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+Project Gutenberg's Plotting in Pirate Seas, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Plotting in Pirate Seas
+
+Author: Francis Rolt-Wheeler
+
+Illustrator: C. A. Federer
+
+Release Date: July 10, 2007 [EBook #22033]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLOTTING IN PIRATE SEAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins and and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Round the World with The Boy Journalists: I
+
+PLOTTING IN PIRATE SEAS
+
+FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER
+
+
+[Illustration: "NOT THAT WAY--TWO MORE STEPS, BOY, AND YOU ARE DEAD".]
+
+
+By FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER
+
+Round the World with The Boy Journalists
+  PLOTTING IN PIRATE SEAS
+  HUNTING HIDDEN TREASURE IN THE ANDES
+
+Romance-History of America
+  IN THE DAYS BEFORE COLUMBUS
+  THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD
+
+NEW YORK: GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+PLOTTING IN PIRATE SEAS
+
+BY FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER
+
+Author of "Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes," "In the Days Before
+Columbus," "The Quest of the Western World," "The Aztec-Hunters," "The
+Boy with the U. S. Census," etc.
+
+_Illustrated by_ C. A. FEDERER
+
+NEW YORK
+GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1921,
+BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I                                                  PAGE
+AMERICAN ALL THROUGH                                         11
+
+CHAPTER II
+WHERE BLACK MEN RULE                                         27
+
+CHAPTER III
+THE BLOOD-STAINED CITADEL                                    47
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE GHOST OF CHRISTOPHE                                      66
+
+CHAPTER V
+THE ISLE OF THE BUCCANEERS                                   81
+
+CHAPTER VI
+A CUBAN REBEL                                                99
+
+CHAPTER VII
+A NOSE FOR NEWS                                             117
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+THE POISON TREES                                            135
+
+CHAPTER IX
+THE HURRICANE                                               155
+
+CHAPTER X
+THE LAKE OF PITCH                                           177
+
+CHAPTER XI
+THE MORNING OF DOOM                                         196
+
+CHAPTER XII
+A CORSAIR'S DEATH                                           217
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+THE HUNGRY SHARK                                            231
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+TRAPPED!                                                    242
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"NOT THAT WAY--TWO MORE STEPS, BOY, AND YOU          _Frontispiece_
+ARE DEAD"
+                                                               PAGE
+FOR A HUNDRED FEET THEY FELL AND STUART                          72
+CLOSED HIS EYES IN SICKENING DIZZINESS
+
+HIS VISION DISTORTED BY THE VENOM-VAPOR OF THE                  144
+POISON TREES, THE LAND-CRABS SEEMED OF
+ENORMOUS SIZE AND THE NEGRO WHO CAME TO
+RESCUE HIM APPEARED AS AN OGRE
+
+ABOVE THE HOARSE SHOUTS OF RUFFIANS AND JACK-TARS,              224
+ROSE TEACH'S MURDEROUS WAR CRY
+
+
+
+
+PLOTTING IN PIRATE SEAS
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AMERICAN ALL THROUGH
+
+
+The tom-tom throbbed menacingly through the heavy dark of the Haitian
+night.
+
+Under its monotonous and maddening beat, Stuart Garfield moved
+restlessly.
+
+Why had his father not come back? What mystery lay behind?
+
+Often though the boy had visited the island, he had never been able to
+escape a sensation of fear at that summons of the devotees of Voodoo.
+Tonight, with the mysterious disappearance of his father weighing
+heavily on his spirits, the roll of the black goatskin drum seemed to
+mock him.
+
+Hippolyte, the giant negro who had been their guide into this
+back-country jungle, rocked and grimaced in balance with the rhythm.
+
+"Why are they beating that drum, Hippolyte?" demanded Stuart, suddenly.
+
+"Tonight the night of the Full Moon, Yes," was the answer. "Always
+Voodoo feast that night. Often, queer things happen on night of Full
+Moon, Yes!"
+
+Stuart turned impatiently to the door, as much to get his eyes away from
+the hypnotic swaying of Hippolyte as to resume his watch for his father.
+The negro's reference to "queer things" had added to the boy's
+uneasiness.
+
+Little though Stuart knew about his father's affairs, he was aware that
+his investigations dealt with matters of grave importance to the United
+States. Ever since Mr. Garfield had resigned his position in the U. S.
+Consular Service and left the post in Cuba, where he had stayed so many
+years, he had kept a keen eye on international movements in the West
+Indies.
+
+Mr. Garfield was an ardent and flaming patriot. He believed the Monroe
+Doctrine with a conviction that nothing could shake. He regarded all the
+islands of the West Indies as properly under the sheltering wing of the
+United States. He looked with unfriendly eye upon the possession of
+certain of the islands by England, France and Holland, and especially
+distrusted the colonies of European powers upon South American and
+Central American shores.
+
+Stuart was even more intense in his patriotism. He had not lived in the
+United States since early childhood, and saw the country of the Stars
+and Stripes enhaloed by romance.
+
+Though Stuart had been brought up in Cuba, all his tastes ran to things
+American. He had learned to play pelota, and was a fair player, but the
+rare occasions when he could get a game of baseball suited him far
+better. He cared nothing for books unless they dealt with the United
+States, and then he read with avidity. Western stories fired his
+imagination, the more so because the life they described was so
+different from his own.
+
+Stuart was not the type of boy always seeking a fight, but, beneath his
+somewhat gentle brown eyes and dark hair, there was a square aggressive
+chin, revealing that trait of character known as a "terrible finisher."
+It took a good deal to start Stuart, but he was a terror, once started.
+Any criticism of the United States was enough to get him going. His
+Cuban schoolmates had found that out, and, whenever Stuart was around,
+the letters "U. S." were treated with respect.
+
+This square chin was aggressively thrust forward now, as the boy looked
+into the night. There was trouble in the air. He felt it. Deeper down
+than the disturbed feelings produced by the tom-tom, he sensed a
+prescience of evil on its way.
+
+When, therefore, a figure emerged from the forest into the clearing, and
+Stuart saw that this figure was not his father, but that of a negro, the
+boy stiffened himself.
+
+"You--Stuart?" the newcomer queried.
+
+"Yes," replied the boy, "that's my name."
+
+The negro hardly hesitated. He walked on, though Stuart was full in the
+doorway, jostled him aside roughly, and entered. This attitude toward
+the white man, unheard of anywhere else, is common in up-country Haiti,
+where, for a century, the black man has ruled, and where the white man
+is hated and despised.
+
+A hard stone-like gleam came into Stuart's eyes, but even his mounting
+rage did not blind him to the fact that the negro was twice his size and
+three times as muscular. Nor did he forget that Hippolyte was in the
+hut, and, in any case of trouble, the two blacks would combine against
+him.
+
+The negro who had pushed him aside paid no further attention to the boy,
+but entered into a rapid-fire conversation with Hippolyte. Stuart could
+follow the Haitian French dialect quite well, but there were so many
+half-hidden allusions in the speech of the two men that it was easy for
+him to see that they were both members of some secret band.
+
+The intruder was evidently in some authority over Hippolyte, for he
+concluded:
+
+"Everything is well, Yes. Do with the boy, as was arranged."
+
+So saying, he cast a look at Stuart, grinned evilly, and left the hut.
+The boy watched him until his powerful figure was lost to view in the
+forest.
+
+Then he turned to Hippolyte.
+
+"What does all this mean!" he demanded, as authoritatively as he could.
+
+For a moment Hippolyte did not answer. He looked at the boy with a
+reflection of the same evil grin with which the other had favored the
+white boy.
+
+A quick choke came into the boy's throat at the change in the negro's
+manner. He was in Hippolyte's power, and he knew it. But he showed never
+a quiver of fear as he faced the negro.
+
+"What does it all mean?" he repeated.
+
+"It is that you know Manuel Polliovo?"
+
+Stuart knew the name well. His father had mentioned it as that of a
+conspirator who was in some way active in a West Indian plot.
+
+"I have heard of him," the boy answered.
+
+"Manuel--he send a message, Yes. He say--Tell Stuart he must go away
+from Haiti, at once. His father gone already."
+
+"What does that mean!" exclaimed Stuart. The first words of the warning
+had frightened him, but, with the knowledge that his father was in
+danger, the fighting self of him rose to the surface, and his fear
+passed.
+
+"How?" returned the negro, not understanding.
+
+"That my father has gone already?"
+
+Hippolyte shrugged his shoulders with that exaggeration of the French
+shrug common in the islands.
+
+"Maybe Manuel killed him," came the cheerful suggestion. "Jules, who
+tell me just now, says Manuel, he have the air very wicked and very
+pleased when he tell him."
+
+Stuart doubted this possibility. Ever since the American occupation of
+Haiti, in 1915, murder had become less common. The boy thought it more
+likely that the missing man had been captured and imprisoned. But just
+what could Manuel be doing if he dared such drastic action? The lad
+wished that he knew a little more about his father's plans.
+
+A small revolver was in his pocket, and, for one wild moment, Stuart
+thought of making a fight for it and going to the rescue of his father.
+But his better sense prevailed. Even supposing he could get the drop on
+the negro--which was by no means sure--he could not mount guard on him
+perpetually. Moreover, if he got near enough to try and tie him up, one
+sweep of those brawny arms would render him powerless.
+
+"And if I do not go?" he asked.
+
+"But you do go," declared Hippolyte. "It is I who will see to that,
+Yes!"
+
+"Was it Manuel who sent you the money?"
+
+"Ah, the good money!" The negro showed his teeth in a wide grin.
+"Manuel, he tell Jules to find boy named Stuart. If you big, tie you and
+take you to the forest; if little, send you away from the island."
+
+This was one point gained, thought Stuart. Manuel, at least, did not
+know what he looked like.
+
+"I suppose I've got to go to Cap Haitien."
+
+"But, Yes."
+
+"And when?"
+
+"But now, Yes!"
+
+"It's a long walk," protested Stuart. "Twenty miles or more."
+
+"We not walk, No! Get mules near. Now, we start."
+
+The boy had hoped, in some way, to get the negro out of the hut and to
+make a bolt for the woods where he might lie hidden, but this sudden
+action prevented any such ruse. He turned to the table to put into his
+knapsack the couple of changes of clothing he had brought. There was no
+way for him to take his father's clothes, but the boy opened the larger
+knapsack and took all the papers and documents.
+
+"See here, Hippolyte," he said. "I give you all these clothes. I take
+the papers."
+
+The negro grinned a white-toothed smile at the gift. He cared nothing
+about the papers. He would do what Jules had paid him to do, and no
+more.
+
+As they left the hut, it seemed to Stuart that the nerve-racking beating
+of the tom-tom sounded louder and nearer. They walked a mile or so,
+then, as Hippolyte suggested, at a small half-abandoned plantation, they
+found mules. Once mounted, the negro set off at breakneck speed, caring
+nothing about the roughness of the road, all the more treacherous
+because of the dead-black of the shadows against the vivid green-silver
+patches where the tropical moonlight shone through.
+
+"What's the hurry?" clamored Stuart, who could see no reason for this
+mad and reckless riding.
+
+"The dance stop at dawn! I want to be back, Yes!"
+
+They galloped on as before.
+
+A few miles from the town, Stuart snatched at an idea which flashed upon
+him suddenly.
+
+"Hippolyte," he said. "You want to get back for the voodoo dance?"
+
+"But, Yes!"
+
+"You'll be too late if you take me into town. See."
+
+He showed his watch and held out a twenty-five gourde bill.
+
+"Suppose I give you this. It's all the money I have. You can tell Jules
+to tell Manuel that you saw me get on board a steamer in Cap Haitien,
+and that you saw the steamer start. Then you can be back in plenty of
+time for the dance."
+
+Hippolyte hesitated. The temptation was strong.
+
+"Unless, of course," the boy added carelessly, "you like this white man,
+Manuel, so much."
+
+An expression of primitive hate wrote itself on the ebon face, a
+peculiarly malignant snarl, as seen by moonlight.
+
+"I hate all whites!" he flashed.
+
+"Then why should you do a good turn for this Manuel?"
+
+The instincts of a simple honesty struggled with the black's desire. A
+passing gust of wind brought the rhythmic beating of the tom-tom
+clearer to their ears. It was the one call that the jungle blood of the
+negro could not resist. He held out his hand for the money.
+
+"You go into Cap Haitien alone?" he queried, thickly.
+
+"Yes, I'll promise that," the boy agreed.
+
+He dismounted, swung his knapsack on his back, and handed the reins of
+the mule to Hippolyte, who sat, still uncertain. But the negro's head
+was turned so that he could hear the throbbing of the drum, and, with an
+answering howl that went back to the days of the African jungle, he
+turned and sped back over the rough trail at the same headlong speed he
+had come.
+
+"If he doesn't break his neck!" commented Stuart, as he saw him go,
+"it'll be a wonder!"
+
+There were yet a couple of hours before dawn, and Stuart plodded along
+the trail, which could lead to no other place than Cap Haitien. He
+walked as fast as he could, hoping to reach the city before daylight,
+but the first streaks of dawn found him still nearly two miles from the
+town. He did not want to enter the town afoot by daylight. That would be
+too conspicuous, and there were plans germinating in the boy's head
+which needed secrecy. He must hide all day, and get into Cap Haitien the
+next night.
+
+Stuart slipped off the road and wriggled his way through the dense
+thicket, seeking a place where there was light enough to read, and yet
+where the foliage was dense enough to prevent him being seen by anyone
+passing that way.
+
+A few moments' search only were required before he found the ideal spot,
+and he threw himself down on a pile of leaves with great zest. That mule
+had been hard riding.
+
+"First of all," he said to himself, half aloud, "I've got to find out
+where I'm at. Then I'll maybe be able to figure out what I ought to do."
+
+Stuart's mind was not so quick as it was strong. He was a straight
+up-and-down honest type of fellow, and thoroughly disliked the crafty
+and intriguing boy or man. He began cautiously, but got warmed up as he
+went on, and made a whirlwind finish.
+
+It was characteristic of him, thus, not to plunge into any wild and
+desperate attempt to rescue his father, until he had time to puzzle out
+the situation and work out a plan of action. He began by reading all the
+papers and documents he had taken from his father's knapsack. This was a
+long job, for the papers were full of allusions to subjects he did not
+understand. It was nearly noon before he had digested them.
+
+Then he lay on his back and looked up through the tracery of leaves
+overhead, talking aloud so that the sound of his own voice might make
+his discoveries clearer.
+
+"The way I get it," he mused, "Father's on the trail of some plot
+against the United States. This plot is breaking loose, here, in Haiti.
+This Manuel Polliovo's in it, and so is a negro General, Cesar Leborge.
+There's a third, but the papers don't say who he is.
+
+"Now," he went on, "I've two things to do. I've got to find Father and
+I've got to find out this plot. Which comes first?"
+
+He rolled over and consulted one or two of the papers.
+
+"Looks like something big," he muttered, kicking his heels meditatively.
+"I wonder what Father would say I ought to do?"
+
+At the thought, he whirled over and up into a sitting posture.
+
+"If it's dangerous to the U. S.," he said, "that's got to come first.
+And I don't worry about Father. He can get out of any fix without me."
+
+The glow of his deep-hearted patriotism began to burn in the boy's eyes.
+He sat rigid, his whole body concentrated in thought.
+
+"If Manuel Polliovo has captured Father," he said aloud, at last, "it
+must have been because Father was shadowing him. That means that Manuel
+doesn't want to be shadowed. That means I've got to shadow him. But
+how?"
+
+The problem was not an easy one. It was obvious that Stuart could not
+sleuth this Cuban, Manuel, without an instant guess being made of his
+identity, for white boys were rare in Haiti. If only he were not white.
+If only----
+
+Stuart thumped on the ground in his excitement.
+
+Why could he not stain his skin coffee-color, like a Haitian boy? If
+sufficiently ragged, he might be able to pass without suspicion. It
+might be only for a day or two, for Stuart was sure that his father
+would appear again on the scene very soon.
+
+This much, at least, he had decided. No one was going to plot against
+his country if he could help it. There was not much that he could do,
+but at least he could shadow one of the conspirators, and what he found
+out might be useful to his father.
+
+This determination reached, the boy hunted for some wild fruit to stay
+his appetite--he had nothing to eat since the night before--and settled
+down for the rest of the afternoon to try and dig out the meaning of his
+father's papers, some of which seemed so clear, while to others he had
+no clew. It was characteristic of the boy that, once this idea of menace
+to the United States had got into his head, the thought of personal
+danger never crossed his mind. The slightly built boy, small even for
+his age, the first sight of whom would have suggested a serious
+high-school student rather than a sleuth, possessed the cool ferocity of
+a ferret when that one love--his love of country--was aroused.
+
+His first step was clear. As soon as it was dark enough to cover his
+movements, he would go to the house of one of his father's friends, a
+little place built among the ruins of Cap Haitien, where they had stayed
+two or three times before. From references in some of the letters,
+Stuart gathered that his father had confidence in this man, though he
+was a Haitian negro.
+
+As soon as the shadows grew deep enough, Stuart made his way through the
+half-grown jungle foliage--the place had been a prosperous plantation
+during French occupation--and, a couple of hours later, using by-paths
+and avoiding the town, he came to this negro's house. He tapped at the
+same window on which his father had tapped, when they had come to Cap
+Haitien a week or so before, and Leon, the negro, opened the door.
+
+"But, it is you, Yes!" he cried, using the Haitian idiom with its
+perpetual recurrence of "Yes" and "No," and went on, "and where is
+Monsieur your father?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Stuart, speaking in English, which he knew Leon
+understood, though he did not speak it. "I have missed him."
+
+"But where, and but how?" queried Leon, suddenly greatly excited. "Was
+he already going up to the Citadel?"
+
+Stuart's face flushed with reflected excitement, but his eyes held the
+negro's steadily. Leon knew more than the boy had expected he would
+know.
+
+"No," he replied, "I don't think so. I shall have to go."
+
+"It is impossible, impossible, Yes!" cried Leon, throwing up his hands
+in protest. "I told Monsieur your father that it was impossible for him.
+And for you----"
+
+A graphic shrug completed the sentence.
+
+Stuart felt a sinking at the pit of his stomach, for he was no braver
+than most boys. But the twist of his determination held him up.
+
+"Leon," he said, trying to keep his voice steady, though he felt it
+sounded a little choked, "isn't there the juice of some root which will
+turn the skin brown, nearly black?"
+
+"But, Yes, the plavac root."
+
+The Haitian peered at the boy.
+
+"You would make yourself a black man?" he continued.
+
+Stuart ignored argument.
+
+"Can you get some? Tonight? Right away?"
+
+"Ah, well; you know--" Leon began.
+
+The boy interrupted him sharply.
+
+"If my father told you to get some, you would get it," he declared
+peremptorily.
+
+This was a shrewd guess, for, as a matter of fact, there were a number
+of reasons why Leon should do what Mr. Garfield told him. The negro, who
+had no means of finding how much or how little the boy knew, shrugged
+his shoulders hugely, and, with a word of comment, left the house,
+carrying a lantern. He was back in half an hour with a handful of small
+plants, having long fibrous roots. These he cut off, placed in a pot,
+covering them with water, and set the pot on the stove over a slow fire.
+
+"It will not come off the skin as easily as it goes on, No!" he warned.
+
+"Time enough to think about that when I want to take it off," came the
+boy's reply.
+
+The decoction ready, Leon rubbed it in thoroughly into Stuart's skin. It
+prickled and smarted a good deal at first, but this feeling of
+discomfort soon passed away.
+
+"It won't rub off?" queried Stuart.
+
+Leon permitted himself a grim pleasantry.
+
+"Not against a grindstone!"
+
+This positive assertion was as reassuring in one way as it was
+disquieting in another. Stuart did not want to remain colored for an
+indefinite period of time. In his heart of hearts he began to wonder if
+he had not acted a little more hastily, and that if he had asked for
+Leon's advice instead of ordering him around, he might have found some
+milder stain. But it was too late to repent or retract now. His skin was
+a rich coffee brown from head to foot, and his dark eyes and black hair
+did not give his disguise the lie.
+
+"I'm going to bed," he next announced, "and I want some ragged boy's
+clothes by morning, Leon. Very ragged. Also an old pair of boots."
+
+"That is not good," protested the Haitian, "every boy here goes
+barefoot, Yes!"
+
+Stuart was taken aback. This difficulty had not occurred to him. It was
+true. Not only the boys, but practically nine men out of ten in Haiti go
+barefoot. This Stuart could not do. Accustomed to wearing shoes, he
+would cut his feet on the stones at every step he took on the roads, or
+run thorns into them every step he took in the open country.
+
+"I must have boots," he declared, "but old ones. Those I've been
+wearing," he nodded to where they lay on the floor--for this
+conversation was carried on with the boy wearing nothing but his new
+brown skin--"would give me away at once."
+
+"I will try and get them," answered Leon. His good-humored mouth opened
+in a wide smile. "Name of a Serpent!" he ejaculated, "but you are the
+image of the son of my half-sister!"
+
+At which saying, perhaps Stuart ought to have been flattered, since it
+evidenced the success of his disguise. But, being American, it ruffled
+him to be told he resembled a negro.
