He was coming. Little by little, branch by branch, he came. Now he was half way down, now three quarters. Now he was five yards away, now four, three, two. He stared wistfully at the banana held high.
Then, of a sudden, with a speed that was astonishing, he leaped.
Not upon another branch did he land, nor upon the ground, but squarely on the top of Johnny’s head.
So surprised was Johnny that he jumped and yelled.
Came a snatching at his hand, then monkey and banana were gone—gone not up but down.
Leaping to the top of the ledge the monkey paused for a second to place the banana between his teeth, then without so much as a backward look, lowered himself over the precipice and was gone.
Throwing herself flat on the ground, then crawling slowly forward until the steep surface of the cliff was within her view, Doris watched him throw himself from fissure to fissure and from one narrow ledge to the next.
“He’ll be killed,” she said breathlessly.
But he was not. Almost before she could realize it, he had reached a spot near the bottom, where by a daring leap, he reached the top of a tree.
“We—we’ve lost him,” she half sobbed. “We’ll never see him again.”
“Listen,” said Nieta with a sudden start.
They did listen and to their waiting ears came the dull roll of distant thunder. In their wild chase they had completely forgotten that the time for the day’s thunderstorm was at hand.
“Where are we?” Johnny asked.
Where indeed? The trail was far above them. Should they attempt to find it they must surely be half drowned before they reached it. A Haitian thunderstorm in the jungle is a fearful thing to contemplate.
“We’d better skirt the top of this cliff and make our way down to the sea,” said Doris. “There must be some thatched huts down there that will furnish shelter.”
Acting upon this plan, they dashed away.
The race after the monkey was nothing to this mad race with the storm. Now creeping along a rocky ledge, now clinging to a stout vine and dropping down, down, down, now racing over a wild hog’s trail, now leaping a fallen tree to tear through a clump of brambles with the rumble and roar of the storm ever increasing they made their way forward, until, with a sudden breathless whoop, Johnny stopped at the edge of a wild cocoanut jungle to stare at the silent, blue-black sea.
“Not a hut,” Doris moaned as her eyes swept the narrow coral beach.
“What’s that yonder?” Johnny asked.
“A boat! A boat on the beach!” Doris exclaimed. “Hurray! We will tip it over and make a shelter of it.”
“I wonder if we will ever see him again,” she said to herself as, on reaching the beach, she paused for breath. She was thinking of the monkey with the jeweled arm.
The next instant a blinding flash of lightning and a crash of thunder sent her flying toward the boat, that seen from the level now seemed much larger and very far away.
“We’ll never make it,” she panted sobbingly. “We’ll be half drowned.”
That the boat they had sighted was a large one, far too large to be tipped on its side they learned soon enough; not, however, until they had become utterly exhausted by their mad race with the storm.
And such a storm as it promised to be. The sky was inky black. The mountains, the nearby hills, even the cocoanut groves were blotted out. The sea, a sheet black as iron lay so still it appeared that one might walk upon it.
“Cou—couldn’t turn it over. If it—it was only a bark canoe! And look!” Doris panted. “It’s a young ship.”
It was indeed. The craft they had taken for a row-boat was a square masted schooner, with mast thrown carelessly over the side.
“We might get under the sail,” suggested Doris.
“Too much wind,” said Johnny. “Blow away. Give me a hand. I’ll look inside of her.”
Doris gave him a lift and up he went.
“Yo—ho!” he cried ten seconds later. “What luck! A cabin, a regular canvas cabin in her prow. And not a soul on board. Give us your hand and up you come.”
“But dare we?” screamed Doris above the roar of the storm.
There was no time for answering this question. The storm was upon them. She could see it racing in white sheets down the beach.
Up they went, up and over, scramble, tumble, scramble, and they were there, all hidden in the prow with a roof of stout painted canvas over their heads and a brown curtain of the same material hanging before them.
“What could be sweeter?” said Johnny, dropping into a corner.
