gaze became fixed, her lips parted in a scream that died in forming.
Directly above her, peering down at her, was the smallest, strangest little face she had ever seen. The eyes were so wide in question, the brow so wrinkled, the whole expression so broadly intelligent that for the briefest part of a moment she was tempted to believe the creature human. He was, she realized at once, a marmoset, one of those smallest of monkeys who are so popular as pets among South American ladies of quality.
“Oh you monk! You cute little monkey! Where did you come from?” she cried.
The monkey blinked his eyes three times, then, as if to hide himself from her, put both hands over his eyes.
It was this movement that brought a low exclamation to the girl’s lips for, once again, at the very instant his slim arms moved, there came that brilliant flash of light.
“He did it!” she told herself. “A monkey! But how could he?”
The answer came at once and with such sudden surprise as fairly sent her senses reeling. On the monkey’s left forearm, like a lady’s bejeweled bracelet, there gleamed a ring, set with a white stone.
“It’s a diamond,” she told herself, “a very large diamond! No bit of glass could flash like that. But where did he get it?”
In her mind was formed what she believed to be the answer. This was a pet monkey. There could be no question about that, for there are no wild monkeys in Haiti. This monkey had stolen his mistress’ diamond ring and made away with it.
“It should be worth hundreds of dollars,” she told herself. “It’s probably a wedding ring, a priceless possession. Somehow we must catch the monkey and take the ring from him. He may tire of it and hide it or throw it away.”
“How old it seems,” she told herself after a moment’s study. “All corroded. Can’t have been worn for years. But how the diamond sparkles!”
Again the white stone flashed, as the monkey uncovered his eyes to resume his worried study of these strangers who had invaded his domain.
Doris touched the drowsy Nieta on the arm. Then, after placing a finger to lips for silence, pointed up at the tree.
“Sh’sh! Don’t speak,” she whispered. “Look up, up there among the pods on that thick branch.”
Nieta did look up. She started suddenly and found herself staring and fully awake.
“See!” Doris whispered. “See that on his arm? It’s a diamond ring; must be. And we must get it. Think of the reward! Think—if we never found the owner at all! Think—
“Oh—Oh!” she fairly cried. “He’s gone! Hurry! Hurry!” she whispered excitedly. “Look! Look everywhere! We mustn’t lose him! Think Nieta, think of the reward. Think if we find no owner at all!”
The native girl’s eyes were bulging.
At that precise moment, Johnny Thompson came swinging down the trail.
At sight of the two excited girls he stopped short to stare in astonishment.
“Babes in the woods,” he said at last. “Now where is the wicked old queen or the dragon, or—Oh, now I know,” he said changing his tone. “You are Doris, Dorn’s cousin. He’s told me all about you. He—”
“Forget about it and be quiet.” Doris took a step toward him. “There’s a monkey in this tree and he has a diamond ring on his arm.”
“A—a monkey!” The boy stared as if he thought her out of her senses. “A diamond ring on a monkey’s arm!”
“Be quiet, I tell you.” Doris put a finger over his lips. “It’s true. I—we—we saw him! There! There he goes now!” she exclaimed as a brown streak surging from a branch set the dry pods rattling, then vaulted into the top of a cocoanut palm.
“And there he leaps again,” said Johnny, losing himself in wild excitement. “Come on. We’ll get him.”
They all went tumbling down the hill.
They were quite out of sight of the “chattering woman” and still following the monkey when Doris stopped short. “I—I think I saw him.”
“Where? Where is he?” demanded Nieta. Her eyes were wide with excitement.
“There! There!” The white girl’s words came in a shrill whisper. “He’s up in that small mahogany tree looking down at us.”
“He’s come to rest,” said Johnny. “All we have to do now is to coax him down.”
“Ye-e-s,” said Doris, doubtfully. “That’s all.” They sat down side by side on a big flat stone to stare up at the grinning monkey and to catch now and then a fleeting glance of that gleaming stone.
“It’s a diamond all right,” said Johnny. “And my! what a whopper!”
“Wait,” he said a moment later. “Monkeys like bananas. I saw a clump of wild ones back there. Perhaps I can find some ripe ones.”
While he was gone Doris kept her eyes on the monkey, but once when she glanced down at Nieta she found to her surprise that she was paying no attention to the monkey. Instead, she had taken some curious white objects from a small leather sack carried by a string round her neck and was whispering to them.
“Nieta!” she whispered. “What in the world are you doing?”
“These,” said Nieta quite soberly, “are the teeth of a yellow snake killed in the back of a cave in the dark of the moon. They are a powerful voodoo charm. They were given me by a very wisePapa Lou. APapa Louis a voodoo priest.”
At once Doris recalled what Dorn had told her of the strange voodoo charm.
“The snake, you know,” Nieta went on quite solemnly, “is able when alive to charm a monkey. When the snake is dead his spirit remains near his teeth. I am telling him to charm the monkey and bring him down to us.”
“Nieta,” said Doris, shocked beyond belief, “you must not think such things. They are not true. It is truly wicked to believe them. There is but one living spirit outside ourselves and that is the spirit of the great Father.”
“But do you not pray to that spirit?” The native girl’s brow wrinkled. “Do you not—”
“Look!” Doris gripped her arm. “He leaped away over there. He—he’s gone!”
By the time Johnny caught up with them, the monkey, by a succession of tree races and wild flying leaps, had led the girls down a precipitous slope to a spot where a rocky ledge hanging over a drop of some fifty feet brought their race and the monkey’s to an end.
The monkey climbed out on a branch that appeared to hang over a precipice. He seemed at first to contemplate a flying leap to the top of a tall tree that grew on the lower slope. This would have proven a thrilling spectacle. Doris caught her breath as he hung there by one foot, looking down. The distance was thirty feet or more, a straight drop down. Would he do it? Dared he?
“Oh!” she said gripping at her breast. “If he dares we will never see him again.”
Apparently Mr. Monk did not dare, for in time he drew himself up to a position of safety, then began polishing the glistening stone mounting of the ring with the furry back of his right hand.
From time to time he would pause to give the girls a knowing look and wink as if to say:
“See! Doesn’t it shine? Don’t you wish you had it?”
In good time Johnny caught up with them. They were delighted to see that his arms were filled with small ripe bananas.
“They are really good,” he said, slipping the last bite of one in his mouth. “Ripened in the shade.”
There followed the age old drama of a boy with something in his possession and a monkey who wants it. The monkey had been someone’s pet. For this reason he did not have the fear of humans that possesses a wild monkey. Yet these children were strangers. More than that, two were white. His master had beyond doubt been a dusky native. He was in no hurry to come down. He came one branch at a time with many a backward look. More than once he paused to polish his diamond and wink.
“We’ll get him,” said Johnny half beside himself with suppressed excitement. “You’ll see! He’ll come.”