+
+He went to bed, far from pleased with himself and rather convinced that
+he had been hasty. Yet his last waking thought, if it had been put into
+words, would have been:
+
+"It's the right thing to do, and I'm going through with it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WHERE BLACK MEN RULE
+
+
+Stuart was not the only person on the streets of Cap Haitien the next
+morning who was conscious of personal danger. Manuel Polliovo was ill at
+ease. Bearing the secret that he bore, the Cuban knew that a hint of it
+would bring him instant death, or, if the authorities had time to
+intervene, incarceration in a Haitian prison, a fate sometimes worse
+than death. Even the dreaded presence of U. S. Marines would not hold
+the negro barbarians back, if they knew.
+
+Manuel was by no means blind to his peril. He was relieved in the
+thought that the American, Garfield, was where he could not do him any
+harm, but there were other dangers. Hence he was startled and jumped
+nervously, on hearing a voice by his elbow.
+
+"Do you want a guide, Senor?"
+
+"A guide, Boy! Where to?"
+
+The answer came clear and meaningly:
+
+"To the Citadel of the Black Emperor!"
+
+The Cuban grew cold, under the burning sun, and, professional
+conspirator though he was, his face blenched. His hand instinctively
+sought the pocket wherein lay his revolver.
+
+Yet he dare not kill. Five years of American occupation had bred a sense
+of law and order in the coast towns, at least, which had not been known
+in Haiti for a century and more. Any violence would lead to inquiry, and
+Manuel's record was not one which would bear investigation.
+
+How came this ragged Haitian urchin to know? Manuel's swift glance at
+Stuart had shown him nothing but a Creole lad in clothes too big for him
+and a pair of boots fastened with string. The messenger meant nothing,
+it was the message which held menace.
+
+To the Cuban this apparently chance street encounter was ominous of
+black threat. It revealed treachery and might mean a trap. But from
+whence? Swiftly Manuel's keen brain, the brain of an arch-plotter,
+scanned the manifold aspects of this sudden threat.
+
+How much labor, how many wild adventures, what a series of dangers would
+Stuart have escaped, had he but been able to read the thoughts of that
+crafty brain!
+
+Did his fellow-conspirators want to get rid of him? So Manuel's doubts
+ran. Did they count on his shooting the boy, in a panic, and being
+lynched for it, there and then, on the street of Cap Haitien? Or of his
+being imprisoned, tried and executed for murder? Such a plot was not
+unlikely.
+
+But, if so, who had sent the boy?
+
+Was Cesar Leborge playing him false? True, from that bull-necked,
+ferocious negro general, Manuel knew he could expect nothing but
+brutality, envy and hate; but such a design as this boy's intervention
+seemed too subtle for the giant Creole's brain. Manuel accounted himself
+master of the negro when it came to treachery and cunning. Moreover, he
+knew Leborge to be a sullen and suspicious character, little likely to
+talk or to trust anyone.
+
+What did the boy know? Manuel flashed a look at him. But Stuart was idly
+fiddling in the dust with the toe of his ragged boot, and the Cuban's
+suspicions flashed to another quarter.
+
+Could the Englishman, Guy Cecil, be to blame? That did not seem any more
+likely. Manuel was afraid of Cecil, though he would not admit it, even
+to himself. The Englishman's chill restraint, even in moments of the
+most tense excitement, cowed the Cuban. Never had he been able to
+penetrate into his fellow-conspirator's thoughts. But that Cecil should
+have talked loosely of so vital, so terrible a secret? No. The grave
+itself was not more secretive than that quiet schemer, of whom nothing
+ever seemed to be known. And to a negro boy! No, a thousand times, no!
+
+Stay--was this boy a negro boy? Suspicion changed its seat in the wily
+Cuban's brain. That point, at least, he would find out, and swiftly. He
+looked at his ragged questioner, still fiddling with his toe in the
+dust, and answered.
+
+"Well," he said, "you can show me what there is to be seen in this
+place. But first I will go to the Cafe. No," he continued, as the boy
+turned towards the new part of the town, built under American oversight,
+"not there. To the Cafe de l'Opera. Go down the street and keep a few
+steps in front."
+
+Stuart obeyed. He had seen the first swift motion of the Cuban's hand,
+when he had been accosted, and had guessed that it was pistolwards. It
+was uncomfortable walking in front of a man who was probably aching to
+blow one's brains out. Nasty little cold shivers ran up and down
+Stuart's back. But the tents of the U. S. Marines, in camp a little
+distance down the beach, gave him courage. With his sublime faith in the
+United States, Stuart could not believe that he could come to any harm
+within sight of the Stars and Stripes floating from the flagstaff in
+front of the encampment.
+
+While Stuart was thus getting backbone from his flag, Manuel was
+concentrating his wits and experience on this problem which threatened
+him so closely.
+
+Was this boy a negro?
+
+A life spent in international trickery on a large scale had made the
+Cuban a good judge of men. He knew native races. He knew--what the white
+man generally ignores or forgets--that between the various black races
+are mental differences as wide as between races of other color. He knew
+that the Ewe negro is no more like the Riff in character, than the
+phlegmatic Dutchman resembles the passionate Italian. If a black, to
+what race did this boy belong? Was he a black, at all?
+
+The bright sun threw no reflected lights on the boy's skin, the texture
+of which was darker than that of a mulatto, and had a dead, opaque look,
+lacking the golden glow of mulatto skin. The lad's hair showed little
+hint of Bantu ancestry and his feet were small. True, all this might
+betoken any of the Creole combinations common in Haiti, but the Cuban
+was not satisfied. If the skin had been stained, now----
+
+"Boy!" he called.
+
+Stuart looked around.
+
+"Here are some coppers for you."
+
+The boy slouched toward him, extended his hand negligently and the Cuban
+dropped some three-centime pieces into it.
+
+Stuart mumbled some words of thanks, imitating, as far as he could, the
+Haitian dialect, but, despite his desire to act the part, feeling
+awkward in receiving charity.
+
+Manuel watched him closely, then, abruptly, bade him go on ahead. The
+scrutiny had increased his uneasiness.
+
+This self-appointed guide was no negro, no mulatto, of that Manuel was
+sure. The money had been received without that wide answering grin of
+pleasure characteristic in almost all negro types. Moreover, the palms
+of the boy's hands were the same color as the rest of his skin. The
+Cuban knew well that a certain dirty pallor is always evident on the
+palms of the hands of even the blackest negroes.
+
+The boy's reference to the "Citadel of the Black Emperor" showed that he
+was aware of this secret meeting of conspirators.
+
+This was grave.
+
+More, he was disguised.
+
+This was graver still.
+
+Was this boy, too, afraid of Haiti, that savage land at the doors of
+America; that abode where magic, superstition and even cannibalism still
+lurk in the forests; that barbarous republic where the white man is
+despised and hated, and the black man dominates? That land where the
+only civilizing force for a century has been a handful of American
+marines!
+
+That this boy was disguised suggested that he was in fear for his life;
+but, if so, why was he there? How did he come to know the pass-word of
+the conspiracy? For what mysterious reason did he offer himself as a
+guide to the haunted place of meeting?
+
+Who was this boy?
+
+Manuel turned into the Cafe de l'Opera, a tumble-down frame shack with a
+corrugated iron roof, to order a cooling drink and to puzzle out this
+utterly baffling mystery.
+
+The Cuban's first impulse was to flee. Had anything less imperious than
+this all-important meeting been before him, Manuel would have made his
+escape without a moment's delay.
+
+Cap Haitien is no place for a white man who has fallen under suspicion.
+Of the four gateways into Haiti it is the most dangerous. In Jacamal, a
+white man may be left alone, so long as he does not incur the enmity of
+the blacks; in Gonaive the foreign holders of concessions may protect
+him; in Port-au-Prince, the capital, he is safeguarded by the potent arm
+of the American marines; but, in the country districts back of Cap
+Haitien, the carrion buzzards may be the only witnesses of his fate.
+And, to that back country, the Cuban must go. All this, Manuel knew, and
+he was a shrewd enough man to dare to be afraid.
+
+Stuart squatted in the shadow of the building while the Cuban sipped
+from his glass. Thus, each doubting the other, and each fearing the
+other, they gazed over the busy desolation of Cap Haitien, a town unlike
+any other on earth.
+
+Save for a small and recently rebuilt section in the heart of the
+town--which boasted some 10,000 inhabitants--flimsy frame houses rose in
+white poverty upon the ruins of what was once known as "the little Paris
+of the West Indies." Of the massive buildings of a century ago, not one
+remained whole. The great earthquake of 1842 did much toward their
+destruction; the orgy of loot and plunder which followed, did more; but
+the chiefest of all agents of demolition was the black man's rule.
+
+The spacious residences were never rebuilt, the fallen aqueducts were
+left in ruins, the boulevards fell into disrepair and guinea-grass
+rioted through the cracked pavements. Back of the town the plantations
+were neglected, the great houses fallen, while the present owners lived
+contentedly in the little huts which once had been built for slaves. The
+ruthless hands of time, weather and the jungle snatched back "Little
+Paris," and Cap Haitien became a huddled cluster of pitiful buildings
+scattered among the rubbish-heaps and walls of a once-beautiful
+stone-built town.
+
+This appearance of desolation, however, was contradicted by the evidence
+of commercial activity. The sea-front was a whirl of noise.
+
+The din of toil was terrific. Over the cobblestoned streets came rough
+carts drawn by four mules--of the smallest race of mules in the
+world--and these carts clattered down noisily with their loads of
+coffee-sacks, the drivers shouting as only a Haitian negro can shout. At
+the wharf, each cart was at once surrounded by a cluster of negroes,
+each one striving to outshout his fellows, while the bawling of the
+driver rose high above all. Lines of negroes, naked to the waist, sacks
+on their glistening backs, poured out from the warehouses like ants from
+an anthill, but yelling to out-vie the carters. The tiny car-line seemed
+to exist only to give opportunity for the perpetual clanging of the
+gong; and the toy wharf railway expended as much steam on its whistle as
+on its piston-power.
+
+Stuart had visited the southern part of Haiti with his father,
+especially the towns of Port-au-Prince and Jacamel, and he was struck
+with the difference in the people. Cap Haitien is a working town and its
+people are higher grade than the dwellers in the southern part of the
+republic. The south, however, is more populous. Haiti is thickly
+inhabited, with 2,500,000 people, of whom only 5,000 are foreigners, and
+of these, not more than 1,000 are whites. The island is incredibly
+fertile. A century and a quarter ago it was rich, and could be rich
+again. Its coffee crop, alone, could bring in ample wealth.
+
+To Stuart's eyes, coffee was everywhere. The carts were loaded with
+coffee, the sacks the negroes carried were coffee-sacks, the shining
+green berries were exposed to dry on stretches of sailcloth in vacant
+lots, among the ruins on the sides of the streets. Haitian coffee is
+among the best in the world, but the Haitian tax is so high that the
+product cannot be marketed cheaply, the American public will not pay the
+high prices it commands, and nearly all the crop is shipped to Europe.
+
+"Look at that coffee!" Stuart's father had exclaimed, just a week
+before. "Where do you suppose it comes from, Stuart? From cultivated
+plantations? Very little of it. Most of the crop is picked from
+half-wild shrubs which are the descendants of the carefully planted and
+cultivated shrubs which still linger on the plantations established
+under French rule, a century and a half ago. A hundred years of negro
+power in Haiti has stamped deterioration, dirt and decay on the
+island."
+
+"But that'll all change, now we've taken charge of the republic!" had
+declared Stuart, confident that the golden letters "U. S." would bring
+about the millennium.
+
+His father had wrinkled his brows in perplexity and doubt.
+
+"It would change, my boy," he said, "if America had a free hand. But she
+hasn't."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because, officially, we have only stepped in to help the Haitians
+arrive at 'self-determination.' The treaty calls for our aid for ten
+years, with a possibility of continuing that protection for another ten
+years. But we're not running the country, we're only policing it and
+advising the Haitians as to how things should be handled."
+
+"Do you think they'll learn?"
+
+"To govern themselves, you mean? Yes. To govern themselves in a
+civilized manner? No. I wouldn't go so far as to say that slavery or
+peonage are the only ways to make the up-country Haitian negro work,
+though a good many people who have studied conditions here think so.
+
+"The program of the modern business man in Haiti is different: Make the
+negro discontented with his primitive way of living, give him a taste
+for unnecessary luxuries, teach him to envy his neighbor's wealth and
+covet his neighbor's goods, and then make him work in order to earn the
+money to gratify these wishes, and civilization will begin.
+
+"Mark you, Stuart, I don't say that I endorse this program, I'm only
+telling you, in half-a-dozen words, what it really is. It is sure,
+though, that when the black man rules, he relapses into savagery; when
+he obeys a white master, he rises toward civilization."
+
+Stuart remembered this, now, as he sat outside the cafe, and looked
+pridefully at the tents of the U. S. Marines in the distance. He
+realized that American improvements in the coast towns had not changed
+the nature of the Haitian negro, or creole, as he prefers to be called.
+
+Under his father's instruction, the boy had studied Haitian history, and
+he knew that the Spaniards had ruled by fear, the French had ruled by
+fear, the negro emperors and presidents had ruled by fear, and, under
+the direct eye of the U. S. Marines, Haiti is still ruled by fear. In a
+dim way--for Stuart was too young to have grasped it all--the boy felt
+that this was not militarism, but the discipline necessary to an
+undeveloped race.
+
+Only the year before, Stuart himself had been through an experience
+which brought the innate savagery of the Haitian vividly before his
+eyes. He had been in Port-au-Prince when the Cacos undertook to raid the
+town, seize the island, and sweep the United States Marines into the
+sea. And, as he had heard a Marine officer tell his father, but for a
+chance accident, they might have succeeded.
+
+In October, 1919, Charlemagne Peralte, the leader of the Cacos, was
+killed by a small punitive party of U. S. Marines. The Cacos may be
+described as Haitian patriots or revolutionists, devotees of serpent and
+voodoo worship, loosely organized into a secret guerilla army. They
+number at least 100,000 men, probably more. About one-half of the force
+is armed with modern rifles. The headquarters of the Cacos is in the
+mountain country in the center of the island, above the Plain of
+Cul-de-Sac, where no white influence reaches. No one who knew Haitian
+conditions doubted that revenge would be sought for Charlemagne's death,
+and all through the winter of 1919-1920, the Marines were on the alert
+for trouble.
+
+The Cacos leadership had devolved upon Benoit, a highly educated negro,
+who had secured the alliance of "the Black Pope" and Chu-Chu, the two
+lieutenants of Charlemagne. Upon Benoit fell the duty of "chasing the
+white men into the sea" and exterminating the Americans, just as
+Toussaint l'Ouverture drove the English, and Dessalines, Christophe and
+Petion drove the French, a century before.
+
+Nearly four years of American occupation had passed. That the purpose of
+the United States was purely philanthropic was not--and is not--believed
+by the vast majority of the Haitians. Though living conditions have
+improved vastly, though brigandage on the plains has ceased, and though
+terrorism has diminished, at heart only the Haitian merchants and
+job-holders like the American occupation. The educated Creoles tolerate
+it. The semi-savages of the hills resent it.
+
+On January 16, some of the white men in Port-au-Prince noticed that the
+Creoles were excited and nervous. At the Cafe Bordeaux, at the Seaside
+Inn, at the Hotel Bellevue, strange groups met and mysterious passwords
+were exchanged. Sullen and latent hostility was changing from
+smouldering rancor to flaming hate. Port-au-Prince was ripe for revolt.
+
+Stuart remembered his father's return that night.
+
+"Son," he had said, putting a revolver on the little table beside his
+bed, "I hope you won't have to use this, but, at least, I've taught you
+to shoot straight."
+
+That night, Benoit, gathering up the local detachments of his forces,
+moved them in scattered groups through the abandoned plantations and off
+the main roads to the outskirts of the city. He had over 1,800 men with
+him. Most had modern rifles. All had machetes. All over the island other
+bands were in readiness, their orders being to wait until they heard of
+the fall of Port-au-Prince, when the massacre of all whites might begin.
+
+Benoit's plan was to take the city at daybreak. At midnight, he started
+three columns of 300 men each, from three directions. They wandered
+into the city by twos and threes, taking up positions. Their orders
+were, that, at the firing of a gun at daybreak, when the stores opened,
+they were to rush through the business district, setting fires
+everywhere and killing the white men and the gendarmerie. Benoit
+believed that, while his men could not withstand a pitched battle with
+the Marines, they could sweep the town in guerilla fashion when the
+Marines were scattered here and there, putting out fires. Moreover, the
+Cacos general was sure that, once a massacre of the whites was begun,
+race hatred would put all the black population on his side.
+
+Two o'clock in the morning came. Mr. Elliott, manager of a sugar
+refinery at Hascoville, a suburb two miles out of the city, was
+sleepless, and a vague uneasiness possessed him. Thinking that the fresh
+air might be beneficial, he went to a window and looked out.
+
+"Out of the myriad hissing, rustling and squawking noises of a tropic
+night, he heard the unmistakable 'chuff-chuff-chuff' of a marching
+column of barefoot men. He made out a single-file column moving rapidly
+across a field, off the road. He made out the silhouetes of shouldered
+rifles. Far off, under a yellow street lamp, he glimpsed a flash of a
+red shirt. That was enough. He telephoned to the Marine Brigade that the
+Cacos were about to raid Port-au-Prince.
+
+"Benoit's bubble," continued the report of the Special Correspondent of
+the _New York World_, "burst right there. Only about 150 of his 300
+'shock troops' had reached the market-place. No fires had been set. The
+people were all in bed and asleep. There were no materials for a panic.
+
+"The Marines, in patrols and in larger formations, spread through the
+streets swiftly to the posts arranged for emergency. Leslie Coombs, one
+of the Marines, saw several men enter the market, where they had no
+right to be; he ran to the door and was set upon by machete men, who
+slashed him and cut him down, but not until he had emptied his
+automatic.
+
+"The shooting and hand-to-hand fighting spread in a flash all through
+the business part of the city. The rest of the surprise detachment of
+the Cacos made a rush for the center of the city. One block was set on
+fire and burned.
+
+"The Marines deployed steadily and quickly. They put sputtering machine
+guns on the corners and cleaned the principal streets. There was
+fighting on every street and alley of a district more than a mile
+square.
+
+"The Cacos stood their ground bravely for a while, but their case was
+hopeless. The American fire withered them. First those on the rim of the
+city, and then those inside, turned their faces to the hills. The main
+body, realizing that the plan of attack was ruined, started a pell-mell
+retreat.
+
+"The Marines moved from the center of the city, killing every colored
+man who was not in the olive-drab uniform of the gendarmerie.
+
+"As the sky turned pink and then flashed into blazing daylight, the
+fight became a hunt. On every road and trail leading from the city,
+Marine hunted Cacos.
+
+"One hundred and twenty-two dead Cacos were found in and about the city;
+bodies found along the line of retreat in the next few days raised the
+total of known dead to 176. There were numerous prisoners, among them
+the famous chieftain, Chu-Chu." It was a swift and merciless affair,
+but, as Stuart's father had commented, no one who knew and understood
+Haitian conditions denied that it had been well and wisely done.
+
+Stuart had seen some of the fighting, and his father had pointed out to
+him that Port-au-Prince is not the whole of Haiti, nor does one repulse
+quell a revolt. The boy knew, and the Cuban, watching him, knew that for
+every man the Marines had slain, two had joined the Cacos and had sworn
+the blood-oath before the High Priest and the High Priestess (papaloi
+and mamaloi) of Voodoo.
+
+Revolt against the American Occupation, therefore, was an ever-present
+danger. Stuart wondered whether the negro who had been sent to him by
+Manuel were a Cacos, and, if so, whether his father were a prisoner
+among the Cacos. Manuel, for his part, wondered who this boy might be,
+who had darkened his skin in disguise. One thing the Cuban had
+determined and that was that he would not let the boy know that his
+disguise had been penetrated. None the less, he must find out, if
+possible, how the lad had come to know about the meeting-place of the
+conspirators.
+
+Finishing his drink, the Cuban rose, and, motioning to Stuart to precede
+him, walked to the sparsely settled section between the commercial
+center of the town and the Marine encampment. When the shouts of the
+toiling workers had grown faint in the distance, the Cuban stopped.
+
+"Boy!" he called.
+
+Stuart braced himself. He knew that the moment of his test had come. His
+heart thumped at his ribs, but he kept his expression from betraying
+fear. He turned and faced the Cuban.
+
+"In my right-hand pocket," said Manuel, in his soft and languorous
+voice, "is a revolver. My finger is on the trigger. If you tell one
+lie--why, that is the end of you! Why did you mention the Citadel of the
+Black Emperor?"
+
+Stuart's heart gave a bound of relief. He judged, from Manuel's manner,
+that his disguise had not been guessed. Elated with this supposed
+success, he commenced to tell glibly the tale he had prepared and
+studied out the day before.
+
+"I wanted to give you a warning," he said.
+
+The Cuban's gaze deepened.
+
+"Warning? What kind of a warning? From whom?"
+
+"Cesar Leborge," answered Stuart. He had judged from his father's papers
+that the two were engaged in a conspiracy, and thought that he could do
+nothing better than to provoke enmity between them. The proverb "When
+thieves fall out, honest men come by their own," rang through his head.
+
+Manuel was obviously impressed.
+
+"What do you know about this?" he asked curtly. "Tell your story."
+
+"I hate Leborge," declared Stuart, trying to speak as a negro boy would
+speak. "He took away our land and killed my father. I want to kill him.
+He never talks to anybody, but he talks to himself. The other night I
+overheard him saying he 'must get rid of that Cuban at the Citadel of
+the Black Emperor.'