“How it rains!” Doris shuddered as torrents of water came pelting down.
Once more the native girl was whispering to her snake tooth charm.
Nieta was the only member of the little party who really feared lightning. Now they were sheltered from the rain and far from tall trees, where danger from lightning really lurks, Doris and Johnny settled back each in a dark corner for a good rest.
“Wonder whose boat it is?” said Doris.
“Native boat,” said Johnny. “Tell by the way the canvas is sewed and the boards are nailed.”
“Probably came from Cape Haitian,” said Doris. “Gone up in the hills to hunt wild guineas or cocoanuts. We’ll get them to take us to town with them.”
This was a consoling thought. To trek back up the mountain in the dark and wet after the storm would be difficult indeed.
“Wonder where Mr. Monk is?” said Doris.
“It’s curious about that ring,” said Johnny. “It looked old—old as the hills. The gold was all tarnished and the stone didn’t look a bit like the ones I’ve seen; wasn’t cut the same.”
Doris made no answer to this. She had suddenly recalled some strange stories told to her by a very old black woman of Cape Haitian. The stories had to do with days long gone by. They told of the rule of Christophe, the only powerful emperor Haiti has ever known.
“And Honey,” the toothless old crone had said to her, “I had it right from my own Mammy and I know it’s true; the ladies of that Emperor’s court wore diamonds and rubies and pearls, such jewels as you only hear of now, but don’t most never see.
“And when the uprisin’ came and the Emperor was expectin’ to be overthrowed, the wicked old Emperor took all the jewels an’ gold an’ buried it somewheres; nobody’s found out where. No Honey, not nobody has ever found it yet.”
“What if—” Doris thought to herself now. “But then of course that could never be.”
“And besides,” she added a moment later, “we’ll never see the monkey again, so how could we follow him?”
Then, because she was far from her home and her new found friend, Johnny Thompson, was near at hand, because the wild beat of the storm gave her a feeling of loneliness and a longing for someone to confide in, she told him of her day dreams, of her hope that she might find the monkey and follow him to the hiding place of the ancient treasure.
“There must be something to that story of the hidden treasure of the black Empress,” said Johnny quite soberly. “Of course there are many wild tales told of that romantic king of the blacks. This much is history. I read it in a book written six years after his death. When the emperor felt his throne crumbling beneath him he went one evening to the Citadel. There he worked until past midnight. At two o’clock in the morning he knocked at the door of one of his dukes, a trusted ally.
“The duchess opened the door and was frightened half out of her wits. The emperor said nothing was wrong. He required the service of the duke; that was all.
“The duke dressed, then accompanied him to the castle. At the back of the castle they entered a door to drag forth a strong box. It was all the two of them could do to lift it.
“Having carried it a little way they hid it, so the story goes. When the work was done the emperor explained to his ally that the box was filled with the queen’s treasures; that, if anything ever happened to him, there was enough there to support his family in comfort for many years.
“A few days more and the emperor was dead.” Johnny’s story was at an end.
“And the treasure?” Doris leaned eagerly forward trying to read his face in the half darkness.
“Who knows about that?” Johnny laughed a low laugh. “If we knew where it was hidden we would go for it. If that had been told in the book, the treasure would have been removed long ago.
“So far as anyone knows, the duke never betrayed the emperor’s secret. Perhaps he too died during the uprising. As for the queen, everyone knows that she sailed for Europe on the first available boat and never returned to Haiti.
“You see,” he explained, as he felt that Doris was about to ask one more question, “the Emperor had sent a great deal of gold to England by a sea captain he trusted. This was at the queen’s disposal. Since it was enough why risk her head by a return to Haiti in search of further wealth?
“So,” he added, with another low laugh, “the treasure is yours; provided you find it. I too have been on a search for some of the emperor’s treasure, the ‘Rope of Gold’.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “How have you succeeded? When I was at your camp you were mysteriously absent.”
Johnny told her of his search, of Curlie Carson’s strange doings, of his kidnapping by the natives, and his all but miraculous escape.
“And so here we are,” he added. “Two treasure hunters lost in the night and the storm.”
“Here—here’s wishing you luck,” said Doris, reaching out in the half darkness to grip his hand.
“But say,” Johnny asked, “what would you do with all those diamonds, rubies and all that if you found them?”
“I’d sell them. Don’t care much for jewels. They’re too hard to keep. People steal them.
“And then,” she half closed her eyes, to lean far back in her corner, “then I’d buy dresses and shoes and things like that. I like bright things. I want a blue dress with orange trimmings and an orange dress with blue trimmings, and a green dress with an old gold sash, and a white dress with a pink sash; all of them silk, real shimmering silk that shines in the moonlight.”
“That,” said Johnny quite suddenly, “will do. Here’s hoping you never find them. I like girls with arms strong as a man’s, who can hike ten miles and who mostly wear khaki knickers.”
“And yet,” he set the gleam of his flashlight measuring her up and down, “if that’s what spells happiness for you, you should have all your dresses and wear them too.”
“I suppose,” he added, “that you also want a fur coat.”
“No,” she said, in sudden anger. “I don’t. I want a midnight blue cape with an Alaskan white fox collar.”
“That,” said Johnny at once sorry for his caustic remarks, “shows your good taste. I’ve been in Alaska. Know real fur when I see it. And like it as well as you. Here,” he said, putting out a hand, “is wishing you best of luck and happiness! Everyone in the world has a right to happiness.”
“I say!” he exclaimed after a brief silence. “How’d you like some lunch?”
“Fine! Please serve it at once,” laughed Doris.
“No fooling. Pockets full of good, ripe bananas.”
He began digging into his pockets. In the end, he brought out three; quite a little feast.
After the first wild burst that came like a flood, the rain settled down to a steady, monotonous patter—patter—patter on the staunch canvas roof.
Night crept in upon the world like the falling of a great curtain. All three, Johnny, Doris and Nieta had traveled far that day. They had been hot. Now they were cool. They had been excited. Now they were calm. They had been weary. Now their bodies were in repose.
Slowly a drowsiness crept over them. The slow patter—patter of rain on their roof, the low rush of wind through the palms whispered of sleep.
And why not? Just three winks. Here they were cosy and safe. The storm would end. Then they would wake to think of other things.
Perhaps they did not think it through in just this manner. Probably they did not think it through at all, but yielded to the call of slumber. However that may be, time found them all breathing softly and steadily in sleep. And still the rain pattered on their canvas roof.
Just how long they slept no one will ever know. It was Johnny who first awoke. He emerged from unreality to reality, from dream life to real life with something of a start.
In his dream he had once more followed the strange monkey with the band of gold and a diamond on his arm. The monkey climbed a great cocoanut palm. With quite as much ability, he followed after. Up—up—up, ten, twenty, thirty, forty feet he climbed until at last he was among the fronds, sitting on a clump of half-ripe cocoanuts.
But where was the monkey? He looked wildly about him and even as he looked a sudden burst of wind seized the great palm and set it swaying like an inverted pendulum, back and forth.
Still in the dream he threw out his hands—but found nothing to which he might cling. He tried to cry out but words stuck in his throat.
It was at this instant that he awoke. Awoke to what? A very dark little chamber at the prow of a sail-boat and silence.
No not quite silence. There was a strange rushing sound all about him, and in the distance an indistinct murmur of voices.
Instantly he recalled his position. But the sounds, the rushing, the subdued voices, these were startling.
“There were no voices,” he told himself. “No people at all except—”
Perhaps it was Doris and Nieta. They might have awakened and gone out on deck.
But no, as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light he made out their forms close beside him. They were still asleep.
Then, of a sudden, he realized that a part of his dream was true. The boat was pitching about.
“We are on the sea,” he told himself as his heart leaped painfully. “They have launched the boat, whoever they are. We are on our way out to sea.