+
+"So when I saw you here in Cap Haitien, I took a chance on it's being
+you he meant. If it hadn't been you, my asking you if you wanted a guide
+wouldn't have been out of the way."
+
+"You are a very clever boy," said Manuel, and turned away to suppress a
+smile.
+
+Certainly, he thought, this boy was a very clumsy liar. Stuart had never
+tried to play a part before, and had no natural aptitude for it. His
+imitation of the Haitian accent was poor, his manner lacked the
+alternations of arrogance and humility that the Haitian black wears.
+Then his story of the shadowing of Leborge was not at all in character.
+And, besides, as the Cuban had convinced himself, the boy was not a
+Haitian negro at all.
+
+Then, suddenly, a new thought flashed across Manuel's mind. He had
+thought only of his fellow-conspirators as traitors. But there was one
+other who had some inkling of the plot--Garfield, the American.
+
+And Garfield had a boy!
+
+The Cuban's lip curled with contempt at the ease with which he had
+unmasked Stuart. He had only to laugh and announce his discovery, for
+the boy to be made powerless.
+
+It was a temptation. But Manuel was too wily to yield to a temptation
+merely because it was pleasurable. As long as the boy did not know that
+he had been found out, he would live in a Fool's Paradise of his own
+cleverness. Believing himself unsuspected, he would carry out his
+plans--whatever they were--the while that Manuel, knowing his secret,
+could play with him as a cat plays with a mouse she has crippled.
+
+He decided to appear to believe this poorly woven story.
+
+"If you hate Leborge, and Leborge hates me," he said, "I suppose we are
+both his enemies. I presume," he added, shrewdly, "if I refused to take
+you with me to the Citadel of the Black Emperor, you would shadow me,
+and go any way."
+
+A flash of assent came into the boy's eyes, which, he was not quick
+enough to suppress. Decidedly, Stuart was not cut out for a conspirator,
+and would never be a match for the Cuban in guile.
+
+"I see you would," the Cuban continued. "Well, I would rather have you
+within my sight. Here is money. Tomorrow, an hour after sunrise, be at
+the door of the hotel with the best horses you can find. I wish to be at
+Millot by evening."
+
+Stuart took the money and preceded Manuel into the town, chuckling
+inwardly at his cleverness in outwitting this keen conspirator. But he
+would have been less elated with his success if he had heard the Cuban
+mutter, as he turned into the porch of the hotel,
+
+"First, the father. Now, the son!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE BLOOD-STAINED CITADEL
+
+
+A foul, slimy ooze, compounded of fat soil, rotting vegetation and
+verdigris-colored scum, with a fainter green mark meandering through
+it--such was the road to Millot.
+
+Stuart and the Cuban, the boy riding ahead, were picking their away
+across this noisome tract of land.
+
+For a few miles out of Cap Haitien, where the finger of American
+influence had reached, an air of decency and even of prosperity had
+begun to return. Near the town, the road had been repaired. Fields, long
+abandoned, showed signs of cultivation, anew.
+
+Two hours' ride out, however, it became evident that the new power had
+not reached so far. The road had dwindled to a trail of ruts, which
+staggered hither and thither in an effort to escape the quagmires--which
+it did not escape. Twice, already, Stuart's horse had been mired and he
+had to get out of the saddle and half-crawl, half-wriggle on his belly,
+in the smothering and sucking mud. So far, Manuel had escaped, by the
+simple device of not passing over any spot which the boy had not tried
+first.
+
+This caution was not to serve him long, however.
+
+At some sight or sound unnoticed by the rider, Manuel's horse shied from
+off the narrow path of tussocks on which it was picking its way, and
+swerved directly into the morass.
+
+The Cuban, unwilling to get into the mud, tried to urge the little horse
+to get out. Two or three desperate plunges only drove it down deeper and
+it slipped backward into the clawing mire.
+
+Manuel threw himself from his horse, but he had waited almost too long,
+and the bog began to draw him down. He was forced to cry for help.
+
+Stuart, turning in his saddle, saw what had happened. He jumped off his
+horse and ran to help the Cuban. The distance was too great for a
+hand-clasp. The ragged trousers which Stuart was wearing in his disguise
+as a Haitian lad were only held up by a piece of string; he had no belt
+which he could throw. There was no sapling growing near enough to make a
+stick.
+
+Then there came into the boy's mind an incident in a Western story he
+had read.
+
+Darting back to his horse, he unfastened the saddle girth, and, hurrying
+back to where Manuel was floundering in the mud, he threw the saddle
+outwards, holding the end of the girth. It was just long enough to
+reach. With the help of the flat surface given by the saddle and a
+gradual pulling of the girth by Stuart, the Cuban was at last able to
+crawl out.
+
+The gallant little horse, freed from its rider's weight, had reached a
+point where it could be helped, and the two aided the beast to get its
+forefeet on solid land.
+
+This rescue broke down much of the distance and some of the hostility
+between Manuel and Stuart, and, as soon as the road began to rise from
+the quagmire country, and was wide enough to permit it, the Cuban
+ordered the boy to ride beside him. Naturally, the conversation dealt
+with the trail and its dangers.
+
+"You would hardly think," said the Cuban, "that, a hundred years ago, a
+stone-built road, as straight as an arrow, ran from Cap Haitien to
+Millot, and that over it, Toussaint l'Ouverture, 'the Black Napoleon,'
+was wont to ride at breakneck speed, and Christophe, 'the black
+Emperor,' drove his gaudy carriage with much pomp and display."
+
+To those who take the road from Cap Haitien to Millot today, the
+existence of that ancient highway seems incredible. Yet, though only a
+century old, it is almost as hopelessly lost as the road in the Sahara
+Desert over which, once, toiling slaves in Egypt dragged the huge stones
+of which the Pyramids of Ghizeh were built.
+
+Stuart and the Cuban had made a late start. In spite of the powerful
+political influence which the Cuban seemed to wield, his departure had
+been fraught with suspicion. The Military Governor, a gigantic
+coal-black negro, had at first refused to grant permission for Polliovo
+to visit the Citadel; the Commandant of Marines had given him a warning
+which was almost an ultimatum.
+
+Manuel, with great suavity, had overset the former and defied the
+latter. His story was of the smoothest. He was a military strategist, he
+declared, and General Leborge had asked him to investigate the citadel,
+in order to determine its value as the site for a modern fort.
+
+Stuart's part in the adventure was outwardly simple. No one thought it
+worth while to question him, and he accompanied the Cuban as a guide and
+horse-boy.
+
+Although the road improved as the higher land was reached, it was dusk
+when the two riders arrived at the foothills around Millot.
+
+Dark fell quickly, and, with the dark, came a low palpitating rumble,
+that distant throbbing of sound, that malevolent vibrance which gives to
+every Haitian moonlit night an oppression and a fear all its own.
+
+"Rhoo-oo-oom--Rhoo-oo-oom--Rhoo-oo-oom!"
+
+Muffled, dull, pulsating, unceasing, the thrummed tom-tom set all the
+air in motion. The vibrance scarcely seemed to be sound, rather did it
+seem to be a slower tapping of air-waves on the drum of the ear, too low
+to be actually heard, but yet beating with a maddening persistence.
+
+There was a savagery in the sound, so disquieting, that a deep sigh of
+relief escaped from the boy's lungs when he saw the lights of Millot
+twinkling in the distance. Somehow, the presence of houses and people
+took away the sinister sound of the tom-tom and made it seem like an
+ordinary drum.
+
+Millot, in the faint moonlight, revealed itself as a small village,
+nestling under high mountains. Signs of former greatness were visible in
+the old gates which flanked the opening into its main street, but the
+greater part of the houses were thatched huts.
+
+When at the very entrance of the village, there came a ringing
+challenge,
+
+"Halt! Who goes there?"
+
+"A visitor to the General," was Manuel's answer.
+
+The barefoot sentry, whose uniform consisted of a forage cap, a coat
+with one sleeve torn off and a pair of frayed trousers, but whose rifle
+was of the most up-to-date pattern, was at once joined by several
+others, not more splendidly arrayed than himself.
+
+As with one voice, they declared that the general could not be
+disturbed, but the Cuban carried matters with a high hand. Dismounting,
+he ordered one of the sentries to precede him and announce his coming,
+and bade Stuart see that the horses were well looked after and ready for
+travel in the morning, "or his back should have a taste of the whip."
+
+This phrase, while it only increased the enmity the soldiers felt
+toward the "white," had the effect of removing all suspicion from
+Stuart, which, as the lad guessed, was the reason for Manuel's threat.
+Feeling sure that the boy would have the same animosity to his master
+that they felt, the soldiers seized the opportunity to while away the
+monotonous hours of their duty in talk.
+
+"What does he want, this 'white'?" they asked, suspiciously.
+
+"Like all whites," answered Stuart, striving to talk in the character of
+the negro horse-boy, "he wants something he has no right to have."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"Information. He says he is a military strategist, and is going to make
+La Ferriere, up there, a modern fort."
+
+"He will never get there," said one of the soldiers.
+
+"You think not?"
+
+"It is sure that he will not get there. Permission is refused always,
+Yes. The General is afraid lest a 'white' should find the buried money."
+
+"Christophe's treasure?" queried the boy, innocently. He had never heard
+of this treasure before, but rightly guessed that if it were supposed to
+be hidden in the Citadel of the Black Emperor, it must have been placed
+there by no one but the grim old tyrant himself.
+
+"But surely. Yes. You, in the south"--Stuart had volunteered the
+information that he came from the southern part of the island--"have
+you not heard the story of Dimanche (Sunday) Esnan?"
+
+"I never heard it, No," Stuart answered.
+
+"It was of strange, Yes," the soldier proceeded. "Christophe was rich,
+ah, how rich! He had all the money of the republic. He spent it like an
+emperor. You shall see for yourself, if you look, what Christophe spent
+in building palaces, but no one shall say how much he spent on his own
+pleasures. He had a court, like the great courts of Europe, and not a
+'white' in them. Ah, he was very rich and powerful, Christophe. It is
+said that, when he died, he left 65,000,000 gourdes (then worth about
+$15,000,000) and this he buried, should he need money in order to
+escape. But, as even an ignorant like you will know, he did not escape."
+
+"I know," replied Stuart, "he blew out his brains."
+
+"Right over there, he did it!" the soldier agreed, pointing into the
+night. "But listen to the story of the treasure:
+
+"When I was but a little older than a boy like you, into the Vache d'Or
+(a former gambling-house of some fame) there strolled this Dimanche
+Esnan. He swaggered in, as one with plenty of money in his pocket.
+
+"Upon the table he threw some coins.
+
+"The croupier stared down at those coins, with eyes as cold and fixed as
+those of a fer-de-lance ready to strike. The play at the table stopped.
+
+"It was a moment!
+
+"The coins were Spanish doubloons!"
+
+"A pirate hoard?" suggested Stuart.
+
+"It was thought. But this Dimanche had not been off the island for
+years! And the buccaneers' treasure is at Tortugas, as is well known.
+
+"This Dimanche was at once asked if he had found Christophe's treasure,
+for where else would a man find Spanish doubloons of a century ago? It
+was plain, Yes!
+
+"Well, what would you? President Hippolyte sent for him. He offered to
+make him a general, a full general, if he would but tell where he had
+found the treasure. He showed him the uniform. It was gold laced, yes,
+gold lace all over! Dimanche was nearly tempted, but not quite.
+
+"Then they let him come back here, to Cap Haitien, Yes. All the day and
+all the night he was kept under watch. Ah, that was a strict watch!
+Every one of the guards thought that he might be the one to get clue to
+the place of the buried treasure, look you!
+
+"But the general here, at that time, was not a patient man, No! Besides,
+he wanted the treasure. He wanted it without having the President of the
+Republic know. With sixty-five million gourdes he might push away the
+President and be president himself, who knows?
+
+"What would you? The general put Dimanche in prison and put him to the
+question (torture) but Dimanche said nothing. Ah, he was stubborn, that
+Dimanche. He said nothing, nothing! The general did not dare to kill
+him, for he knew that the President had given orders to have the man
+watched.
+
+"So the prison doors were set open. Pouf! Away disappears Dimanche and
+has not been seen since. He still carries the secret of the treasure of
+Christophe--that is, if he is not dead."
+
+"But didn't the President try to find the hoard on his own account?"
+asked Stuart.
+
+"But, most surely! My father was one of the soldiers in the party which
+searched in all the wonderful palaces that Christophe had built for
+himself in 'Without Worry,' in 'Queen's Delight,' in 'The Glory,' in
+'Beautiful View,' yes, even in the haunted Citadel of La Ferriere. No, I
+should not have liked to do that, it is surely haunted. But they found
+nothing.
+
+"Me, I think that the money is in the citadel. Has not the ghost of
+Christophe been seen to walk there? And why should the ghost walk if it
+had not a reason to walk? Eh?"
+
+"That does seem reasonable," answered Stuart, in response to the
+soldier's triumphant tone.
+
+"But, most sure! So, Boy," the guard concluded, "it is easy to see why
+the General does not like any 'white' to go to the Citadel. Perhaps the
+'white,' whose horses you look after, has seen Dimanche. Who knows? So
+he will not be let get up there. You may be sure of that."
+
+"One can't ever say," answered the boy. "I must be ready for the
+morning," and, with a word of farewell, he sauntered into the village of
+Millot, to find some kind of stabling and food for the horses, and, if
+possible, some shelter for himself.
+
+Morning found Stuart outside the door of the general's "mansion," a
+straw-thatched building, comprising three rooms and a narrow brick-paved
+verandah. From what the soldiers had said the night before, the boy had
+not the slightest expectation of the Cuban's success.
+
+He had not waited long, however, before Manuel came out through the
+door, obsequiously followed by a coal-black general daubed with gold
+lace--most of which was unsewn and hanging in tatters, and all of which
+was tarnished. He was strongly, even violently, urging upon Manuel the
+need of an escort. The Cuban not only disdained the question, but, most
+evidently, disdained and disregarded the man.
+
+This extraordinary scene was closed by the General, the commandant of
+the entire commune, holding out his hand for a tip. Manuel put a
+five-gourdes bill (two dollars and a half) into the outstretched palm,
+and mounted his horse to an accompaniment of a profusion of thanks.
+
+A short distance out of Millot, the two riders came to the ruins of
+Christophe's palace of "Without Worry" (Sans Souci). It was once a
+veritable palace, situated on the top of a small hill overlooking a deep
+ravine. Great flights of stone steps led up to it, while terrace upon
+terrace of what once were exquisitely kept gardens, filled with the
+finest statuary, stepped to the depths below.
+
+Now, the gardens are waste, the statuary broken and the terraces are
+washed into gullies by the rains. The palace itself is not less
+lamentable. The walls are crumbling. Everything movable from the
+interior has been looted. Trees grow outward from the upper windows,
+and, in the cracks of masonry and marble floors, a tropic vegetation has
+sprung up. Moss covers the mosaics, and the carved woodwork has become
+the prey of the worm.
+
+A little further on, at a hut which the General had described, Manuel
+and Stuart left their horses, and then began the steep climb up La
+Ferriere. From the steaming heat of the plain below, the climbers passed
+into the region of cold. The remains of a road were there, but the track
+was so indistinct as to render it difficult to follow.
+
+"Where the dense forest begins," Manuel explained, "we shall find a
+warder. I would rather be without him, but the General does not dare to
+send a message that a 'white' may visit the Citadel unaccompanied.
+Besides, I doubt if we could find the way, though once this was a wide
+road, fit for carriage travel, on which the Black Emperor drove in pomp
+and state to his citadel. It is incredible!"
+
+"What is incredible?" asked Stuart.
+
+"That Christophe should have been able to make these negroes work for
+him as no people in the world have worked since the days when the
+Pharaohs of Egypt built the Pyramids. You will see the vast size of the
+Citadel. You see the steepness of the mountain. Consider it!
+
+"The materials for the whole huge pile of building and the three hundred
+cannon with which it was fortified, were dragged up these steep mountain
+scarps and cliffsides by human hands. Christophe employed the troops
+mercilessly in this labor and subdued mutiny by the simple policy of not
+only shooting the mutineers, but also a corresponding number of innocent
+men, as well, just to teach a lesson. Whole villages were commandeered.
+Sex made no difference. Women worked side by side with men, were whipped
+side by side with men, and, if they weakened, were knifed or shot and
+thrown into a ditch. One of Christophe's overseers is said to have
+boasted that he could have made a roadway of human bones from Sans Souci
+to the summit."
+
+The words "bloody ruffian" were on Stuart's lips, but, just in time, he
+remembered his character, and replied instead,
+
+"But Christophe was a great man!"
+
+The boy knew well that though Toussaint L'Ouverture, the "Black
+Napoleon," had truly been a great man in every sense of the word, a
+liberator, general and administrator, the Haitians think little of him,
+because he believed that blacks, mulattoes and whites should have an
+equal chance. Dessalines and Christophe, monsters of brutality, are the
+heroes of Haiti, because they massacred everyone who was not coal-black.
+
+Manuel cast a sidelong glance at Stuart, smiling inwardly at the boy's
+attempt to maintain his disguise, that disguise which the Cuban had so
+quickly pierced, and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"What would you!" he rejoined. "You see yourself, it is the only
+government that Haitians understand. To this day, a century later, this
+part of the island is better than the south, because of the impress of
+the reign of Christophe. Nothing changes Haiti!"
+
+"The Americans?" queried Stuart, trying to put a note of dislike into
+his voice, but intensely interested in his own question.
+
+"They have changed nothing!" declared the Cuban, emphatically. "They
+have painted the faces of the coast towns, and that is all. You heard
+that drum, the night before last? Not until the tom-tom has ceased to
+beat in Haiti, can anything be changed."
+
+He rose, threw away the stump of his cigar, and motioned to the boy to
+take up the trail.
+
+A few hundred yards higher, a raucous shout halted them.
+
+There was a rustle of branches, and a negro colossus, of the low-browed,
+heavy-jawed type, plunged through the thicket and barred the path.
+
+Bareheaded, barefooted, his shirt consisting of a piece of cloth with
+holes for head and arms, his trousers torn to tatters by thorns, the
+warder of the Citadel looked what he was, a Caco machete man, little
+removed from the ferocity of African savagery.
+
+To his shout, the Cuban deigned no answer.
+
+He broke a switch from a bush, walked toward the negro guard with a
+contemptuous look and lashed him across the face with the switch,
+ordering him to lead the way.
+
+Stuart expected to see the Cuban cut down with one stroke of the
+machete.
+
+Far from it. Cowed at once, the negro cringed, as to a master, and,
+without a word as to Manuel's authority, led the way up the trail.
+
+A hundred yards higher, all sign of a path was lost. The negro warder
+was compelled to use his machete to cut a way through thorny underbrush
+and creepers in order to make a path for the "white's" feet.
+
+The afternoon was well advanced when openings amid the trees showed,
+beetling overhead, the gray walls of the Citadel. An hour's further
+climbing brought them to the guard-house, where eight men watch
+continually, each relief for a period of a month, against the intrusion
+of strangers into Christophe's Citadel.
+
+An irregularly disposed clump of posts, stuck into the ground, supported
+a rusted and broken tin roof, without walls, but boasting a brushwood
+pile on one side--such was the entire barracks of the La Ferriere
+garrison. The furniture consisted only of a log on which to sit, a few
+cooking utensils, and a pile of rags in the driest corner.
+
+True, there was plenty of room in the Citadel. Many a chamber in the
+ruined place was dry and sheltered from the weather, many a corner was
+there where the watchers could have made themselves warm and
+comfortable. They were not forbidden to sleep there. On the contrary,
+they were encouraged. But never a one would do so. They declared the
+place haunted and were in a state of terror even to be near it.
+
+Manuel, after pausing for a moment to take his breath, strode up to the
+group.
+
+"Get in there, some of you!" he ordered, "And show me the way. I want to
+see over the place."
+
+A chorus of wails arose. The guards shrank and cowered at the
+suggestion. Their terror was more than panicky, it was even hysterical.
+They shook with convulsive jerks of fear, as though they had a spasm
+disease.
+
+"Christophe!" cried one of them, in a sort of howl. "Christophe! For
+three days he is here, Yes! We see him walk, Yes! If we go in, he will
+make us jump off the cliff!"
+
+And another added, with an undertone of superstitious horror,
+
+"And his ghost will be waiting at the bottom to carry our ghosts away!"
+
+"Fools!" declared Manuel, "open the door!"
+
+He pointed to where the huge, rusty iron-bound door frowned in the blank
+wall of gray stone.
+
+The negro guards hung back and gabbled together, but Manuel turned upon
+them fiercely with uplifted switch. At that, the giant warder, who had
+already acknowledged the mastership, slouched forward and pulled open
+the creaking door, leaving a dark opening from which came the smell of
+foul air and poisonous vegetation.
+
+Manuel motioned with his head for Stuart to precede him.
+
+The boy hesitated. He was brave enough, but the terror of the negroes
+was catching. He would not have admitted to being afraid, but there was
+a lump in his throat and his legs felt unsteady.
+
+The Cuban, who felt sure that Stuart was not the negro horse-boy that he
+seemed, judged this appearance of fear as evidence that the boy was
+still playing a part, and turned on him with a snarl.
+
+"Get in there, you!"
+
+Screwing up his courage, Stuart stepped forward, though hesitatingly and
+unwillingly. Just as he crossed the threshold, the giant warder reached
+out a gaunt hand and pulled him back.
+
+"Not that way!" he said. "Two steps more, Boy, and you are dead!"