“Oh well,” he endeavored to reassure himself, “they will be going to Cape Haitian. When we get there, we will give them a grand surprise. We’ll crawl out and thank them for the ride. What sport to be stowaways.
“But were they going to Cape Haitian?” This question troubled him more and more as time went on. The size of the waves they rode, the break of spray over the canvas, the creaking of masts seemed to tell him that they were not hugging the shore but striking boldly out to sea.
“And if we are?” Once more he caught his breath. Where would they be going? What was to be done when they got there? He had never been on a tropical island save Haiti. What the people were like on other islands he had not the faintest notions. He had heard that some were cannibals.
He thought of going on deck, of trying to hire the skipper to carry them back to land. He dared not. Perhaps these very people were cannibals or pirates. Who could tell? All he could do was to sit tight and see what happened. He feared more for his recently found friends than for himself.
As the boat sailed quietly on and nothing happened, his mind became more at ease. He wondered whether he should awaken his companions. After a moment’s thought he decided this would be unwise. To awaken them would be to add to their period of anxiety. Nothing could be done until they came to some land.
“Besides,” he told himself, “wakened suddenly from sleep, they may speak aloud and betray our presence. That might bring disaster. If these are bad men our chances of escape on land will be much greater.”
So he sat there in silent meditation, sensing the lift and fall of the boat, catching the toss and creak of the masts and wondering whither they were bound.
Oddly enough, he thought again of the monkey and his diamond set band of gold.
“Now surely,” he told himself, “we will never see him again.”
Passing strange it was to be riding thus, alone save for two sleeping companions; and those friends for but an hour; sailing over waters he had never before sailed to some land he had never seen. The rain had ceased. The moon was out. It shone upon a tossing sea.
More than four hundred years before another small craft had sailed these waters in the light of that moon. It was upon the shores of Haiti that Columbus established his first colony. For a time Johnny amused himself by imagining that he was Columbus sitting in his berth, waiting for the sound of a dropping anchor.
“It must have been wonderful,” he told himself. “The first white man to see these shores.”
Of a sudden, as he sat there thinking, there came a sharp command from the stern, then another and yet another.
“Surely that must awaken them.” He looked at his companions as he stiffened in preparation for an emergency.
Doris stirred but did not awaken. Nieta slumbered on.
The boat gave a lurch, appeared to veer in its course, then swept on. Ten minutes later the tossing ceased.
“Entered a bay. Come to land soon. What land?” He thrilled afresh.
“It’s like the adventures of Robinson Crusoe.”
A half hour later the boat ground gently on a sandy shore. The mast came down. There was the sound of men going ashore. The boat was drawn farther up on the beach. After that all was darkness and silence.
“Now is our chance,” he thought. His knees trembled slightly as he rose to part the canvas curtain and peer out.
He saw no living thing. Stepping boldly out he looked shoreward. A grove of tall palms painted a dark fringe against the night.
“Now is our chance,” he repeated as he stepped back.
“Doris.” He spoke the name in a low tone as he touched the girl’s shoulder. “Wake up!”
“Wha—where are we?” She sat up sleepily.
“I don’t know where. I only know we have arrived,” said Johnny. “Hurry. Waken that native girl. We must get out of this boat.”
During the very hour in which Johnny Thompson discovered that he and the two girls, Doris and Nieta, were stowaways in a strange schooner sailing straight out to sea, Curlie Carson sat beside a mahogany table beneath the stars in a beautiful tropical garden.
The air was heavy with the perfume of flowers. The night was cool and damp. Now and then a breeze from the distant sea set the palm fronds rustling and brought forth a hoarse croak from a sleeping buzzard.
Back of him was a home. And such a home as it was! All white and glistening in the moonlight, with its little spires and minarets, with its broad, deep, mysterious windows, standing tall against the dark green of palms it seemed some castle in Spain—a thing of dreams.