+
+Manuel started. From his pocket he took a portable electric light and
+flashed it upon the ground just within the entrance.
+
+The negro guard was right. Immediately before him lay a deep pit, how
+deep there was no means of saying. Once it had been covered with a
+trap-door, which could be worked from the Inner Citadel. Thus
+Christophe, if he pleased, could send a message of welcome to his
+visitors, and drop them to a living death with the words of hospitality
+on his lips.
+
+"If I had gone first," said Manuel quietly, turning to the guards, "not
+one of you would have said a word!"
+
+The negroes slunk away under his gaze. The accusation was true. They had
+no love for the "whites." Only the fact that they believed Stuart to be
+a negro boy had saved him.
+
+The boy looked down at that profound dungeon, from which rose a faint
+stench, and shuddered.
+
+There was a heavy pause. Manuel was debating whether he dare try and
+force the guards to show the way. If he ordered it, he would have to
+force it through, or the prestige he had won would be lost. He dared
+not. As between the terror of a white man's gun, and the terror of a
+"ha'nt," the latter was the more powerful.
+
+Motioning Stuart to enter and showing the narrow ledge around the pit
+with the spotlight, he followed. Then he turned to the guards clustered
+outside.
+
+"Close the door!" he ordered, curtly.
+
+This command was obeyed with alacrity. The negro guards were only too
+anxious to see that hole in the wall shut. Suppose the ghost of
+Christophe should come gliding out among them!
+
+So far, the Cuban was safe. He had reached the Citadel and entered it.
+He had no fear that the warders would open it again to spy on him.
+Their terror was too real.
+
+Raising the spotlight so that it flashed full upon Stuart's face, the
+Cuban spoke.
+
+"Understand me, now," he said curtly, and with a hard ring in his voice.
+"How much of your story may be true and how much false I have not yet
+found out. But, if what you say about hating Leborge is true, I will put
+you in a place where you will be able to see him. You have a pistol, I
+know. If you see Leborge raise pistol or knife against me, shoot, and
+shoot quickly! I will make you rich!"
+
+Stuart thought to himself that if the conspirators were to come to
+quarreling, that was the very time he would keep still. He, certainly,
+had no desire for bloodshed, nor any intention to fire at anybody, if he
+could help it. But he only answered,
+
+"I understand."
+
+Manuel's intention was no less concealed. He planned either to reveal
+the boy to his fellow-conspirators, or else, to reveal him to the negro
+warders as a white intruder. Either way, he figured, there would be an
+end to the boy.
+
+By the light of his lamp, consulting a small manuscript chart of the
+ruin, Manuel passed through many tortuous passages and dark chambers
+until he came to a ruined wall. Climbing a few feet up the crumbling
+stones, he set his eye to a crevice, nodded as though satisfied,
+wrenched away several more stones, laying these down silently and
+beckoned Stuart to come beside him.
+
+The boy looked down on a circular hall, the outer arc of which was
+pierced with ruined windows opening to the sky.
+
+"Leborge will sit there!" whispered Manuel, pointing. "Kill him, and you
+will be rich!"
+
+Stuart nodded. He did not trust himself to speak.
+
+Walking as silently as he could, Manuel left the place, pondering in his
+own mind what he was going to do with the boy. Should he reveal the
+secret and have his fellow-conspirators kill him? Should he turn him
+over to the machetes of the negroes? Or should he kill the boy, himself?
+One thing he had determined--that Stuart should not reach the plains
+below, alive.
+
+And Stuart, in that hole of the ruined wall, crouched and watched. Of
+what was to happen in that room below, what dark plot he was to hear, he
+had no knowledge. Yet, over his eager desire to find out this conspiracy
+against the United States, above his anxiety with regard to the fate of
+his father, one question loomed in ever larger and blacker proportions--
+
+He had got into the Citadel. How was he to get out?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GHOST OF CHRISTOPHE
+
+
+Manuel was no coward. Somewhere, back in his Spanish ancestry, had been
+a single drop of an Irish strain, adding a certain combativeness to the
+gallantry of his race. That drop, too, mixed badly with Spanish
+treachery, and made him doubly dangerous.
+
+Certainly the Cuban was no coward. But, as he came out from the murk of
+those chambers with their rotting floors, many of them undermined by
+oubliettes and dungeons, he felt a chill of fear. Even the occasional
+bursts of sunshine through the cloud-fog which perpetually sweeps over
+La Ferriere did not hearten him. He passed into the open space back of
+the outer walls and set himself to climb the long flight of stone steps
+that led to the battlements, where, he thought, his fellow conspirators
+might be. But, on the summit, he found himself alone.
+
+The battlements cowed his spirits. With walls fifteen feet thick, wide
+enough to allow a carriage to be driven upon them, they looked over a
+sheer drop of two thousand feet. Sinister and forbidding, even the
+sunlight could not lessen their grimness.
+
+As if in memory of the hundreds of victims who had been bidden jump off
+those ramparts, merely for Christophe's amusement, or who had been
+hurled, screaming, as penalty for his displeasure, a ruddy moss feeding
+upon decay, has spread over the stones, and this moss, ever kept damp by
+the cloud-banks which wreathe the Citadel continually is moistly red,
+like newly shed blood. In cracks and corners, fungi of poisonous hues
+adds another touch of wickedness. Manuel shivered with repulsion.
+Probably not in all the world, certainly not in the Western Hemisphere,
+is there a ruin of such historic terror as the Citadel of the Black
+Emperor on the summit of La Ferriere.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: This ruin, now, is nominally in territory under the
+jurisdiction of an American provost-marshal. It is therefore less
+difficult of access than formerly, but it is still considered unsafe for
+travelers.]
+
+A gleam of sun revealed the extraordinary impregnability of the place.
+The double-walled entrance from the hillside, pierced by but a single
+gate, could only be battered down by heavy artillery, and no guns
+powerful enough for such a feat could be brought up the hill. The Inner
+Citadel, access to which was only by a long flight of steps, is
+unapproachable from any other point, and a handful of defenders could
+keep an army at bay.
+
+The cliff-side is as sheer as Gibraltar, affording not even a foothold
+for the most venturesome climber. The walls are built upon its very
+verge and are as solid as the rock itself. Its gray mass conveys a
+sense of enormous power. "It towers upon the last and highest
+precipice," says Hesketh Prichard, "like some sinister monster of the
+elder world, ready to launch itself forth upon the spreading lands
+below."
+
+The Citadel commands the whole of the Plain of the North clear to the
+distant sea. At its south-eastern end it faces toward the frontier of
+St. Domingo, the sister republic, fifty miles away. Christophe built it
+as a central base, controlling the only roads and passes which command
+the range from Dondon to Valliere, and rendering attack impossible, from
+the southern side, through Marmalade. (Many names in Haiti give an
+irresistible appearance of being comic, such as the Duke of Lemonade,
+Duke of Marmalade, Baron the Prophet Daniel, and Colonel the Baron Roast
+Beef, but they are intended seriously.)
+
+Manuel had gazed over the landscape but a few moments when the sun was
+veiled in one of the cold, raw cloud-fogs which continually sweep the
+summit. Billowing, dank masses hurtled about him, blotting out even the
+outlines of the ruin. For several minutes the grey mists enwreathed him,
+then, as they lightened, the Cuban saw before him, shadow-like and
+strange, the figure of the Black Emperor himself.
+
+The warders' terror of the ghost of Christophe cramped Manuel's heart
+for a moment and he fell back. His hand flashed to his pocket, none the
+less.
+
+The figure laughed, a harsh coarse laugh which Manuel knew and
+recognized at once.
+
+"General Leborge," he exclaimed, surprise and self-annoyance struggling
+in his voice. "It is you!"
+
+"But Yes, my friend, it is I. You see, I am not so daring as you. I came
+secretly. I have been here three days, waiting for you."
+
+"But the meeting was set for today!"
+
+"It is true. But it was more difficult for me to get here than for you.
+See you, as a stranger you had not the suspicion of intrusion to combat.
+No, if it were known that I were here, there would be political
+difficulties--ah, many! Yes!"
+
+The Cuban nodded. He was not especially interested in the political
+embroilments of his co-conspirator. As a matter of fact, the plot
+accomplished, it was Manuel's purpose to let enough of the truth leak
+out to make it seem that Leborge had been a traitor to the Haitian
+Republic.
+
+"Have you seen Cecil?" he asked.
+
+"Not yet, No!" answered the negro general. "Me, I had thought he would
+come with you."
+
+"He didn't. And he wasn't on the road from Cap Haitien, either. Queer,
+too. First time I ever knew him to fail."
+
+"So! But I have a feeling he will not fail. He will be here today. Come
+down to the place of meeting. I have some food and we can have a
+mouthful while waiting for him."
+
+The big negro cast a look at himself.
+
+"I do not think we shall be interrupted, No!" he commented.
+
+The Cuban showed his teeth in the gleam of a quick smile.
+
+"The guards are too much afraid of the ghost of Christophe to dare enter
+the place," he said. "That was a good idea of yours."
+
+The two men turned away from the battlements to the steps which led down
+toward the dwelling rooms, and Manuel laid finger on lip.
+
+"It is well to be a ghost," he said, "but if the guards should chance to
+hear me talking to the ghost, they might begin to think. And thinking,
+my dear Leborge, is sometimes dangerous."
+
+The huge negro nodded assent and hung back while Manuel descended the
+stair.
+
+At the entrance into the high room, ringed with windows, in a small
+ruined opening of which Stuart crouched watching, Manuel waited for
+Leborge. Together they entered.
+
+At the door of the room the negro started back with an exclamation of
+astonishment, and even Manuel paused.
+
+On a square block of stone in the center of the room, which Manuel could
+have sworn was not there when he looked into the chamber a short
+half-hour before, sat Guy Cecil, complacently puffing at a briar pipe.
+His tweeds were as immaculate as though he had just stepped from the
+hands of his valet, and his tan shoes showed mark neither of mud nor
+rough trails. Manuel's quick glance caught these details and they set
+him wondering.
+
+"By the Ten Finger-Bones!" ejaculated Leborge. "How did you get in
+here?"
+
+"Why?" asked Cecil, in mild surprise.
+
+"Polliovo didn't see you come. I didn't see you come."
+
+"No?"
+
+The negation was insolent in its carelessness.
+
+"But how did you get in?"
+
+The Englishman took his pipe from his mouth, and, with the stem, pointed
+negligently to a window.
+
+"That way," he said.
+
+The negro blustered out an oath, but was evidently impressed, and looked
+at his fellow-conspirator with superstitious fear.
+
+The Cuban, more curious and more skeptical, went straight to the window
+and looked out. The crumbling mortar-dust on the sill had evidently been
+disturbed, seeming to make good the Englishman's story, but, from the
+window, was a clear drop of four hundred feet of naked rock, without
+even a crack to afford a finger-hold, while the precipitous descent fell
+another fifteen hundred feet. To climb was a feat manifestly impossible.
+
+"Permit me to congratulate you on your discovery of wings, Senor Cecil,"
+remarked Manuel, with irony.
+
+The Englishman bowed, as at a matter-of-course compliment, and, by
+tacit agreement, the subject dropped.
+
+Yet Manuel's irritation was hard to hide. Not the least of the reasons
+for his animosity to Cecil was the Englishman's undoubted ability to
+cover his movements. In the famous case when the two conspirators had
+negotiated an indigo concession in San Domingo and the profits had
+suddenly slipped through Manuel's fingers, the Cuban was sure that the
+Englishman had made a winning, but he had no proof. Likewise, with this
+plot in hand, Manuel feared lest he should be outmanoeuvred at the last.
+
+Following Cecil's example, Leborge and Manuel rolled out to the center
+of the room some blocks that had fallen from the walls, and sat down.
+Stuart noticed that the Cuban so placed himself that he was well out of
+a possible line of fire between the negro general and the embrasure
+where the boy was hidden. This carefulness, despite its air of
+negligence, reminded Stuart of the role he was expected to play, and he
+concentrated his attention on the three conspirators.
+
+Although the Cuban was apparently the only one who had reason to suspect
+being overheard, the three men talked in low tones. The language used
+was French, as Stuart gleaned from a word or two which reached his ears,
+but the subject of the conversation escaped him. One phrase, however,
+attracted his attention because it was so often repeated, and Stuart
+surmised that this phrase must bear an important relation to the main
+subject of the meeting. The boy did not fail to realize that a
+conference so important that it could only be held in so secret a place
+must be of extraordinary gravity. This phrase was----
+
+[Illustration: FOR A HUNDRED FEET THEY FELL AND STUART CLOSED HIS EYES
+IN SICKENING DIZZINESS]
+
+"Mole St. Nicholas."
+
+The words held no meaning for Stuart, though he had seen reference to
+them in his father's papers. He suspected that the phrase might be some
+catch-word referring to a subject too dangerous for mention, possibly
+the Presidency of Haiti. Following out this theme, the boy guessed that
+he was a witness to the hatching of one of the political revolutions,
+which, from time to time, have convulsed the Republic of Haiti. If so,
+the matter was serious, for, as the boy knew, ever since the treaty of
+1915, the United States was actively interested in forcing the
+self-determination of Haiti, meanwhile holding the country under a
+virtual protectorate. Such a revolution, therefore, would be a
+deliberate attack upon the United States.
+
+This impression was heightened by his catching the words "naval base,"
+which could only deal with possible developments in a state of war.
+Stuart strained his ears to the utmost, but isolated words were all that
+he could glean.
+
+Later, Stuart was to learn that his guess was at fault in general, but
+that the conclusion he had reached--namely, that injury to the United
+States was intended--was not far wide of the mark.
+
+As the conference proceeded, it became evident to the hidden observer
+that the relations between the conspirators were growing strained. The
+Cuban seemed to be in taunting mood. The veins on the negro general's
+bull neck began to swell, and he turned and called Manuel,
+
+"Pale Toad!"
+
+A moment after, his raucous voice insulted the Englishman with the
+description,
+
+"Snake that does not even hiss!"
+
+Stuart expected to see violence follow these words, but the Cuban only
+moved restlessly under the insult; the Englishman smiled. It was a
+pleasant smile, but Stuart was keen enough to grasp that a man who
+smiles when he is insulted must either be a craven or a dangerous man
+with an inordinate gift of self-control. Cecil could not be a coward, or
+such men as Manuel and Leborge would not so evidently fear him,
+therefore the other character must befit him.
+
+Another word which repeated itself frequently was----
+
+"Panama."
+
+This confirmed Stuart in his suspicions that the conspiracy, whatever it
+might portend, was directed against the authority of the United States,
+since the Panama Canal Zone is under American jurisdiction.
+
+The conference was evidently coming to a crisis. The negro was becoming
+excited, the Cuban nervous, the Englishman more immovable than ever.
+
+Came a sudden movement, following upon some phrase uttered by Manuel,
+but unheard by the boy, and the Cuban and Leborge leaped to their feet,
+a revolver in each man's right hand.
+
+Spoke the Englishman, in a quiet voice, but sufficiently deepened by
+excitement to reach the boy's ears:
+
+"Is there any reason, Gentlemen, why I should not shoot both of you and
+finish this little affair myself?"
+
+A revolver glittered in his hand, though no one had seen the action of
+drawing.
+
+In the flash of a second, Stuart understood Manuel's plot. It was the
+Cuban who had provoked the negro to draw his weapon, counting on the
+boy's shooting his supposed enemy, as had been agreed upon. Then Manuel
+would drag him out of his hiding-place and kill him for an eavesdropper.
+He crouched, motionless, and watched.
+
+"Sit down, and put up your weapons," continued Cecil, his voice still
+tense enough to be heard clearly. "This is childishness. Our plans need
+all three of us. It will be time enough to quarrel when we come to
+divide the spoils. First, the spoils must be won."
+
+Negro and Cuban, without taking their eyes from other, each fearing that
+the other might take an advantage, realized from Cecil's manner, that he
+must have the drop on them. With a simultaneous movement, they put away
+their guns. The negro sat down, beaten. Manuel, with a swift and hardly
+noticeable side-step, moved a little nearer to Cecil, putting himself
+almost within knife-thrust distance.
+
+A slight, a very slight elevation of the barrel of the tiny revolver
+glittering in the Englishman's hand warned the Cuban that the weapon was
+covering his heart. An even slighter narrowing of the eyelids warned him
+that Cecil was fully ready to shoot.
+
+With a low curse, the Cuban retreated to his stone and sat down. He did
+not sprawl loosely in dejection, as had the negro, but he sat with one
+foot beside the stone and his body leaning half-forward, his muscles
+tense, like a forest cat awaiting its spring.
+
+The conference came to a head quickly, as Stuart saw. The outbreak of
+mistrust and hostility, followed by discussion, proved how closely
+linked were the plotters. Yet each man wanted the business done as
+quickly as possible, and wanted to be free from the danger of
+assassination by his comrades.
+
+Leborge drew from his pocket a paper which he showed to the other two,
+and, in turn, Manuel and Cecil produced documents, the Englishman using
+his left hand only and never dropping the barrel of his revolver. Few
+words were exchanged, and these in the low tones in which the conference
+had been carried on before. Of the contents of the papers, Stuart could
+not even guess. Whatever they were, they seemed to be satisfactory,
+for, so far as the boy could judge, harmony returned among the
+conspirators. But the Englishman kept wary watch with his gun.
+
+"All goes well, then," concluded Leborge, rising and shivering in the
+damp air, for the clouds were eddying through the ruined windows in raw
+and gusty blasts.
+
+"It can be done next spring!" declared the Cuban.
+
+"It will be done, as agreed," was the Englishman's more cautious
+statement.
+
+"Then," said Manuel, raising his voice a trifle in a way which Stuart
+knew he was meant to hear, "the sooner I get down to Cap Haitien the
+better. I had trouble enough to get up."
+
+"It might be well," suggested the Englishman, "if Leborge should repeat
+his trick of appearing as the ghost of Christophe. The guards will be so
+frightened that they will think of nothing else, and you will be able to
+get away without any unpleasantness."
+
+"And you?" queried the Cuban. "How will you go?"
+
+Again the Englishman nodded toward the window.
+
+"I will use the wings you were kind enough to say I must possess," he
+answered, enigmatically.
+
+Peering out cautiously from his post of observation in the embrasure,
+Stuart saw that both Manuel and Leborge hesitated at the entrance to
+the dark passage which led from the Dining Hall and Queen's Chamber to
+the inner court, from whence went the paths leading respectively to the
+outer gate, whither Manuel must go, and to the battlements, where
+Leborge was to reappear as the ghost of Christophe.
+
+"You are afraid of each other?" queried Cecil, with his faint smile.
+"Well, perhaps you have reason! I will go through the passage with both
+of you. As I said before, each of us needs the other."
+
+Relief and hate passed like shadows across the faces of Leborge and
+Manuel. Each had intended to kill the other in the dark of those
+passages, each had feared that he might be slain himself. As Cecil knew,
+once out in the open, mutual distrust and watchfulness would ensure the
+keeping of the peace.
+
+Stuart, listening intently for the sound of shots, heard in the distance
+the Englishman's voice:
+
+"I forgot my pipe. I'll just go back for it."
+
+And then he heard steps coming at a light, but fast run. Evidently Cecil
+wanted to gain time.
+
+The Englishman came in swiftly, picked up his pipe--which he had left on
+the stone--slipped across toward the window, moved a loosened stone and
+drew out from a cavity in the wall a green bundle from which some straps
+were hanging. These he buckled on as a body-harness. Stuart had never
+seen fingers that moved so quickly, or which had less appearance of
+hurry.
+
+A thought struck him. Impulsively, he leaped from the embrasure.
+
+A glitter told him that the gun was covering him.
+
+He spoke breathlessly.
+
+"Manuel expected me to kill Leborge. He'll kill me for not doing it."
+
+In answer to a commanding look of interrogation, Stuart went on:
+
+"I'm an American, and straight. I'll tell you all about it, later. Guess
+there isn't much time, now. Take me with you."
+
+Cecil knew men. He looked at the boy, piercingly, and answered:
+
+"Very well. If you've got the nerve."
+
+"I have!"
+
+Eye flashed to eye.
+
+Came the decision:
+
+"Your belt's too small. Take mine!"
+
+The Englishman unfastened his own belt, grasped the boy by the
+shoulders, spun him round, ran the belt under his arms and through the
+two sides of the harness he had strapped on himself. He took a step and
+a heave and both were on the window-sill.
+
+At the sight of the abyss below, a sudden panic caught Stuart's breath
+and heart, and he seemed to choke.
+
+"What do we do?" he gasped.
+
+"We jump!" said Cecil.
+
+They leaped clear.
+
+For a hundred feet they fell, and Stuart closed his eyes in that
+sickening dizziness which comes from a high fall.
+
+Then he felt Cecil's arm grip him in a bear hug, and, a second after,
+his breast bone seemed to cave in, as a sudden jerk and strain came on
+the strap by which he was bound to the Englishman.
+
+Instinctively he tried to squirm free, but the grip and the strap held
+firm.
+
+Then the falling motion changed into a slow rocking see-saw, coupled
+with a sense of extraordinary lightness, and Stuart, looking overhead,
+saw the outstretched circle of a modern parachute.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ISLE OF THE BUCCANEERS
+
+
+Swaying in sea-sick fashion, Stuart saw the forests, far below, seem to
+rise up to meet him. Under the influence of the double motion of drop
+and roll, the whole earth seemed to be rocking, and the sense of the
+void beneath him made Stuart feel giddy and faint. The fall was slower
+than he had expected.