But the home, a sort of French Chateau, was real. Haiti has thousands of beautiful homes. Some of them hark back to the days when fine French ladies rode out with their maids in the cool of the evening, and a hundred thousand slaves toiled in the sugar cane and the cotton.
The girl who sat opposite Curlie sipping limeade was real too. To Curlie at first she had been rather startling as well. She was Dot Montcalm, Dorn’s sister. To Curlie she was a great deal more than that. She was the mysterious dark-haired girl who had shared his adventure of the night before. She it had been who had beaten the strange native drum and had called together that band of half wild natives to dance and to plot revolution beneath the stars. She too had raced away with him down the trail after the weird howling of her dog had put the natives to flight. All this she smilingly admitted on meeting Curlie two hours before. He had not asked her why she had concealed her identity. There was no reason for asking. A girl with good sense, and Dot Montcalm seemed well endowed with that by nature, does not reveal her identity to a stranger during a chance meeting.
“But she has told me nothing else,” Curlie was thinking to himself, as they sat there in the garden before the girl’s home. “Why did she beat out the drum signals that called that wild band together to plot revolution. Surely she and her father would be the last to desire a revolution. In truth she seemed eager to scatter them before plotting was begun. It’s all very strange.”
Curlie had arrived at camp a little before noon of that day. He had, as you well know, found Johnny still missing. After visiting his laboratory and finding all in order, he had heavily bolted the door and then had announced his intention of going to Dorn’s village in search of some clue of Johnny’s whereabouts.
“Some natives may have seen him. He may have arrived at the village over a strange trail,” he had said to Dorn.
“Yes,” said Dorn. “That is true. You may find him there. But as for Pompee and me, we will remain. He may come here tired and hungry. Besides,” his eyes had gone dreamy, “I like this old Citadel. It is scary and most spooky at night, but by day it is so old, so massive, so grand. And then, at any moment I may come upon one end of the ‘Rope of Gold’ sticking out from the masonry. Then how rich we all shall be.” A low laugh followed this last remark.
So Curlie had gone away down the trail toward the village of Terre Plaisance. And here he was sitting across from Dot drinking limeade, talking now and then of matters of no great consequence, and dreaming long dreams in between.
“A revolution,” he thought now. “How wildly thrilling that would be. And yet it would be tragic. These natives can’t fight against our airplanes, our gas, our machine guns. And yet—”
He thought of the long and bitter struggle that had been going on in Nicaragua and of the war between the invincible Napoleon and the Blacks of Haiti and how the Blacks of Haiti had won. After that he was not so sure.
“We must put an end to it,” he said, speaking aloud.
“To what?” said the girl.
“To the revolution.”
“Oh, yes. We must. If we can.”
“You do not want the revolution?”
“Oh no! No!” She shuddered.
“But you beat the drum. You called those natives together.”
“Oh that—why that was—I’ll—I—I’ll tell you about that sometime.”
For a time they sat there in silence. Then, like the first flush of morning, her face lighted with a smile. “She will tell me,” Curlie assured himself.
But she did not, for at that precise moment there came, faint, indistinct, like the low roll of thunder, yet unmistakable a call from the distance and the dark.
“The drums,” a shudder ran through the girl’s slender form. “Far away, the drums. And now perhaps there will be a revolution. How—how useless, how terrible! Someone must prevent it. It can only end with the death of many honest but deluded people; the poor, honest ones.”
“It is true,” said Mona the black servant who had come to serve cocoa. “It should not be.”
“The men all are gone; the native police too,” Dot said turning to Curlie.
“But we—we might do something,” she added after a moment.
“Yes,” said Curlie. “We did something last night. Plenty.”
“Let’s try.”
“Yes, let’s.”
“Will you go with us?” Dot turned to Mona.
“If I might help.”
“You might help a great deal. You know all the secret mountain passes and the people.”
“I will go,” said the aged native woman. “The Blanc does much for my people. He is honest. He will not do wrong. Rebellion is for bad men.”