+
+Soon, a damp heat, rising from below, warned the boy that they were
+approaching the ground, and, a second or two later, the Englishman said
+quietly:
+
+"We are going to hit the trees. Cover your face and head with your arms.
+You won't be hurt, but there is no sense in having one's eyes scratched
+out."
+
+In fact, the trees were very near. Stuart cast one look down, and then,
+following the advice given, covered his face. A quarter of a minute
+later, his legs and the lower half of his body plunged into twigs and
+foliage. The parachute, released from a part of the weight which had
+held it steady, careened, was caught by a sidewise gust of wind, and,
+bellying out like a sail, it dragged the two aerial travelers through
+the topmost branches in short, vicious jerks which made Stuart feel as
+though he were being pulled apart. This lasted but a minute or two,
+however, when the parachute itself, torn, and caught in the branches,
+came to anchor.
+
+"I fancy we had better climb down," remarked Cecil, cheerfully, and, at
+the same time, Stuart realized that the belt, which had grappled him
+tight to the Englishman's harness, had been loosened.
+
+The boy drew a long breath, for his lungs had been tightly compressed
+during the downward journey, and, instinctively, reached out for a
+branch sufficiently strong to support him.
+
+The Englishman, a man of quicker action, had already swung clear and was
+descending the tree with a lithe agility that seemed quite out of
+keeping with his quiet and self-possessed manner. The boy, despite his
+youth, came down more clumsily. On reaching ground, he found his
+companion sedately polishing his tan boots with a tiny bit of rag he had
+taken from a box not much bigger than a twenty-five cent piece. Stuart's
+clothes were torn in half-a-dozen places, Cecil's tweeds were absolutely
+unharmed.
+
+The Englishman caught the boy's thought and answered it.
+
+"Explorers' Cloth," he said. "I have it made specially for me; you can
+hardly cut it with a knife."
+
+Inwardly the boy felt that he ought to be able to carry on the
+conversation in the same light vein, but his nerves were badly shaken.
+His companion glanced at him.
+
+"A bit done up, eh?" He took a metal container from his pocket, in shape
+like a short lead pencil, and poured out two tiny pellets into his palm.
+
+"If you are not afraid of poison," he remarked amicably, "swallow these.
+They will pick you up at once."
+
+The thought of poison had flashed into Stuart's mind. After all, the
+Englishman was just as much one of the conspirators as Manuel or
+Leborge, and might be just as anxious for the death of an eavesdropper.
+At the same time, the boy realized that he was absolutely in the
+Englishman's power, and that if Cecil wanted to get rid of him, there,
+in that thick forest, he had ample opportunity. To refuse the pellets
+might be even more dangerous than to accept them. Besides, there was a
+certain atmosphere of directness in Cecil, conspirator though the boy
+knew him to be, which forbade belief in so low-grade a manner of action
+as the use of poison.
+
+He held out his hand for the pellets and swallowed them without a word.
+
+A slight inclination of the head showed the donor's acceptance of the
+fact that he was trusted.
+
+"Now, my lad," he said. "I think you ought to tell me something about
+yourself, and what you were doing in the Citadel. You asked me to save
+you from Manuel, and I have done so. Perhaps I have been hasty. But, in
+honor bound, you must tell me what you know and what you heard."
+
+Through Stuart's veins, the blood was beginning to course full and free.
+The pellets which Cecil had given him--whatever they were--removed his
+fatigue as though it had been a cloak. They loosened the boy's tongue,
+also, and freely he told the Englishman all his affairs save for his
+cause in pursuing Manuel, which he regarded as a personal matter. He
+mentioned the only words he had overheard, while watching in the ruined
+Citadel and explained that the taunting of Leborge by Manuel, during the
+conference, had been only a ruse to provoke trouble, the Cuban hoping
+that the boy would shoot.
+
+"And what general impression did you get from the meeting?" Cecil
+queried.
+
+The boy hesitated, fearing to enrage his questioner.
+
+"Well," he blurted out, "if I must say it, I think that you're plotting
+a revolution in this country, putting Leborge up as president, letting
+Manuel run the country, driving the United States clean out of it, and
+giving you the chance to take all sorts of commercial concessions for
+yourself."
+
+The Englishman nodded his head.
+
+"For a guess," he declared, "your idea is not half bad. Evidently, you
+have plenty of imagination. The only trouble with your summing up of the
+situation, my boy, is that it is wrong in every particular. If you did
+not learn any more than that from the conference, your information is
+quite harmless. I suppose I can count on your never mentioning this
+meeting?"
+
+Stuart thought for a moment.
+
+"No," he said, "I can't promise that."
+
+The Englishman lifted his eyebrows slightly.
+
+"And why?"
+
+Stuart found it difficult to say why. He had a feeling that to swear
+silence would, in a sense, make him a party to the conspiracy, whatever
+it might be.
+
+"I--I've got it in for Manuel," he said lamely, though conscious, as he
+said it, that the reply would not satisfy.
+
+Cecil looked at him through narrowed eyelids.
+
+"I suppose you know that I would have no scruples in shooting you if you
+betrayed us," he remarked.
+
+Stuart looked up.
+
+"I don't know it," he answered. "Manuel or Leborge might do it, but I
+think you'd have a lot of scruples in shooting an unarmed boy."
+
+"Surely you can't expect me to save your life merely to run my own neck
+in a noose?"
+
+"That's as good as admitting that what you're doing might run your neck
+into a noose," commented Stuart shrewdly, if a little imprudently.
+
+"All right. But you must play fair. I have helped you. In honor, you
+can't turn that help against me."
+
+It was a definite deadlock. The boy realized that, while the Englishman
+was not likely to put a bullet through his head, as either Manuel or
+Leborge would have done, he was none the less likely to arrange affairs
+so that there would be no chance for talk. Haitian prisons were
+deathtraps. Also Cecil's declaration that an abuse of kindness would be
+dishonorable had a great deal of weight with the boy. His father had
+taught him the fine quality of straight dealing.
+
+"Look here, sir," he said, after a pause. "You said that I hadn't got
+the right idea as to what you three were doing."
+
+"You haven't."
+
+"Then I can't betray it, that's sure! I'll promise, if you like, that,
+if I do ever find out the whole truth about this plot, and if it's
+something which, as an American, I oughtn't to let go by, I won't make
+any move in it until I know you've been warned in plenty of time. If it
+isn't, I'll say nothing. There's no reason why I should get Leborge or
+you in trouble. It's Manuel I'm after."
+
+"If you'll promise that," said Cecil, "I fancy I can afford to let you
+go. I don't want you with me, anyway, for that Cuban dog would be sure
+that you had betrayed him to me, and he would suppose that I was going
+to betray him in turn. I'll land you in Cuba, and if you take my advice,
+you'll keep away from Haiti. It isn't healthy--for you."
+
+Having thus settled Stuart's fate to his own satisfaction, Cecil
+climbed a little distance up the tree, caught the ropes of the
+parachute, and with much hauling, assisted by Stuart, he pulled the
+wreckage down and thrust it under a bush.
+
+"The weather and the ants will make short work of that," he commented.
+"There won't be much of it left but the ribs in a week. And now, lad,
+we'll strike for the coast."
+
+Though there seemed to Stuart no way of telling where they were, Cecil
+took a definite course through the jungle. They scrambled over and
+through the twisted tangle of undergrowth, creepers and lianas, and, in
+less than an hour, reached a small foot-path, bearing north-westward.
+
+"I don't know this path," the Englishman remarked frankly, "but it's
+going in the direction I want, any way." A little later, he commented,
+"I fancy this leads to a village," and struck out into the jungle for a
+detour. On the further side of the village, he remarked, "I know where I
+am, now," and, thereafter, made no further comment upon the route. He
+talked very interestingly, however, about the insects, flowers and trees
+by the way, and, when dark came on, taught Stuart more about the stars
+than he had learned in all his years of schooling.
+
+They walked steadily without a halt for food, even, from the late
+afternoon when the parachute had hit the trees, until about an hour
+after sunrise the next morning, when the faint trail that they had
+lately been following, suddenly came to an end on the bank of a narrow
+river, hardly more than a creek.
+
+Putting a tiny flat instrument between his teeth, Cecil blew a shriek so
+shrill that it hurt Stuart's ears. It was repeated from a distance,
+almost immediately. Five minutes later the boy heard the "chug-chug" of
+a motor boat, and a small craft of racing pattern glided up to the bank.
+
+"Got a passenger, Andy," he said to the sole occupant of the boat.
+
+"Food for fishes?" came the grim query, in reply.
+
+"Not yet; not this time, anyway. No, we'll just put him ashore at Cuba
+and see if he knows how to mind his own business."
+
+The motor boat engineer grumbled under his breath. He was evidently not
+a man for half-measures. The blood of the old buccaneers ran in his
+veins. It was evident, though, that Cecil was master.
+
+The two men aboard, Andy turned the head of the motor boat down the
+river and out to sea, shooting past the short water-front of the little
+village of Plaine du Nord at a bewildering speed. The Creoles had barely
+time to realize that there was something on the water before it was gone
+out of sight.
+
+Despite its speed--which was in the neighborhood of thirty-two
+knots--the motor boat was built for sea use, and it ran along the coast
+of the Haitian north peninsula, past Le Borgne and St. Louis de Nord,
+like a scared dolphin. Arriving near Port-de-Paix, it hugged the shore
+of the famous lair of the buccaneers, Isle de Tortugas, and thence
+struck for the open sea.
+
+"Tortugas!" commented Cecil, pointing to the rocky shores of the islet.
+
+"That's where all the pirates came from, wasn't it?" queried Stuart,
+eager to break the silence of the journey.
+
+"Pirates? No. The pirate haunts were more to the north. It was the
+stronghold of the buccaneers."
+
+"I always thought pirates and buccaneers were the same thing," put in
+the boy.
+
+"Far from it. Originally the buccaneers were hunters, and their name
+comes from _boucan_, a word meaning dried flesh. They hunted wild cattle
+and wild pigs on that island over there."
+
+"Haiti?"
+
+"It was called Hispaniola, then. The Spanish owned it, but had only a
+few settlements on the coast. The population was largely Carib, a savage
+race given to cannibalism. There seems little reason to doubt that even
+if the buccaneers did not actually smoke and cure human flesh, as the
+Caribs did, they traded in it and ate it themselves."
+
+"Were the buccaneers Spaniards?" queried Stuart.
+
+"No. French to begin with, and afterwards, many English joined them.
+That was just where the whole bloody business began. France protected
+the buccaneers, sent them aid and ammunition; even their famous
+guns--known as 'buccaneering pieces' and four and a half feet long--were
+all made in France. There was a steady demand for smoked meat and hides,
+and France was only too ready to get these from a Spanish colony without
+payment of any dues thereon.
+
+"At the beginning of the seventeenth century the buccaneers--at that
+time only hunters--settled in small groups on the island of Hispaniola.
+Such a policy was dangerous. Time after time parties of Spanish soldiery
+raided the settlements, killing most of the hunters and putting the
+prisoners to the torture. In desperation, the buccaneers decided to
+abandon Hispaniola. They united their forces and sailed to the island of
+St. Kitts, nominally in the hands of Spain, but then inhabited only by
+Caribs.
+
+"The French government at once extended its protection to St. Kitts,
+thus practically seizing it from Spain and claimed it as a possession.
+Great Britain agreed to support France in this illegal seizure and thus
+the little colony of St. Kitts was held safe under both French and
+English governments, which actually supported the hunting ventures of
+the buccaneers, and winked at the piratic raids which generally formed a
+part of the buccaneering expeditions.
+
+"But it was not to be expected that the Spanish would keep still under
+the continual pillage of these plundering hunters. The Dons undertook
+to destroy the small vessels in which the buccaneers sailed and, before
+three years had passed, fully one-half of the buccaneers sailing from
+St. Kitts had been savagely slaughtered. These outrages prompted
+reprisals from the English and the French and thus the privateers came
+into the field."
+
+"What's a privateer?" queried Stuart.
+
+"I was just about to tell you," answered Cecil. "A privateer on the
+Caribbean and the Spanish Main, in those days, was a man who had
+sufficient money or sufficient reputation to secure a ship and a crew
+with which to wage war against the enemies of his country. As his own
+government had given nothing but permission to his venture, it gained
+nothing but glory from it. The privateer had the right to all the booty
+and plunder he could secure by capturing an enemy's ship, or raiding an
+enemy's settlement. The plunder was divided among the crew. Thus, a
+lucky voyage, in which, for example, a Spanish treasure-ship was
+captured, would make every member of the crew rich. Some of these
+privateers, after one or so prosperous voyages, settled down and became
+wealthy planters. The great Sir Francis Drake, on several of his
+voyages, went as a privateer."
+
+"And I suppose the governments gained, by having a fleet of vessels
+doing their fighting, for which they needn't pay," commented the boy.
+
+"Exactly. In a way, this was fair enough. The privateer took his
+chance, and, whether he won or lost, he was, at least, fighting for his
+country. But there were other men, unable to secure ships, and who could
+not obtain letters-of-marque from their governments, to whom loot and
+plunder seemed an easy way of gaining riches. Some of these were men
+from the crews of privateers that had disbanded, some were buccaneers.
+They claimed the same rights as privateers but differed in this--that
+they would attack any ship or settlement and plunder it at will. At
+first they confined themselves to small Spanish settlements only, but,
+later, their desires increased, and neutral ships and inoffensive
+villages were attacked.
+
+"In order to put a stop to the raids of the buccaneering hunters, the
+Spaniards planned an organized destruction of all the wild cattle on
+Hispaniola, hoping thus to drive the ravagers away. It was a false move.
+The result of it was to turn the buccaneers into sea-rovers on an
+independent basis, ready for plunder and murder anywhere and everywhere.
+At this period they were called Filibusters, but, a little later, the
+word 'buccaneer' came to be used for the whole group of privateers,
+filibusters and hunters.
+
+"The fury of both sides increased. So numerous and powerful did these
+sea-rovers become that all trade was cut off. Neutral vessels, even if
+in fleets, were endangered. With the cutting off of trade by sea, there
+was no longer any plunder for the rovers and from this cause came about
+the famous land expeditions, such as the sack of Maracaibo by Lolonnois
+the Cruel, and the historic capture of Panama by Morgan. Large cities
+were taken and held to ransom. Organized raids were made, accompanied by
+murder and rapine. The gallantry of privateering was degenerating into
+the bloody brutality of piracy.
+
+"In 1632, a small group of French buccaneer hunters had left St. Kitts
+and, seeking a base nearer to Hispaniola, had attacked the little island
+of Tortugas, on which the Spanish had left a garrison of only
+twenty-five men. Every one of the Spaniards were killed. The buccaneers
+took possession, found the harbor to be excellent, and the soil of the
+island exceedingly fertile. As a buccaneer base, it was ideal.
+Filibusters saw the value of a base so close to Spanish holdings,
+realized the impregnability of the harbor and flocked thither.
+Privateers put in and brought their prizes. Tortugas began to prosper.
+In 1638 the Spaniards, taking advantage of a time when several large
+expeditions of buccaneers were absent, raided the place in force and
+shot, hanged, or tortured to death, every man, woman and child they
+captured. Only a few of the inhabitants escaped by hiding among the
+rocks. But the Spanish did not dare to leave a garrison.
+
+"The buccaneers got together and under Willis, an Englishman, reoccupied
+the island. Although Willis was English, the greater part of the
+buccaneers with him were French and they gladly accepted a suggestion
+from the governor-general at St. Kitts to send a governor to Tortugas.
+In 1641 Governor Poincy succeeded in securing possession of the Isle of
+Tortugas for the Crown of France. Thus, having a shadow of protection
+thrown around it, and being afforded the widest latitude of conduct by
+its governor--who fully realized that it was nothing but a nest of
+pirates--Tortugas flamed into a mad prosperity.
+
+"That little desert island yonder became the wildest and most abandoned
+place that the world probably has ever seen. Sea-rovers, slave-runners,
+filibusters, pirates, red-handed ruffians of every variety on land or
+sea made it their port of call. Everything could be bought there;
+everything sold. There was a market for all booty and every
+article--even captured white people for slaves--was exposed for sale. An
+adventurer could engage a crew of cut-throats at half-an-hour's notice.
+A plot to murder a thousand people in cold blood would be but street
+talk. Every crime which could be imagined by a depraved and gore-heated
+brain was of daily occurrence. It was a sink of iniquity.
+
+"After France had taken possession of Tortugas, it came about quite
+naturally that the French buccaneers found themselves better treated in
+that port than the English filibusters or the Dutch Sea-Rovers. Almost
+immediately, therefore, the English drew away, and established their
+buccaneer base in other islands, notably Jamaica, of which island the
+notorious adventurer and pirate, Sir Henry Morgan, became governor.
+
+"The steady rise of Dutch power, bringing about the Dutch War of 1665,
+brought about a serious menace against the English power, increased
+when, in 1666, France joined hands with Holland. Peace was signed in
+1667. In the next thirty years, four local West Indian wars broke out,
+the grouping of the powers differing. All parties also sought to control
+the trade across the Isthmus of Panama, and there was great rivalry in
+the slave trade. During this period, privateers and buccaneers ceased to
+attack Spanish settlements only, and raided settlements belonging to any
+other country than their own. During the various short intervals of
+peace between these wars, the several treaties had become more and more
+stringent against the buccaneers. When, therefore, in 1697, the Treaty
+of Ryswick brought peace between England, France, Holland and Spain, it
+ended the period of the buccaneer."
+
+"I don't quite see why," put in Stuart, a little puzzled.
+
+"For this reason. The buccaneers had not only existed in spite of
+international law, they had even possessed a peculiar status as a
+favored and protected group. The treaty put an end to that protection.
+Sea-fighting thereafter was to be confined to the navies of the powers,
+and the true privateers and sea-rovers roved the seas no more."
+
+"But how about the pirates--'Blackbeard' Teach, Capt. Kidd, 'Bloody'
+Roberts and all the rest?" queried Stuart.
+
+"They were utterly different in type and habits from the buccaneers,"
+explained Cecil. "After the Treaty of Ryswick, piracy became an
+international crime. A harbor belonging to one of the powers could no
+longer give anchorage to a pirate craft. Markets could no longer openly
+deal in loot and plunder.
+
+"Those freebooters who had learned to live by pillage, and who thus had
+become outlaws of the sea, were compelled to find some uninhabited
+island for a refuge. They made their new headquarters at the Island of
+New Providence, one of the Bahamas. With buccaneering ended, and piracy
+in process of suppression by all the naval powers, the reason for
+Tortugas' importance was gone. It dwindled and sank until now it is a
+mere rocky islet with a few acres under cultivation, and that is all. I
+know it well. Much treasure is said to be buried there, but no one has
+ever found it. Don't waste your time looking for it, boy. You will keep
+away from this part of the world if you know what is good for you!"
+
+With which menace, the Englishman fell silent, and Stuart felt it wiser
+to refrain from disturbing him. Even over a copiously filled lunch
+basket, the three in the boat munched, without a word exchanged.
+
+At dusk they ran into a small cove at the easternmost end of the
+northern coast of Cuba, not far from Baracoa, the oldest city in Cuba
+and its first capital, where Columbus, Narvaez, Cortes and others of the
+great characters of history, played their first parts in the New World.
+
+Under the shadow of Anvil Mountain, the motor boat ran up to a little
+wharf, almost completely hidden in greenery, and there Cecil and the boy
+landed. Stuart did not fail to observe that the motor boat engineer
+needed no directions as to the place of landing. Evidently this cove was
+familiar.
+
+On going ashore, without a word of explanation to the boy, Cecil led the
+way to a small hut, not far from the beach. When, in response to a
+knock, the door opened, he said, in Spanish:
+
+"Ignacio, this American boy is going to Havana. You will see that he
+does not get lost on the way!"
+
+"Si, Senor," was the only reply, the fisherman--for so he
+appeared--evincing no surprise at the sudden appearance of Cecil at his
+door, nor at his abrupt command. This absence of surprise or question
+was the strongest possible proof of the extent of the Englishman's
+power, and Stuart found himself wondering to what extent this
+conspirator's web extended over the West Indies.
+
+A phrase or two, when they were walking together through the jungle,
+after the parachute descent, had shown Stuart that the Englishman was
+especially well acquainted with the flora and fauna of Jamaica. He must
+possess powerful friends in Haiti, or he could never have reached the
+Citadel, to arrive at which point both Manuel and Leborge had been
+compelled to employ tortuous methods, even to disguise. The motor boat
+awaiting him in the Haitian jungle showed an uncanny knowledge of that
+locality. He had mentioned that he knew the Isle of Tortugas. He was
+evidently known on the Cuban coast. This plot, whatever it might be, was
+assuredly of far-reaching importance, if one of the plotters found it
+necessary to weave a web that embraced all the nearby islands.
+
+"I'm glad I didn't promise not to tell about it," muttered the boy, as
+he watched Cecil stride away without even a word of farewell, "for I
+miss my guess if there isn't something brewing to make trouble for the
+United States."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A CUBAN REBEL
+
+
+Stuart stood with the supposed fisherman at the door of the hut until
+the throbbing of the motor boat's engine had died away in the distance.
+Then, American fashion, he turned to the brown-skinned occupant with an
+air of authority.
+
+"Who is this man Cecil?" he asked. The phrase began boldly, but as he
+caught the other's glance, the last couple of words dragged.
+
+Brown-skinned this fisherman might be, but the dark eyes were keen and
+appraising. Stuart, who was no fool, realized that his new host--or, was
+it captor?--was more than he seemed. At the same time, the boy
+remembered that he was in rags and that his own skin was stained brown.
+Yet the fisherman answered his question courteously.
+
+"Does not the young Senor know him? Senor Cecil is an Englishman, and
+wealthy."
+
+"But what does he do?" persisted Stuart.
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Can anyone tell what wealthy Englishmen do?" he queried. "They are all
+a little mad."
+
+The boy held his tongue. This evasive reply was evidence enough that he
+would not secure any information by questioning. Also, Stuart realized
+that anyone whom the Englishman trusted was not likely to be
+loose-mouthed.
+
+"Senor Cecil said you were an American," the fisherman continued, "he
+meant by that----"
+
+"Probably he meant that he knew I'd like to get this brown off my skin,"
+declared Stuart, realizing that his disguise was unavailing now. "Have
+you any soap-weed root?"
+
+The Cuban bent his head and motioned the boy to enter the hut. It was
+small and clean, but did not have the atmosphere of use. Stuart guessed
+that probably it was only employed as a blind and wondered how his host
+had come to know of the arrival of the motor boat. Then, remembering
+that the sound of the motor boat's engine had been heard for several
+moments, as it departed from the cove, he thought that perhaps the noise
+of the "chug-chug" would be a sufficient signal of its coming, for,
+surely, no other motor boats would have any reason for entering so
+hidden a place.
+
+"If the young Senor will add a few drops from this bottle to the water,"
+commented his host, "the stain will come out quicker."
+
+Stuart stared at the man. The suggestion added to the strangeness of the
+situation. The presence of chemicals in a fisherman's hut tallied with
+the boy's general idea that this man must hold a post of some
+importance in the plot. But he made no comment.
+
+While he was scrubbing himself thoroughly, so that his skin might show
+white once more, the fisherman prepared a simple but hearty meal. His
+ablutions over, Stuart sat down to the table with great readiness, for,
+though he had joined Cecil in a cold snack on the motor boat, the boy
+had passed through thirty-six hours of the most trying excitement, since
+his departure from Millot the morning of the day before. The food was
+good and plentiful, and when Stuart had stowed away all he could hold,
+drowsiness came over him, and his head began to nod.
+
+"When do we go to bed?" he asked with a yawn.
+
+The fisherman motioned to a string-bed in the corner.
+
+"Whenever the young Senor wishes," was the reply.
+
+"And you?"
+
+"Did you not hear Senor Cecil say that I was to be sure you did not get
+lost?" He smiled. "You might have dreams, Senor, and walk in your sleep.
+When Senor Cecil says 'Watch!' one stays awake."
+
+At the same time, with a deft movement, he pinioned Stuart's arms, and
+searched him thoroughly, taking away his revolver and pocket knife. No
+roughness was shown, but the searching was done in a businesslike
+manner, and Stuart offered no resistance. As a matter of fact, he was
+too sleepy, and even the bravest hero might be cowed if he were fairly
+dropping for weariness. Stuart obediently sought the string-bed, and, a
+few seconds later, was fast asleep.
+
+It was daylight when he awoke. Breakfast was on the table and the boy
+did as much justice to the breakfast as he had to the supper. With rest,
+his spirits and energy had returned, but he was practically helpless
+without his revolver. Besides, on this desolate bit of beach on the
+eastern end of Cuba, even if he could escape from his captor, he would
+be marooned. Such money as the boy possessed was secreted in Cap
+Haitien, most of his friends lived in Western Cuba. If this fisherman
+were indeed to aid him to get to Havana, nothing would suit him better.
+All through the meal he puzzled over the fisherman's rough mode of life,
+and yet his perfect Spanish and courtly manners.
+
+"If the young Senor will accompany me to the stable?" suggested his
+host, when the meal was over, the mild words being backed by an
+undertone of considerable authority. Stuart would have liked to protest,
+for he was feeling chipper and lively, but, just as he was about to
+speak, he remembered Andy's remark, on board the motor boat, about "food
+for fishes." Probably Cecil's allies were ready for any kind of
+bloodshed, and the boy judged that he would be wise to avoid trouble. He
+followed without a word.
+
+The stables were of good size and well kept, out of all proportion to
+the hut, confirming Stuart's suspicion that a house of some pretensions
+was hidden in the forest nearby. A fairly good horse was hitched to a
+stoutly-built light cart and the journey began. The driver took a rarely
+traveled trail, but, at one point, an opening in the trees showed a snug
+little town nestling by a landlocked harbor of unusual beauty.
+
+"What place is that?" queried Stuart, though not expecting a response.
+
+To his surprise, the driver answered promptly.
+
+"That, Senor," he said, "is Baracoa, the oldest town in Cuba, and the
+only one that tourists seldom visit."
+
+Whereupon, breaking a long silence, Vellano--for so he had given his
+name to Stuart--proceeded to tell the early history of Eastern Cuba with
+a wealth of imagery and a sense of romance that held the boy spellbound.
+He told of the peaceful Arawaks, the aboriginal inhabitants of the
+Greater Antilles, agriculturists and eaters of the cassava plant,
+growers and weavers of cotton, even workers of gold. He told of the
+invasion of the meat-eating and cannibal Caribs from the Lesser
+Antilles, of the wars between the Arawaks and Caribs, and of the
+hostility between the two races when Columbus first landed on the
+island. He told of the enslavement of the peaceful Arawaks by the
+Spaniards, and of the savage massacres by Caribs upon the earliest
+Spanish settlements.
+
+From that point Vellano broke into a song of praise of the gallantry of
+the early Spanish adventurers and conquerors, the conquistadores of the
+West Indies, who carried the two banners of "Christianity" and
+"Civilization" to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. He lamented the
+going of the Spaniards, took occasion to fling reproach at France for
+her maladministration and loss of Haiti, and, as Stuart was careful to
+observe, he praised England and Holland as colonizing countries as
+heartily as he condemned the United States for her ignorance of
+colonization problems.
+
+This fitted in exactly with Stuart's opinion of the plot of which Cecil
+was the head. Here, in Vellano, was an underling--or another
+conspirator, as it might be--favorable to England, resentful of the
+United States, and probably in a spirit of revolt against existing
+conditions in his own country. The boy decided to test this out by
+bringing up the subject a little later in the journey.
+
+Presently the road turned to the westward, following the valley of the
+Toa River. Duala, Bernardo and Morales were passed, the road climbing
+all the time, the mountain ranges of Santa de Moa and Santa Verde rising
+sentinel-like on either side. The trail was obviously one for the saddle
+rather than for a cart, but Stuart rightly guessed that Vellano was
+afraid that his captive might escape if he had a separate mount.
+
+They stayed that night at a small, but well-kept house, hidden in the
+forests. The owner seemed to be a simple guarijo or cultivator, but was
+very hospitable. Yet, when Stuart, tossing restlessly in the night,
+chanced to open his eyes, he saw the guarijo sitting near his bed,
+smoking cigarettes, and evidently wide awake and watching. It was clear
+that he was keeping guard while Vellano slept. Certainly, the Englishman
+had no need to complain that his orders were unheeded!
+
+Taking up the way, next morning, the road became little more than a
+trail, through forests as dense as the Haitian jungle. The guarijo
+walked ahead of them with his machete, clearing away the undergrowth
+sufficiently for the horse and cart to get through. From time to time,
+Velanno took his place with the machete and the guarijo sat beside the
+boy. Never for a moment was Stuart left alone.
+
+It was a wild drive. The trail threaded its way between great Ceiba
+trees, looming weird and gigantic with their buttressed trunks, all
+knotted and entwined with hanging lianas and curiously hung with air
+plants dropping from the branches. Gay-colored birds flashed in the
+patches of sunlight that filtered through the trees. The Cuban
+boa-constrictor or Maja, big and cowardly, wound its great length away,
+and the air was full of the rich--and not always pleasant--insect life
+characteristic of the Cuban eastern forests.
+
+Approaching San Juan de la Caridad, the trail widened. Machete work
+being no longer necessary, the guarijo was enabled to return, which he
+did with scarcely more than an "adios" to Vellano.
+
+The trail now skirted the edges of deep ravines and hung dizzily on the
+borders of precipices of which the sharply and deeply cut Maestra
+Mountains are so full. The forest was a little more open. Thanks to the
+information given him by Cecil during their walk through the Haitian
+jungle, after the parachute descent, Stuart recognized mahogany, lignum
+vitae, granadilla, sweet cedar, logwood, sandalwood, red sanders and
+scores of other hardwood trees of the highest commercial value, standing
+untouched. Passing an unusually fine clump of Cuban mahogany, Stuart
+turned to his companion with the exclamation:
+
+"There must be millions of dollars' worth of rare woods, here!"
+
+"Cuba is very rich," came the prompt reply, coupled with the grim
+comment, "but Cubans very poor."
+
+"They are poor," agreed Stuart, "and in this part of the island they
+seem a lot poorer than in the Pinar plains, where I lived before. Why?
+Here, nine out of every ten of the guarijos we've seen, live like hogs
+in a sty. Most of the huts we've passed aren't fit for human beings to
+live in. Why is it?"
+
+Stuart had expected, and, as it turned out, rightly, that this opening
+would give Vellano the opportunity to express himself on Cuban
+conditions as he saw them. Stuart was eager for this, for he wanted to
+find out where his companion stood, and hoped to find out whether he was
+ripe for revolt. But he was surprised at the bitterness and vehemence of
+the protest.
+
+"Ah! The Rats that gnaw at the people!" Vellano cried. "The Rats that
+hold political jobs and grow fat! The government Rats who care for
+nothing except to make and collect taxes to keep the people poor! The
+job-holders of this political party, or that political party, or the
+other political party! What are they? Rats, all! Tax-Rats!
+
+"Why do the guarijos live like hogs in a sty? The Rats ordain it. It is
+the taxes, all on account of the taxes. Consider! All this land you see,
+all undeveloped land, belonging, it may be, to only a few wealthy
+people, pays no tax, no tax at all. But if a man wishes to make a
+living, settles on the ground and begins to cultivate it, that day, yes,
+that hour, the owner will demand a high rent. And why will he ask this
+rent? Because, Young Senor, as soon as land is cultivated, the
+government puts a high tax on it. The Rats punish the farmers for
+improving the country.
+
+"What happens? I can tell you what happens in this province of Oriente.
+In the province of Camaguey, too. The small farmer finds a piece of good
+land. He settles on it--what you Americans call 'squatting'--and, if he
+is wise, he says nothing to the owner. Perhaps he will not be found out
+for a year or two, perhaps more, but, when he is found, he must pay a
+big rent and the owner a big tax. Perhaps the guarijo cannot pay. Then
+he must go away.
+
+"Generally he goes. In some other corner, hidden away, he finds another
+piece of land. He squats on that, too, hoping that the tax-Rats may not
+find him. He does not cultivate much land, for he may be driven off next
+day. He does not build a decent house, for he may have to abandon it
+before the week's end.
+
+"Suppose he does really wish to rent land, build a house and have a
+small plantation, and is willing to pay the rent, however high it be.
+Why then, Young Senor, he will learn that it will be many years before
+he finds out whether the man to whom he is paying the rent is really the
+owner of the land. And if he wishes to buy, it is worse than a lottery.
+In this part of the island no surveys have been made--except a circular
+survey with no edges marked--and land titles are all confused. Then the
+lawyer-Rats thrive."
+
+"It's not like that near Havana," put in Stuart.
+
+"Havana is not Cuba. Only three kinds of people live in Havana: the
+Rats, the tourists, and the people who live off the Rats and the
+tourists. They spend, and Cuba suffers.
+
+"For the land tax, Senor, is not all! Nearly all the money that the
+government spends--that the Rats waste--comes from the tax on imports.
+No grain is grown in Cuba, and there is no clothing industry. All our
+food and all our clothes are imported, and it is the guarijo who, at
+the last, must pay that tax. Young Senor, did you know that, per head of
+population, the poor Cuban is taxed for the necessities of life imported
+into this island three and a half times as much as the rich American is
+taxed for the goods entering the United States?
+
+"Even that is not all. Here, in Cuba, we grow sugar, tobacco,
+pineapples, and citrus fruit, like oranges, grapefruit and lemons. Does
+America, which made us a republic, help us? No, Young Senor, it hurts
+us, hinders us, cripples us. In Hawaii, in Porto Rico, in the southern
+part of the United States, live our sugar, tobacco and fruit
+competitors. Their products enter American markets without tax. Ours are
+taxed. What happens? Cuba, one of the most fertile islands of the West
+Indies is poor. The Cuban cultivator, who is willing to be a hard
+worker, gives up the fight in disgust and either tries in some way to
+get the dollars from the Americans who come here, or else he helps to
+ruin his country by getting a political job."
+
+Stuart, listening carefully to this criticism, noticed in Vellano's
+voice a note of hatred whenever he used the word "American." Connecting
+this with his own suspicion that Cecil was head of a conspiracy against
+the United States and that this supposed fisherman was evidently the
+Englishman's tool, he asked, casually:
+
+"Then you don't think that the United States did a good thing in
+freeing Cuba from Spain?" he hazarded.
+
+To the boy's surprise, his companion burst out approvingly.
+
+"Yes, yes, a magnificent thing! But they did not know it, and they did
+not know why! The Americans thought they were championing an oppressed
+people struggling for justice. Nothing of the sort. They took the side
+of one party struggling for jobs against another party struggling for
+jobs. But the result was magnificent. Under the last American Military
+Governor, Leonard Wood, Cuba advanced more in two years than she had in
+two centuries. When the Americans went away, though, it was worse than
+if they had never come. Cubans did not make Cuba a republic, Americans
+made Cuba a republic and then abandoned us. Of course, confusion
+followed. And in the revolution of 1906 and other revolutions, the
+Americans meddled, and yet did nothing. It is idle to deny that American
+influence is strong here! But what does it amount to? We are neither
+really free, nor really possessed."
+
+"But what do you want?" queried Stuart. "I don't seem to understand. You
+don't want to be a possession of Spain, you don't want to be an American
+colony, and you don't want to be a republic. What do you want?"
+
+"Do I know?" came the vehement reply. "Does anyone in Cuba know? Does
+anyone, anywhere, know? Remember, Young Senor, the Cuban guarijo does
+not feel himself to be a citizen of Cuba, as an American farmer feels
+himself a citizen of the United States. He has been brought up under
+Spanish rule, and is, himself, Spanish in feeling.
+
+"What does he know about a republic? Unless he can get a political job
+for himself, unless he sees the chance to be a Rat, he cares nothing
+about politics, but he will fight, at any time, under any cause, for any
+leader who will promise him a bigger price for his sugar, his tobacco or
+his fruit. The World War helped him, for sugar was worth gold. But
+now--if the Cuban wishes to say anything to America, he must do it
+through the Sugar Trust, the Tobacco Trust or the Fruit Trust.
+
+"What!" Vellano flamed out, "The United States will not answer us when
+we pray, nor listen when we speak? Then we will make her hear!"
+
+Upon which, suddenly realizing that in this direct threat he might have
+said too much, Vellano dropped the subject. Nothing that Stuart could
+suggest would tempt him to say anything more.
+
+The boy had been brought up in Cuba, and, though he had never been in
+this eastern part of the island, he knew that a great deal of what his
+companion had said was true. At the same time, he realized that Vellano
+had not done justice to the modern improvements in Cuba, to the
+extension of the railroads, the building of highways, the improvement of
+port facilities, the establishment of sugar refineries, the spread of
+foreign agricultural colonies, the improved sanitation and water supply
+and the development of the island under foreign capital. It was as
+foolish, Stuart realized, for Vellano to judge all Cuba from the wild
+forest-land of Oriente as it is for the casual tourist to judge the
+whole of Cuba from the casinos of Havana.
+
+Cuba is not small. Averaging the width of the State of New Jersey, it
+stretches as far as the distance from New York to Indianapolis. Its
+eastern and western ends are entirely different. Originally they were
+two islands, now joined by a low plain caused by the rising of the
+sea-bottom.
+
+Climate, soil and the character of the people vary extremely in the
+several provinces. High mountains alternate with low plains, dense
+tropical forests are bordered by wastes and desert palm-barrens. Eighty
+per cent of the population are Cubans--which mean Spanish and negro
+half-breeds with a touch of Indian blood, and of all shades of
+color--fifteen per cent Spanish and less than two per cent American.
+
+Foreign colonies are numerous, though small. They are to be found in all
+the provinces, and exhibit these same extremes. About one-half have sunk
+to a desolation of misery and ruin, one-half have risen to success. As
+Stuart once remembered his father having said:
+
+"I will never advise an American, with small capital, to come to Cuba.
+If he will devote the same amount of work to a piece of land in the
+United States that he will have to give to the land here, he will be
+more prosperous, for what he may lose in the lesser fertility of the
+land, he will gain by the nearness of the market. There are scores of
+derelicts in this island who would have led happy and useful lives in
+the United States."
+
+Crossing the hills--by a trail which threatened to shake the cart to
+pieces at every jolt--the two travelers reached Palenquito, and thence
+descended by a comparatively good road to Vesa Grande and on to Rio
+Seco. A mile or so out of the town, Stuart saw the gleaming lines of the
+railway and realized that this was to be the end of the long drive.
+
+"I have no money for a trip to Havana!" he remarked.
+
+"That is a pity," answered Vellano gravely, who, since he had searched
+the boy's pockets, knew that only a few dollars were to be found
+therein, "but Senor Cecil said you were to go to Havana. Therefore, you
+will go."
+
+There seemed no reply to this, but Stuart noted that, at the station,
+the supposed fisherman produced money enough for two tickets.
+
+"Are you coming, too?" queried Stuart, in surprise.
+
+"Senor Cecil said that I was to see that you did not get lost on the
+way," came the quiet answer.
+
+Certainly, Stuart thought, the Englishman's word was a word of power.
+
+From Rio Seco, the train passed at first through heavy tropical forests,
+such as those in the depths of which Vellano and Stuart had just driven,
+but these were thinned near the railroad by lumbering operations. The
+main line was joined a little distance west of Guantanamo. Thence they
+traveled over the high plateau land of Central Oriente and Camaguey, on
+which many foreign colonies have settled, the train only occasionally
+touching the woeful palm barrens which stretch down from the northern
+coast.
+
+Vellano, who seemed singularly well informed, kept up a running fire of
+comment all the way, most of his utterances being colored by a
+resentment of existing conditions--for which he blamed the United
+States--and containing a vague hint of some great change to come.
+
+At Ciego de Avila, where a stay of a couple of hours was made, Stuart's
+companion pointed out the famous _trocha_ or military barrier which had
+been erected by the Spaniards as a protection against the movements of
+Cuban insurgents, and which ran straight across the whole island.
+
+This barrier was a clearing, half-a-mile wide; a narrow-gauge railway
+ran along its entire length, as did also a high barbed-wire fence. Every
+two-thirds of a mile, small stone forts had been built. Each of these
+was twenty feet square, with a corrugated iron tower above, equipped
+with a powerful searchlight. The forts themselves were pierced with
+loopholes for rifle fire and the only entrance was by a door twelve feet
+above ground, impossible of entrance after the ladder had been drawn up
+from within. The forts were connected by a telephone line. They have all
+fallen into ruins and are half swallowed up by the jungle, while the
+half mile clearing is being turned into small sugar plantations.
+
+Beyond Ciego, the train passed again through a zone of tropical forest
+lands and then dropped into the level plains of Santa Clara, the center
+of the sugar industry of Cuba. From there it bore northward toward
+Matanzas, through a belt of bristling pineapple fields.
+
+One station before arriving at Havana, Stuart's companion, who showed
+signs of fatigue--which were not surprising since he had wakened at
+every stop that the train had made during the night to see that the boy
+did not get off--prepared to alight.
+
+"You're not going on to Havana?" queried Stuart.
+
+"I shall step off the train here after it has started," replied Vellano.
+"There will be no opportunity for you to do the same until the train
+stops at the capital. Senor Cecil said only that I was to see that you
+did not get lost on the way. He said nothing about what you should do in
+Havana. Possibly he has plans of his own."
+
+The train began to move.
+
+"Adios, Young Senor," quoth the supposed fisherman, and dropped off the
+train.
+
+During the long train trip, and especially when lying awake in his
+berth, Stuart had plenty of time to recall the events of the four days
+since he first met Manuel on the streets of Cap Haitien and had offered
+himself as a guide to the Citadel of the Black Emperor. Much had passed
+since then, and this period of inaction gave the boy time to view the
+events in their proper perspective.
+
+The more he thought of them, the more serious they appeared and the more
+Stuart became convinced that the plot was directed against United States
+authority in Haiti. Perhaps, also, it would attack American commercial
+interests in Cuba. As the train approached Havana, Stuart worked himself
+up into a fever of anxiety, and, the instant the train stopped, he
+dashed out of the carriage and into the streets feeling that he, and he
+alone, could save the United States from an international tragedy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A NOSE FOR NEWS
+
+
+Through the maze of the older streets of Havana, with their two-story
+houses plastered and colored in gay tints, Stuart rushed, regardlessly.
+He knew Havana, but, even if he had not known it, the boy's whole soul
+was set on getting the ear of the United States Consul. It was not until
+he was almost at the door of the consulate that his promise to Cecil
+recurred to him as a reminder that he must be watchful how he spoke.
+
+At the door of the consulate, however, he found difficulty of admission.