The “Blanc” is the Haitian’s name for the white man from America. In the few short years of the American occupation the greater part of the hill people of Haiti have come to trust their American friends. Yet in every land there is some discontent. There are some too who are willing enough to stir up discontent that they may advance their own selfish ends.
Even now, as they prepared to lose themselves in the forest trails at night, Dot felt herself overtaken with fear.
“Father has always said the hills are safe,” she said to Curlie. “Yet there are many wild rumors.
“We’ll take Leo,” she continued.
“I’ve a bow and arrows with me,” said Curlie.
“Bow and arrows?” exclaimed the girl in great surprise.
“It’s really a very strong one,” said the boy. “A regular six foot yew bow. It will drive a steel pointed arrow a full inch into a mahogany tree. Johnny Thompson has been teaching me to use it. I—I’m getting pretty good.”
“Oh,” said Dot.
“Of course,” said Curlie, “we won’t use it to—”
“Of course not,” said Dot, not allowing him to finish. “But bring it. I only wish I could shoot it. Just think of the lost arts there are in the world! When Columbus was Governor of this island every native knew how to shoot with bows and strong ones, too. That was the way they hunted and how they fought their battles.”
“Of course,” said Curlie, “we use them only for sport now. But I’ll take it along.”
You have not forgotten the strange plight into which a jeweled monkey, a storm and a strange craft had led Johnny and Doris. They had arrived at night on some strange shore. This must be an island. But what island and how inhabited? Who could say? There were questions enough in their minds but none were asked as Doris and Nieta, in the prow of the strange ship, following Johnny began feeling their way out of the dark little forward cabin into the moonlight.
As they stood upon the gunwale ready to drop silently to the sandy beach, they saw circling to the right and left of them a narrow bay. Back from the beach was a fringe of palms.
The night was still. Only the faintest murmur of wavelets lapping at the sand whispered of the ocean’s age-long unrest.
Back from the shore all seemed lost in slumber. Not a light glimmered, not a camp fire glowed. There was no sound. Even the soaring bats appeared to have gone to rest.
“Wha—where are we?” Doris shivered though the night was not cold.
“Who knows?” In a few words Johnny told all he knew of the night’s curious adventure.
“All we can do,” he said in conclusion, “is to find some sheltered spot where we can hide till morning. Then I’ll have to go out scouting to discover if I can find what island this is and what sort of people live upon it.”
Even as he spoke he was conscious of the fact that he was reading into the present some of the romance and adventure of the West Indies’ colorful past. But for all that their position, two girls and a boy on a strange shore at night, was perilous enough.
Silently, in single file, they crossed the sandy beach to come at last to the edge of the cocoanut grove. There, by following the shore for a short distance, they found a well trodden path leading into the forest.
“We won’t follow that, at least not to-night,” said Johnny. “There are dogs, dangerous native dogs. Natives always have them. And the natives—who knows?”
They continued along the beach until they came to a spot where the land rose quite abruptly up from the sea.
There they found a second trail, little more than a wild animal’s trail to water. The tracks they found there were the sharply cut marks of goats’ hoofs.
“We’ll go up here,” said Johnny leading the way. “We’ll get up high where there are no mosquitoes. There we can rest and think things over.”
A half hour later they found themselves seated upon a mossy bank beneath low-growing palms. The night was soon to end. Then would come morning. What of that morning? Who could answer?
As Johnny sat there listening for some sound that might spell danger, trying at times to peer into the darkness, his mind was filled with many strange thoughts. At times he found himself wondering about the secret Curlie Carson had hidden away in his laboratory up there in the Citadel.
“He’s something like my old pal, Panther Eye,” he told himself. “Always working something out, springing some surprise; always mysterious. Wonder where old Pant is now.”
He thought of the ‘Rope of Gold’. “Guess we’ll never find it,” he told himself gloomily. “Never can tell, though. One thing’s sure—never will find it by chasing jeweled monkeys and getting caught out all times night and day on boats and islands with a pair of girls.”
He couldn’t be sure he regretted his latest experience. Doris was a regular sport. He liked her. Hadn’t made the least fuss when she found herself marooned on a strange island. “Be a great joke if she and this native girl really followed up that jeweled monkey and found the black queen’s treasure and we never as much as had a look at the ‘Rope of Gold’. Things come out that way sometimes.”
He thought of the natives who tried to kidnap him. “Something strange about that,” he thought. They had not laid a hand on him from first to last. He wondered what would have happened if he had really resisted. As it was he had walked out on them and they were quite powerless to stop him. He wished now that he had seen the thing through.
“That’s the way with life,” he whispered to the darkness. “We have a feeling that life is short, that we must hurry here, hurry there, get out of this and into that; that we really haven’t time to see things through. And the joke of it all is life is very, very long and we’ve time for almost everything, plenty of time if only we think so.”
In the meantime Dorn, with old Pompee at his side at the camp by the Citadel, watched and waited for Johnny’s return. At times he wondered if Doris and Nieta had found their way safely home.
“Of course they did,” he said aloud once.
“Did what?” Pompee asked.
“Did find their way home. The girls.”
“Yes, yes. To be sure.”
Had he seen what at that moment was happening at his home he would have been not a little startled. Curlie Carson, Dot and the aged native woman were at the gate prepared to follow the sound of the drums in search of the secret meeting of the would-be rebels, when there sounded on the flagstone walk outside the rattle of a donkey’s hoofs.
“It is Doris,” Dot exclaimed. “Doris and Nieta. I am glad. We have been worried about them. Of course, we thought they might have stayed at your camp two nights, but that they did not intend to do. The storm must have delayed them. But now here they are. They—
“Who—what?” She stared as the donkey came into view. His baskets were empty. He was riderless and alone.
“What can have happened?” She looked at Curlie as if expecting an answer. But Curlie had no answer for her. When he had reached his camp that day the girls were already gone. This he told her in the kindliest tone he knew.
At once there was commotion in the household. Doris and Nieta were lost; lost alone in the night and the jungle, perhaps kidnapped, robbed, killed. Who could say? Curlie thought of Johnny’s disappearance and of the strange camp on the mountain; thought too of the plotted rebellion.
“We can do nothing to-night,” said Dot. “We must be up and away on the search at dawn.”
“In the meantime?” said Curlie.
As if in answer to his question, to their ears there came once more the distant tum—tum—tum of native drums.
Curlie looked at Dot. Dot looked at her aged servant. Then, without a word they walked out of the gate bound for the hills, the three of them, ready to follow the sound of the drums, ready for any peril or adventure to which this might lead.
It was strange, this marching up a little known trail in the night, following the sound of the drum that grew louder, ever louder as they advanced.
The night was strange too. The moist air laden with the odor of blossoms and tropical spices was a constant delight. The stars shone as no stars had ever shone before. Here some creeping thing set the dry leaves rustling, there a strange bird piped his shrill night tune.
The trail was steep. As they paused beside a massive rock a breath of wind came sweeping up from the sea to fan their cheeks. Then, quite unexpectedly Dot’s heart gave a leap. From up the trail came a sound as of a host rushing through the brush.
“Oh—Ah!” she whispered sibilantly, gripping Curlie’s arm and backing into the brush.
Curlie began to laugh. “Do you not recognize the sound?” he asked. “It’s only a ‘chattering woman’.”
“O, yes, so it is a ‘chattering woman’. How stupid of me to get all excited,” she exclaimed as she stared away in the direction of the curious tree.
Dot told herself that she must get better control of her nerves if she was to be of any service on this strange enterprise.
“Listen! The dance grows wilder,” she said. “If we are to learn anything, be of any service, we must hurry.”
“You see,” she explained as they moved steadily up the trail, “the United States Government is doing all it can for this republic, especially for the common people, who most of all appreciate and deserve it.