+This was to be expected. His appearance was unprepossessing. He was
+still attired in the ragged clothes tied up with string, and the aged
+boots he had got Leon to procure for him, to complete his disguise as a
+Haitian boy. Moreover, while the soap-weed wash at the fisherman's hut
+had whitened his skin, his face and hands still retained a smoky pallor
+which would take some time to wear off.
+
+In order to gain admission at all, Stuart was compelled to give some
+hint as to his reasons for wishing to see the consul, and, as he did not
+wish to divulge anything of importance to the clerk, his explanation
+sounded as extravagant as it was vague. His father's name would have
+helped him, but Stuart did not feel justified in using it. For all he
+knew, his father might have reasons for not wishing to be known as
+conducting any such investigations. This compulsion of reserve confused
+the lad, and it was not surprising that the clerk went into the
+vice-consul's office with the remark:
+
+"There's a ragged boy out here, who passes for white, with some
+wild-eyed story he says he has to tell you."
+
+"I suppose I've got to see him," said the harassed official. "Send him
+in!"
+
+This introduction naturally prejudiced the vice-consul against his
+visitor, and Stuart's appearance did not call for confidence. Moreover,
+the boy's manner was against him. He was excited and resentful over his
+brusque treatment by the clerk. Boy-like, he exaggerated his own
+importance. He was bursting with his subject.
+
+In his embarrassed eagerness to capture the vice-consul's attention and
+to offset the unhappy first impression of his appearance, Stuart blurted
+out an incoherent story about secret meetings, and buried treasure and
+conspiracy, and plots in Haiti, all mixed together. His patriotic
+utterances, though absolutely sincere, rang with a note of insincerity
+to an official to whom the letters "U. S." were not the "open sesame" of
+liberty, but endless repetitions of his daily routine.
+
+"What wild-cat yarn is this!" came the interrupting remark.
+
+Stuart stopped, hesitated and looked bewildered. It had not occurred to
+him that the consular official would not be as excited as himself. He
+spluttered exclamations.
+
+"There's a Haitian, and a Cuban, and an Englishman in a conspiracy
+against the United States! And they meet in a haunted citadel! And one
+said I was to kill the other! And I got away in a parachute. And they're
+going to do something, revolution, I believe, and----"
+
+Undoubtedly, if the vice-consul had been willing to listen, and patient
+enough to calm the boy's excitement and unravel the story, its value
+would have been apparent. But his skeptical manner only threw Stuart
+more off his balance. The vice-consul was, by temperament, a man of
+routine, an efficient official but lacking in imagination. Besides, it
+was almost the end of office hours, and the day had been hot and sultry.
+He was only half-willing to listen.
+
+"Tell your story, straight, from the beginning," he snapped.
+
+Stuart tried to collect himself a little.
+
+"It was the night of the Full Moon," he began, dramatically. "There was
+a voodoo dance, and the tom-tom began to beat, and----"
+
+This was too much!
+
+"You've been seeing too many movies, or reading dime-novel trash," the
+official flung back. "Besides, this isn't the place to come to. Go and
+tell your troubles to the consul at Port-au-Prince."
+
+He rang to have the boy shown out.
+
+The next visitor to the vice-consul, who had been cooling his heels in
+the outer office while Stuart was vainly endeavoring to tell his story,
+was the Special Correspondent of a New York paper. It was his habit to
+drop in from time to time to see the vice-consul and to get the latest
+official news to be cabled to his paper.
+
+"I wish you'd been here half-an-hour ago, Dinville, and saved me from
+having to listen to a blood-and-thunder yarn about pirates and plots and
+revolutions and the deuce knows what!" the official exclaimed
+petulantly.
+
+"From that kid who just went out?" queried the newspaper man casually,
+nosing a story, but not wanting to seem too eager.
+
+"Yes, the little idiot! You'd think, from the way he talked, that the
+West Indies was just about ready to blow up!"
+
+His bile thus temporarily relieved, the official turned to the matter in
+hand, and proceeded to give out such items of happenings at the
+consulate as would be of interest to the general public.
+
+The newspaper man made his stay as brief as he decently could. He wanted
+to trace that boy. Finding out from the clerk that the boy had come in
+from the east by train, and, having noted for himself that the lad was
+in rags, the Special Correspondent--an old-time New York reporter--felt
+sure that the holder of the story must be hungry and that he did not
+have much money. Accordingly, he searched the nearest two or three cheap
+restaurants, and, sure enough, found Stuart in the third one he entered.
+
+Ordering a cup of coffee and some pastry, the reporter seated himself at
+Stuart's table and deftly got into conversation with him. Inventing, for
+the moment, a piece of news which would turn the topic to Haiti,
+Dinville succeeding in making the boy tell him, as though by accident,
+that he had recently been in Haiti.
+
+"So!" exclaimed the reporter. "Well, you seem to be a pretty keen
+observer. What did you think of things in Haiti when you left?"
+
+Stuart was flattered--as what boy would not have been--by this
+suggestion that his political opinions were of importance, and he gave
+himself all the airs of a grown-up, as he voiced his ideas. Many of them
+were of real value, for, unconsciously, Stuart was quoting from the
+material he had found in his father's papers, when he had rescued them
+from Hippolyte.
+
+Dinville led him on, cautiously, tickling his vanity the while, and,
+before the meal was over, Stuart felt that he had found a friend. He
+accepted an invitation to go up to the news office, so that his recently
+made acquaintance might take some notes of his ideas.
+
+The news-gatherer had not been a reporter for nothing, and, before ten
+minutes had passed Stuart suddenly realized that he was on the verge of
+telling the entire story, even to those things which he knew must be
+held back. Cecil's warning recurred to him, and he pulled up short.
+
+"I guess I hadn't better say any more," he declared, suddenly, and
+wondered how much he had betrayed himself into telling.
+
+Persuasion and further flattery failed, and the newspaper man saw that
+he must change his tactics.
+
+"You were willing enough to talk to the vice-consul," he suggested.
+
+"Yes, but I wasn't going to tell him everything, either," the boy
+retorted.
+
+"You're not afraid to?"
+
+Stuart's square chin protruded in its aggressive fashion.
+
+"Afraid!" he declared contemptuously. Then he paused, and continued,
+more slowly, "Well, in a way, maybe I am afraid. I don't know all I've
+got hold of. Why--it might sure enough bring on War!"
+
+Once on his guard, Stuart was as unyielding as granite. He feared he had
+said too much already. The reporter, shrewdly, suggested that some of
+Stuart's political ideas might be saleable newspaper material, handed
+him a pencil and some copy-paper.
+
+The boy, again flattered by this subtle suggestion that he was a
+natural-born writer, covered sheet after sheet of the paper. Dinville
+read it, corrected a few minor mistakes here and there, counted the
+words, and taking some money from his pocket, counted out a couple of
+bills and pushed them over to the boy.
+
+"What's this for?" asked Stuart.
+
+"For the story!" answered the reporter in well-simulated surprise.
+"Regular space rates, six dollars a column. I'm not allowed to give
+more, if that's what you mean."
+
+"Oh, no!" was the surprised reply. "I just meant--I was ready to do that
+for nothing."
+
+"What for?" replied his new friend. "Why shouldn't you be paid for it,
+just as well as anyone else? Come in tomorrow, maybe we can dope out
+some other story together."
+
+A little more urging satisfied the rest of Stuart's scruples and he
+walked out from the office into the streets of Havana tingling with
+pleasure to his very toes. This was the first money he had ever earned
+and it fired him with enthusiasm to become a writer.
+
+As soon as he had left, the reporter looked over the sheets of
+copy-paper, covered with writing in a boyish hand.
+
+"Not so bad," he mused. "The kid may be able to write some day,"
+and--dropped the sheets into the waste-paper basket.
+
+Why had he paid for them, then? Dinville knew what he was about.
+
+He reached for a sheet of copy-paper and wrote the following dispatch--
+
+     WHALE - OF - BIG - STORY. - INFORMANT - A - KID. - WORTH - SENDING
+     - KID - NEW - YORK - PAPER'S - EXPENSE - IF - AUTHORIZED. -
+                                                               DINVILLE.
+
+He filed it in the cable office without delay.
+
+Before midnight he got a reply.
+
+     IF - KID - HAS - THE - GOODS - SEND - NEW - YORK - AT - ONCE.
+
+"Here," said Dinville aloud, as he read the cablegram, "is where Little
+Willie was a wise guy in buying that kid's story. He'll land in here
+tomorrow like a bear going to a honey-tree."
+
+His diagnosis was correct to the letter. Early the next morning Stuart
+came bursting in, full of importance. He had spruced up a little, though
+the four dollars he had got from Dinville the night before was not
+sufficient for new clothes.
+
+"Say," he said, the minute he entered the office, "Mr. Dinville, I've
+got a corker!"
+
+"So?" queried the reporter, lighting a cigar and putting his feet on the
+desk in comfortable attitude for listening. "Fire away!"
+
+With avid enthusiasm, Stuart plunged into a wild and woolly yarn which
+would have been looked upon with suspicion by the editor of a
+blood-and-thunder twenty-five-cent series.
+
+The reporter cut him off abruptly.
+
+"Kid," he said dryly, "the newspaper game is on the level. I don't say
+that you don't have to give a twist to a story, every once in a while,
+so that it'll be interesting, but it's got to be news.
+
+"Get this into your skull if you're ever going to be a newspaper man:
+Every story you write has got to have happened, actually happened, to
+somebody, somewhere, at some place, at a certain time, for some reason.
+If it hasn't, it isn't a newspaper story. What's more, it must be either
+unusual or important, or it hasn't any value. Again, it must have
+happened recently, or it isn't news. And there's another rule. One big
+story is worth more than a lot of small ones.
+
+"Now, look here. You've got a big story, a real news story, up your
+sleeve. It happened to you. It occurred at an unusual place. It has only
+just happened. It's of big importance. And the why seems to be a
+mystery. If you were a A Number One newspaper man, it would be your job
+to get on the trail of that story and run it down."
+
+And then the reporter conceived the idea of playing on Stuart's sense of
+patriotism.
+
+"That way," he went on, "it happens that there's no class of people that
+does more for its country than the newspaper men. They show up the
+crooks, and they can point out praise when public praise is due. They
+expose the grafters and help to elect the right man to office. They root
+out public evils and push reform measures through. They're Democracy, in
+type."
+
+The words fanned the fire of Stuart's enthusiasm for a newspaper
+career.
+
+"Yes," he said, excitedly, "yes, I can see that!"
+
+"Take this story of yours--this plot that you speak about and are afraid
+to tell. You think it's planned against the United States'?"
+
+"I'm sure it is!"
+
+"Well, how are you going to run it down? How are you going to get all
+the facts in the case? Who can you trust to help you in this? Where are
+you going to get all the money that it will take? Why, Kid, if these
+conspirators you talk of have anything big up their sleeve, they could
+buy people right and left to put you off the track and you'd never get
+anywhere! On your own showing, they've just plumped you down here in
+Havana, where there's nothing doing."
+
+"They sure have," admitted Stuart ruefully.
+
+"Of course they have. Now, if you had one of the big American newspapers
+backing you up, one that you could put confidence in, it would be just
+as if you had the United States back of you, and you'd be part and
+parcel of that big power which is the trumpet-voice of Democracy from
+the Atlantic to the Pacific--the Press!"
+
+The boy's eyes began to glisten with eagerness. Every word was striking
+home.
+
+"But how could I do that?"
+
+"You don't have to. It's already done!"
+
+Stuart stared at his friend, in bewilderment.
+
+"See here," he said, and he threw the cablegram on the table. "That
+paper is willing to pay any price for a big story, if it can be proved
+authentic. Proved, mind you, documents and all the rest of it. I cabled
+them to know if they wanted to see you, and, if they found what you had
+was the real goods, whether they would stake you. They cabled back,
+right away, that you were to go up there."
+
+"Up where?"
+
+"N'York."
+
+"But I haven't money enough to go to New York!" protested Stuart.
+
+"Who said anything about money? That's up to the paper. Your expenses
+both ways, and your expenses while you're in N'York, will all be paid."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Seeing that I'll pay your trip up there myself, and charge it up on my
+own expense account, of course I'm sure. There's a boat going tomorrow."
+
+"But you couldn't get a berth for tomorrow," protested Stuart, though he
+was weakening. He had never been to New York, and the idea of a voyage
+there, with his fare and all his expenses paid, tempted him. Besides, as
+the reporter had suggested, it would be almost impossible for him to
+continue the quest of Manuel, Leborge and Cecil alone. More than that,
+the boy felt that, if he could get a big metropolitan paper to back him,
+he would be in a position to find and rescue his father.
+
+"Can't get a berth? Watch me!" said the reporter, who was anxious to
+impress upon the lad the importance of the press. And, sure enough, he
+came back an hour later, with a berth arranged for Stuart in the
+morrow's steamer. He also advanced money enough to the boy for a
+complete outfit of clothes. An afternoon spent in a Turkish bath
+restored to the erstwhile disguised lad his formerly white skin.
+
+One sea-voyage is very much like another. Stuart made several
+acquaintances on board, one of them a Jamaican, and from his traveling
+companion, Stuart learned indirectly that Great Britain's plan of
+welding her West India possessions into a single colony was still a live
+issue. The boy, himself, remembering how easily he had been pumped by
+Dinville, was careful not to say a word about the purpose of his trip.
+
+Thanks to Dinville's exact instructions, Stuart found the newspaper
+office without difficulty. The minute he stepped out of the elevator and
+on the floor, a driving expectancy possessed him. The disorderliness,
+the sense of tension, the combination of patient waiting and driving
+speed, the distant and yet perceptible smell of type metal and printers'
+ink, in short, the atmosphere of a newspaper, struck him with a sense of
+desire.
+
+Although Stuart's instructions were to see the Managing Editor, the
+young fellow who came out to see what he wanted, brought him up to the
+City Editor's desk. The latter looked up quickly.
+
+"Are you the boy Dinville cabled about?"
+
+"Yes, sir," the boy answered. Here, though the City Editor was ten
+times more commanding a personality than the vice-consul, the boy felt
+more at ease.
+
+"Ever do any reporting?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"What's this story? Just the main facts!"
+
+"Are you Mr. ----" the boy mentioned the name of the Managing Editor.
+
+"I'll act for him," said the City Editor promptly.
+
+Stuart's square chin went out.
+
+"I came up to see him personally," he answered.
+
+The City Editor knew men.
+
+"That's the way to get an interview, my son," he said. "All right, I'll
+take you in to the Chief. If things don't go your way, come and see me
+before you go. I might try you on space, just to see how you shape.
+Dinville generally knows what he's talking about."
+
+Stuart thanked him, and very gratefully, for he realized that the curt
+manner was merely that of an excessively busy man with a thousand things
+on his mind. A moment later, he found himself in the shut-in office of
+the Managing Editor.
+
+"You are a youngster," he said with a cordial smile, emphasizing the
+verb, and shaking hands with the boy. "Well, that's the time to begin.
+Now, Lad, I've time enough to hear all that you've got to say that is
+important, and I haven't a second to listen to any frills. Tell
+everything that you think you have a right to tell and begin at the
+beginning."
+
+During the voyage from Havana, Stuart had rehearsed this scene. He did
+not want to make the same mistake that he had made with the vice-consul,
+and he told his story as clearly as he could, bearing in mind the "Who,"
+"What," "Why," "When" and "Where" of Dinville's advice.
+
+The Managing Editor nodded approvingly.
+
+"I think," he said reflectively, "you may develop the news sense. Of
+course, you've told a good deal of stuff which is quite immaterial, and,
+likely enough, some of the good bits you've left out. That's to be
+expected. It takes a great many years of training to make a first-class
+reporter.
+
+"Now, let me see if I can guess a little nearer to the truth of this
+plot than you did.
+
+"You say that the only three phrases you can be sure that you heard were
+'Mole St. Nicholas,' 'naval base' and 'Panama.' That isn't much. Yet I
+think it is fairly clear, at that. The Mole St. Nicholas is a harbor in
+the north of Haiti which would make a wonderful naval base--in fact,
+there has already been some underground talk about it--and such a naval
+base would be mighty close to the Panama Canal. Suppose we start with
+the theory that this is what your conspirator chaps have in mind.
+
+"Now, my boy, we have to find out some explanation for the meeting in so
+remote a place as the Citadel. Those three men wouldn't have gone to
+all that trouble and risked all that chance of being discovered and
+exposed unless there were some astonishingly important reasons. What can
+these be? Well, if we are right in thinking that a naval base is what
+these fellows are after, it is sure that they would need a hinterland of
+country behind it. The Mole St. Nicholas, as I remember, is at the end
+of a peninsula formed by a range of mountains, the key to which is La
+Ferriere. So, to make themselves safe, they would need to control both
+at the same time. Hence the necessity of knowing exactly the defensive
+position of the Citadel. How does that sound to you?"
+
+"I'd never thought of it, sir," said Stuart, "but the way you put it,
+just must be right. I was an idiot not to think of it myself."
+
+"Age and experience count for something, Youngster," said the Managing
+Editor, smiling. "Don't start off by thinking that you ought to know as
+much as trained men."
+
+Stuart flushed at the rebuke, for he saw that it was just.
+
+"Now," continued the Editor, pursuing his train of thought, "we have to
+consider the personalities of the conspirators. You'll find, Stuart, if
+you go into newspaper work, that one of the first things to do in any
+big story, is to estimate, as closely as you can, the character of the
+men or women who are acting in it. Newspaper work doesn't deal with cold
+facts, like science, but with humanity, and humans act in queer ways,
+sometimes. A good reporter has got to be a bit of a detective and a good
+deal of a psychologist. He's got to have an idea how the cat is going to
+jump, in order to catch him on the jump.
+
+"Now, so far, we know that the conspirators are at least three in
+number. There may be more, but we know of three. One is a Haitian negro
+politician. One is a Cuban, who, from your description, seems to be a
+large-scale crook. One is an Englishman, and, in your judgment, he is of
+a different type from the other two. Yet the fact that he seems to
+possess an agent on the eastern shore of Cuba--which, don't forget,
+faces the Mole St. Nicholas--seems to suggest that he's deep in the
+plot."
+
+He puffed his pipe for a moment or two, and then continued,
+
+"Now, there are two powerful forces working underground in the West
+Indies. One is the Spanish and negro combination, which desires to shake
+off all the British, French and Dutch possessions, and to create a
+Creole Empire of the Islands. The other is an English plan, to weld all
+the British islands in the West Indies into a single Confederation and
+to buy as many of the smaller isles from France and Holland as may seem
+possible. Both are hostile to the extension of American power in the
+Gulf of Mexico. Possibly, some European power is back of this plot. A
+foreign naval base in the Mole St. Nicholas would be a menace to us,
+and one on which Washington would not look very kindly.
+
+"So you see, Youngster, if such a thing as this were possible, it would
+be a big story, and one that ought to be followed up very closely."
+
+"That's what Dinville seemed to think, sir," interposed the boy, "and I
+told him I didn't have the money."
+
+"Nor have you the experience," added the Editor, dryly. "Money isn't any
+good, if you don't know how to use it."
+
+He pondered for a moment.
+
+"I can't buy the information from you," he said, "because, so far, the
+story isn't in shape to use, and I don't know when I will be able to use
+it. Yet I do want to have an option on the first scoop on the story. You
+know what a scoop is?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"A 'scoop' or a 'beat' means that one paper gets hold of a big story
+before any other paper has it. It is like a journalistic triumph, if you
+like, and a paper which gets 'scoops,' by that very fact, shows itself
+more wide awake than its competitors.
+
+"Now, see here, Stuart. Suppose I agree to pay you a thousand dollars
+for the exclusive rights to all that you find out about the story, at
+what time it is ready for publication, and that I agree to put that
+thousand dollars to your account for you to draw on for expenses. How
+about that?"
+
+Stuart was taken aback. He fairly stuttered,
+
+"Why--sir, I--I----"
+
+The Editor smiled at the boy's excited delight.
+
+"You agree?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir!"
+
+There was no mistaking the enthusiasm of the response.
+
+"Very good. Then, in addition to that, I'll pass the word that you're to
+be put on the list for correspondence stuff. I'm not playing any
+favorites, you understand! Whatever you send in will be used or thrown
+out, according to its merits. And you'll be paid at the regular space
+rates, six dollars a column. All I promise is that you shall have a look
+in."
+
+"But that's--that's great!"
+
+"It's just a chance to show what you can do. If there's any stuff in you
+at all, here is an opportunity for you to become a high-grade newspaper
+man."
+
+"Then I'm really on the staff!" cried the boy, "I'm really and truly a
+journalist?"
+
+The Managing Editor nodded.
+
+"Yes, if you like the word," he said, "make good, and you'll be really
+and truly a journalist."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE POISON TREES
+
+
+For a couple of days, Stuart wandered about New York, partly
+sight-seeing and partly on assignments in company with some of the
+reporters of the paper. The City Editor wanted to determine whether the
+boy had any natural aptitude for newspaper work. So Stuart chased around
+one day with the man on the "police court run," another day he did
+"hotels" and scored by securing an interview with a noted visitor for
+whom the regular reporter had not time to wait. The boy was too young,
+of course, to be sent on any assignments by himself, but one of the
+older men took a fancy to the lad and took him along a couple of times,
+when on a big story.
+
+Just a week later, on coming in to the office, Stuart was told that the
+Managing Editor wanted to see him. As this was the summons for which he
+had been waiting, Stuart obeyed with alacrity. The Managing Editor did
+not motion him to a a chair, as before, so the boy stood.