“There are a few in the cities, who were used to growing fat on graft under the old rule, who do not like the Americans. Then too there are traders, white men with black hearts, who will do anything they can to stir up trouble. In the old days they grew rich selling arms and supplies to rebels. It is rumored that a boat loaded with rifles and ammunition is hiding away somewhere among the islands and that a rebel chieftain is here in the hills exciting the hill people to rebel. If only the Marines were here and the native police,” she sighed, “they’d put an end to it. But we must do what we can.
“If rebellion is started, cruel leaders will go roving through the hills forcing the people to follow them. In that way many innocent ones will be killed. If it can only be stopped, lives will be saved. And think what it means to live!”
Curlie did think. Every morning was a delight. Every day brought some fresh revelation from the natural world. Each night brought sweet repose. Ah yes, life was good.
The life of the hill people was simple and beautiful—children playing about their small, grass thatched, white plastered homes, men hoeing corn, women picking wild coffee, and always the simple songs of the hills were on their lips.
As they rounded a rugged cliff that overhung the trail, the sound of the drums grew louder and mingled with it was the chant of many voices.
“It is very near,” said the native woman.
“Listen!” said Curlie impressively. “When Columbus visited this island on his first great voyage, he heard those drums. All down the centuries they have sounded until now.”
“Yes,” said Dot. “And always for war. If only we could get their goat,” she said once more. “They will not go into revolt before the black goat is sacrificed.”
“But you can’t get their goat,” Mona whispered in an awed tone. “ThePapa Louhas thrown a spell about the black goat. He throws spells over men and all living things. If he says ‘come’ the nightingale lights on his shoulder and the wild parrot eats from his hands. Twenty days ago the black goat ran wild in the mountains. Now he will not leave thePapa Lou. You do what you will, you cannot get the black goat. It is a spell that is cast over him.”
“Some part of what you have said is true,” said Dot, “but not all, I hope. We can get their goat. At least I hope so. Somehow we must do it.”
At that they began moving forward, now bending low to glide along on tiptoe, and now creeping on hands and knees toward their strange goal.
“There! There they are!” Mona whispered, as she at last parted two broad palm leaves.
“And there! There is the black goat!” Dot breathed. “And see!” Her words came in an excited whisper. “See! There is no spell upon him. He is tied with a slender rope.”
“Someone else has done this,” the aged native woman’s tone was one of calm assurance. “ThePapa Loudid not tie him. There is no need.”
“If we could but get the goat!” Dot whispered once more. “You see,” her low whispered tones were tense with suppressed excitement, “these voodoo people have always been great believers in sacrifice. They have even been accused of human sacrifice, but this I cannot believe to be true. However that may be, they have always sacrificed animals. The goat, a black goat with not a white hair, has always been their choice, yet, when Christophe prepared to defend his people against the French, he and his followers pledged themselves to fight until death over the carcass of a freshly killed wild boar.
“Black goats are rare. ThisPapa Lou, by some chance, has found one running wild in the mountains. He captured it. They have it now, as you see. After the drumming, dancing and singing will come the ceremony of sacrifice. And after that will begin—”
“The revolution,” Curlie whispered.
“The revolution,” she repeated. “And our little village may be attacked and destroyed at once. For we are white and there are few to protect us.”
In his mind’s eye Curlie saw the beautiful white chateau standing out like a castle of Spain in the moonlight. He pictured himself once more in that beautiful garden with this splendid girl pal across from him and thereupon resolved that, come what might, all this beauty and happiness must not be destroyed.
“Yes,” he said aloud. “We must get their goat to-night.”
But how was this to be done? The goat stood at a spot not five feet from the edge of the circling throng. The flare of the camp fire lighted the scene. To approach near enough to free the goat was to court disaster.
“Listen.” Dot held up a hand.
The drumming had ceased quite suddenly. The chanting died away. Exhausted dancers threw themselves upon the grass. A dark figure, a man unmistakably from the city, a black man with an evil face, rose up from among the people. He began to speak in French creole, the language of the people.