+
+"First of all, Garfield----" and the boy noticed the use of the
+surname--"I want to tell you that your father is safe. We've been
+keeping the wires hot to Port-au-Prince and have found out that some
+one resembling the description you gave me of your father commandeered a
+sailing skiff at a small place near Jacamel and set off westward. Two
+days afterward, he landed at Guantanamo and registered at a hotel as
+'James Garfield.' He stayed there two days and then took the train for
+Havana. So you don't need to worry over that, any more."
+
+"Thank you, sir," answered the boy, relieved, "I'm mighty glad to know."
+
+"Now," continued the Editor, "let us return to this question for which
+we brought you here. According to your story, you heard the conspirators
+say that their plans would be ready for fulfillment next spring."
+
+"Yes, sir," the boy agreed, "Leborge said that."
+
+"Good. Then there is no immediate need of pressing the case too closely.
+It will be better to let the plans mature a little. A mere plot doesn't
+mean much. News value comes in action. When something actually happens,
+then, knowing what lies behind it, the story becomes big.
+
+"What we really want to find out is whether this plot--as it seems to
+be--is just a matter between two or three men, or if it is widely spread
+over all the islands of the West Indies. You're too young, as yet, for
+anything like regular newspaper work, but the fact that you're not much
+more than a youngster might be turned to advantage. No one would
+suspect that you were in quest of political information.
+
+"So I'm going to suggest that you make a fairly complete tour of the
+islands, this fall and early winter, just as if you were idling around,
+apparently, but, at the same time, keeping your ears and your eyes open.
+In order to give color to your roamings, you can write us some articles
+on 'Social Life and the Color Line in the West Indies' as you happen to
+see it. First-hand impressions are always valuable, and, perhaps, the
+fact that you see them through a boy's eyes may give them a certain
+novelty and freshness. Of course, the articles will probably have to be
+rewritten in the office. By keeping a copy of the stuff you send, and
+comparing it with the way the articles appear in the paper, you'll get a
+fair training.
+
+"We'll probably handle these in the Sunday Edition, and I'm going to
+turn you over to the Sunday Editor, to whom you'll report, in future."
+
+He nodded pleasantly to the boy in token of dismissal.
+
+"I wish you luck on your trip," he said, "and see that you send us in
+the right kind of stuff!"
+
+Stuart thanked him heartily for his kindness, and went out, sorry that
+he was not going to deal with the Chief himself.
+
+The Sunday Editor's office was a welter of confusion. As Stuart was to
+find out, in the years to come when he should really be a newspaper
+man, the Sunday Editor's job is a hard one. It is much sought, since it
+is day work rather than night work, but it is a wearing task. The Sunday
+Editor must have all the qualities of a magazine man and a newspaper man
+at the same time. He must also have the creative faculty.
+
+In such departments of a modern newspaper as the City, Telegraph,
+Sporting, Financial, etc., the work of the reporters and editors is to
+chronicle and present the actual news. If nothing of vital interest has
+happened during the day, that is not their fault. Their work is done
+when the news is as well covered and as graphically told as possible.
+
+There are no such limits in the Sunday Editor's office. He must create
+interest, provoke sensation, and build the various extra sections of the
+Sunday issue into a paper of such vital importance that every different
+kind of reader will find something to hold his attention. He has all the
+world to choose from, but he has also all the world to please. The work,
+too, must be done at high pressure, for the columns of a Sunday issue to
+be filled are scores in number, and the Sunday staff of any paper--even
+the biggest--is but small.
+
+Fergus, the Sunday Editor, was a rollicking Irishman, with red hair and
+a tongue hung in the middle. He talked, as his ancestors fought, all in
+a hurry. He was a whirlwind for praise, but a tornado for blame. His
+organizing capacity was marvelous, and his men liked and respected him,
+for they knew well that he could write rings around any one of them, in
+a pinch. He began as the boy entered the door,
+
+"Ye're Stuart Garfield, eh? Ye don't look more'n about a half-pint of a
+man. Does the Chief think I'm startin' a kindergarten? Not that I give a
+hang whether ye're two or eighty-two so long as ye can write. Ye'll go
+first to Barbados. Steamer sails tomorrow at eight in the morning.
+Here's your berth. Here's a note to the cashier. Letter of instructions
+following. Wait at the Crown Hotel, Bridgetown, till you get it. Don't
+write if ye haven't anything to say. Get a story across by every
+mail-boat. If ye send me rot, I'll skin ye. Good luck!"
+
+And he turned to glance over his shoulder at a copy-boy who had come in
+with a handful of slips, proofs and the thousand matters of the editor's
+daily grind.
+
+Stuart waited two or three minutes, expecting Fergus to continue, but
+the Sunday Editor seemed to have forgotten his existence.
+
+"Well, then, good-by, Mr. Fergus," said the boy, hesitatingly.
+
+"Oh, eh? Are ye there still? Sure. Good-by, boy, good-by an' good luck
+to ye!"
+
+And plunged back into his work.
+
+There seemed nothing else for Stuart to do but to go out of the office.
+In the hall outside, he paused and wondered. He held in his hand the two
+slips of paper that Fergus had given him, and he stared down at these
+with bewilderment. Fergus' volley of speech, had taken him clean off
+his balance.
+
+There was no doubt about the reality of these two slips of paper. One
+was the ticket for his berth and the other had the figures "$250"
+scrawled across a printed form made out to the Cashier, and it was
+signed "Rick Fergus."
+
+In his uncertainty what he ought to do, Stuart went into the City Room
+and hunted up his friend the reporter. To him he put the causes of his
+confusion. The old newspaper man smiled.
+
+"That's Rick Fergus, all over," he said. "Good thing you didn't ask him
+any questions! He'd have taken your head off at one bite. He's right,
+after all. If a reporter's any good at all, he knows himself what to do.
+A New York paper isn't fooling around with amateurs, generally. But,
+under the circumstances, I think Rick might have told you something.
+Let's see. How about your passport?"
+
+"I've got one," said Stuart, "I had to have one, coming up from Cuba."
+
+"If you're going to Barbados, you'll have to have it viseed by the
+British Consul."
+
+"But that will take a week, maybe, and I've got to sail tomorrow!"
+
+"Is that all your trouble?"
+
+He stepped to the telephone.
+
+"Consulate? Yes? _New York Planet_ speaking. One of our men's got to
+chase down to Barbados on a story. Sending him round this afternoon.
+Will you be so good as to vise him through? Ever so much obliged;
+thanks!"
+
+He put up the receiver and turned to the boy.
+
+"Easy as easy, you see," he said. "The name of a big paper like this one
+will take you anywhere, if you use it right. Now, let's see. You'll want
+to go and see the Cashier. Come on down, I'll introduce you."
+
+A word or two at the Cashier's window, and the bills for $250 were
+shoved across to Stuart, who pocketed them nervously. He had never seen
+so much money before.
+
+"Next," said the reporter, "you'd better get hold of some copy-paper, a
+bunch of letter-heads and envelopes. Also some Expense Account blanks.
+Stop in at one of these small printing shops and have some cards printed
+with your name and that of the paper--here, like mine!" And he pulled
+out a card from his card case and gave it to the boy for a model.
+
+Stuart was doing his best to keep up with this rapid change in his
+fortunes, but, despite himself, his eyes looked a bit wild. His friend
+the reporter saw it, and tapped him on the back.
+
+"You haven't got any time to lose," he said. "Oh, yes, there's another
+thing, too. Can you handle a typewriter?"
+
+"No," answered the boy, "at least, I never tried."
+
+"Then you take my tip and spend some of that $250 on a portable machine
+and learn to handle it, on the way down to Barbados. You'll have to
+send all your stuff typewritten, you know. Imagine Fergus getting a
+screed from a staff man in longhand!"
+
+The reporter chuckled at the thought.
+
+"Why, I believe the old red-head would take a trip down to the West
+Indies just to have a chance of saying what he thought. Or, if he
+couldn't go, he'd blow up, and we'd be out a mighty good Sunday Editor.
+No, son, you've got to learn to tickle a typewriter!"
+
+They had not been wasting time during this talk, for the reporter had
+taken out of his own desk the paper, letter-heads, expense account
+blanks and the rest and handed them over to the boy, explaining that he
+could easily replenish his own supply.
+
+"Now," he suggested, "make tracks for the consulate. Stop at a printer's
+on your way and order some cards. Then chase back and buy yourself a
+portable typewriter. And, if I were you, I'd start learning it, right
+tonight. Then, hey! Off for the West Indies again, eh?"
+
+"But don't I go and say good-by to the City Editor, or the Managing
+Editor, or anyone?"
+
+"What for? You've got your berth, you've got your money, you're going to
+get your passport, and you've got your assignment. Nothing more for you
+to do, Son, except to get down there and deliver the goods."
+
+He led the way out of the office and to the elevator. On reaching the
+street, he turned to the boy.
+
+"There's one thing," he said, "that may help you, seeing that you're new
+to the work. When you get down to Barbados, drop into the office of the
+biggest paper there. Chum up with the boys. They'll see that you're a
+youngster, and they'll help you all they can. You'll find newspaper men
+pretty clannish, the world over. Well, good-bye, Garfield, I won't be
+likely to see you again before you go. I've got that Traction Swindle to
+cover and there's going to be a night hearing."
+
+The boy shook hands with real emotion.
+
+"You've been mighty good to me," he said, "it's made all the difference
+to my stay in New York."
+
+"Oh! That's all right!" came the hearty reply. "Well--good luck!"
+
+He turned down the busy street and, in a moment, was lost in the crowd.
+
+For a moment Stuart felt a twinge of loneliness, but the afternoon was
+short, and he had a great deal to do. It was only by hurrying that he
+was able to get done all the various things that had been suggested.
+Despite his rush, however, the boy took time to send a cable to his
+father, telling of his own safety, for he had no means of knowing
+whether or not his father might be worrying over him also. He worked
+until midnight learning the principles of the typewriter and, in a poky
+sort of way, trying to hammer out the guide sentences given him in the
+Instruction Book. Next day found him again at sea.
+
+In contrast with the riotous vegetation of the jungles of Haiti and the
+tropical forests of Eastern Cuba, Stuart found the country around
+Bridgetown, the sole harbor of Barbados, surprisingly unattractive. The
+city itself was active and bustling, but dirty, dusty and mean. On the
+other hand, the suburbs, with villas occupied by the white residents,
+were remarkable for their marvelous gardens.
+
+On the outskirts of the town, and all over the island, in rows or
+straggling clumps which seemed to have been dropped down anywhere,
+Stuart saw the closely clustered huts of the negroes. These were tiny
+huts of pewter-gray wood, raised from the ground on a few rough stones
+and covered by a roof of dark shingles. They were as simple as the
+houses a child draws on his slate--things of two rooms, with two windows
+and one door. The windows had sun shutters in place of glass and there
+were no chimneys, for the negro housewives do their cooking out of doors
+in the cool of the evening. The boy noticed that, by dark, all these
+windows and doors were closed tightly, for the Barbadian negro sleeps in
+an air-tight room. He does this, ostensibly, to keep out ten-inch-long
+centipedes, and bats, but, in reality, to keep out "jumbies" and ghosts,
+of which he is much more afraid.
+
+[Illustration: HIS VISION DISTORTED BY THE VENOM-VAPOR OF THE POISON
+TREES, THE LAND-CRABS SEEMED OF ENORMOUS SIZE AND THE NEGRO WHO CAME TO
+RESCUE HIM APPEARED AS AN OGRE.]
+
+The greater part of the island seemed, to the boy, utterly unlike any
+place he had seen in the tropics. Around Bridgetown, and over two-thirds
+of the island of Barbados, there is hardly a tree. The ground rises in
+slow undulations, marked, like a checker-board, with sugar-cane fields.
+No place could seem more lacking in opportunity for adventures, yet
+Stuart was to learn to the contrary before long.
+
+Acting upon the advice given him by his friend the reporter, in New
+York, just before leaving, Stuart seized the first opportunity to make
+himself known to the newspaper men of Bridgetown. He was warmly
+received, even welcomed, and was amazed at the ready hospitality shown
+him. Moreover, when he stated that he was there to do some article on
+"Social Life and the Color Question" for the _New York Planet_, he found
+that he had struck a subject on which anyone and everyone he met was
+willing to talk--as the Managing Editor no doubt had anticipated when he
+suggested the series to the boy.
+
+In one respect--as almost everyone he interviewed pointed out--Barbados
+differs from every other of the West India Islands. It is densely
+populated, so densely, indeed, that there is not a piece of land
+suitable for cultivation which is not employed. The great ambition of
+the Barbadian is to own land. The spirit of loyalty to the island is
+incredibly strong.
+
+This dense population and intensive cultivation has made the struggle
+for existence keen in Barbados. A job is a prize. This has made the
+Barbadian negro a race apart, hardworking and frugal. Until the building
+of the Panama Canal, few negroes left their island home. With the help
+of his newspaper friends, Stuart was able to send to his paper a fairly
+well-written article on the Barbadian negro. The boy was wise enough to
+take advice from his new friends how best to write the screed.
+
+Moreover, he learned that there was also, on the island, a very unusual
+and most interesting colony of "poor whites," the descendants of English
+convicts who had been brought to the island in the seventeenth century.
+These were not criminals, but political prisoners who had fought in
+Monmouth's Rebellion. Pitied by the planters, despised even by the negro
+slaves, this small colony held itself aloof, starved, and married none
+but members of their own colony. They are now mere shadows of men, with
+puny bodies and witless minds, living in brush or wooden hovels and
+eating nothing but a little wild fruit and fish.
+
+Their story made another good article for Stuart's paper, and he spent
+almost an entire day holding such conversation with them as he could,
+though their English language had so far degenerated that the boy found
+it hard to understand.
+
+The colony is not far from the little village of Bathsheba, which Stuart
+had reached by the tramway that crosses the island. The returning tram
+was not due to start for a couple of hours, and so, idly, Stuart
+strolled southward along the beach, which, at that point, is fringed
+with curiously shaped rocks, forming curving bays shaded with thickets
+of trees which curve down to the shore. Some of these were
+modest-looking trees, something like apple-trees but with a longer,
+thinner leaf. They bore a fruit like a green apple.
+
+The boy, tired from his walk along the soft white sand, threw himself
+down negligently beneath the trees, in the shade, and, finding one of
+the fruits fallen, close to his hand, picked it up and half decided to
+eat it. An inner warning bade him pause.
+
+The day had been hot and the shade was inviting. A sour and yet not
+unpleasant odor was in the air. It made him sleepy, or, to speak more
+correctly, it made his limbs heavy, while a certain exhilaration of
+spirits lulled him into a false content. Soon, under these trees, on the
+beach near Bathsheba, Stuart passed into a languorous waking dream.
+
+And the red land-crabs, on their stilt-like legs, crept nearer and
+nearer.
+
+An hour later, one of the Barbadian negroes, coming home from his work,
+was met at the door of his cabin by his wife, her eyes wide with alarm.
+
+"White pickney go along Terror Cove. No come um back."
+
+"Fo' de sake!" came the astonished exclamation. "Best hop along, see!"
+
+The burly negro, well-built like all his fellows, struck out along the
+beach. He talked to himself and shook his frizzled head as he went. His
+pace, which was distinctly that of hurry, betokened his disturbed mind.
+
+"Pickney go alone here, by golly!" he declared as he traced the prints
+of a booted foot on the white sand and saw that they led only in one
+direction. "No come back! Dem debbil-trees, get um!"
+
+He turned the corner and paused a minute at the extraordinary sight
+presented.
+
+In the curve of the cove, dancing about with high, measured steps, like
+that of a trained carriage-horse, was the boy, his hands clutching a
+stout stick with which he was beating the air around him as though
+fighting some imaginary foe, in desperation for his life. The sand
+around his feet was spotted, as though with gouts of blood, by the ruddy
+land-crabs, and, from every direction, these repulsive carrion eaters
+were hastening to their prey.
+
+They formed a horrible alliance--the "debbil-trees" and the blood-red
+land-crabs!
+
+The negro broke into a run. The old instinct of the black to serve the
+white rose in him strongly, though his own blood ran cold as he came
+near the "debbil-trees."
+
+The crabs were swarming all about the boy. Some of the most daring were
+clawing their way up his trousers, but Stuart seemed to have no eyes for
+them. With jerky strokes, as though his arms were worked by a string,
+he struck and slashed at the air at some imaginary enemy about the
+height of his waist.
+
+As his rescuer came nearer, he could hear the boy screaming, a harsh,
+inhuman scream of rage and fear and madness combined. Jerky words amid
+the screams told of his terrors,
+
+"They're eating me! Their claws are all around! Their eyes! Their eyes!"
+
+But still the strokes were directed wildly at the air, and never a blow
+fell on the little red horrors at his feet.
+
+"Ol' Doc, he say debbil-tree make um act that way," muttered the negro,
+as he ran, "pickney he think um crabs big as a mule!"
+
+Stuart, fighting for his life with what his tortured imagination
+conceived to be gigantic monsters, saw, coming along the beach, the
+semblance of an ogre. The pupils of his eyes, contracted by the poison
+to mere pin-pricks, magnified enormously, and the negro took on the
+proportions of a giant.
+
+But Stuart was a fighter. He would not run. He turned upon his new foe.
+
+The negro, reckoning nothing of one smart blow from the stick, threw his
+muscular arms about the boy, held him as in a vice, and picking him up,
+carried him off as if he were a baby. The boy struggled and screamed but
+it availed him nothing.
+
+"Pickney, he mad um sartain," announced the negro, as he strode by his
+own hut, "get him Ol' Doc good'n quick!"
+
+Half walking and half running, but carrying his burden with ease, the
+negro hurried to a well-built house, on a height of land half a mile
+back from the coast. The house was surrounded by a well-kept garden, but
+the negro kicked the gate open without ceremony, and, still running,
+rushed into the house, calling,
+
+"Mister Ol' Doc! Mister Ol' Doc!"
+
+At his cries, one of the doors into the hall opened, and a keen-eyed
+man, much withered, and with a scraggly gray beard, came out. The negro
+did not wait for him to speak.
+
+"Mister Ol' Doc," he said, "this pickney down by de debbil-trees, they
+got um sartain. You potion um quick!"
+
+The doctor stepped aside from the door.
+
+"Put him in there, Mark!" he directed. "Hold him, I'll be back in a
+minute!"
+
+The negro threw Stuart on a cot and held him down, an easy task, now,
+for the boy's strength was ebbing fast.
+
+The doctor was back in a moment, with a small phial. He dropped a few
+drops into the boy's mouth, then, stripping him, put an open box of
+ointment between himself and the negro.
+
+"Now, Mark," he said, "rub that stuff into his body. Don't be afraid of
+it. Go after him as if you were grooming a horse. Put some elbow-grease
+into it. The ointment has got to soak in, and the skin has got to be
+kept warm. See, he's getting cold, now!"
+
+The negro suited the action to the word. He rubbed with all his
+strength, and the ointment, concocted from some pungent herb, reddened
+the skin where it went in. But, a moment or two after, the redness
+disappeared and the bluish look of cold returned.
+
+"Faster and harder!" cried the old doctor.
+
+Sweat poured down from the negro's face. He ripped off jacket and shirt,
+and, bare to the waist, scrubbed at the boy's skin. And, if ever he
+stopped a moment to wipe the sweat from his forehead, the doctor cried,
+
+"Faster and harder!"
+
+Little by little, the reddening of the skin lasted longer, little by
+little the bluish tints began to go, little by little the stiffening
+which had begun, relaxed.
+
+"He's coming round," cried the doctor. "Harder, now! Put your back into
+it, Mark!"
+
+Nearly an hour had passed when the negro, exhausted and trembling from
+his exertions, sank into a chair. The doctor eyed him keenly, gave him a
+stiff dose from a medicine glass, and returned to his patient.
+
+"He'll do now," he said. "In half an hour he'll feel as well as ever,
+and by tomorrow he'll be terribly ill."
+
+"For de sake, Mister Ol' Doc, I got to rub um tomorrow?" pleaded the
+negro.
+
+"No, not tomorrow. From now on, I've got to 'potion um,' as you put it."
+
+He put his hand in his pocket.
+
+"Here, Mark," he said, "is half a sovereign. That isn't for saving the
+boy's life, you understand, for you'd have done that any way, but for
+working on him as you have."
+
+The negro pocketed the coin with a wide smile, but lingered.
+
+"I want to see um come 'round," he explained.
+
+As the doctor had forecast, in half an hour's time, the color flowed
+back into Stuart's cheeks, his breathing became normal, and, presently,
+he stirred and looked around.
+
+"What--What----" he began, bewildered.
+
+"You went to sleep under the shade of some poison-trees, manchineel
+trees, we call them here," the doctor explained. "Did you eat any of the
+fruit?"
+
+"I--I don't know," replied Stuart, trying to remember. "I--I sort of
+went to sleep, that is, my body seemed to and my head didn't. And then I
+saw crabs coming. At first they were only small ones, then bigger ones
+came, and bigger, and bigger----"
+
+He shivered and hid his face at the remembrance.
+
+"There was nothing there except the regular red land-crabs," said the
+doctor, "maybe eighteen inches across, but with a body the size of your
+hand. Their exaggeration of size was a delirium due to poisoning."
+
+"And the big, black ogre?"
+
+"Was our friend Mark, here," explained the doctor, "who rescued you,
+first, and has saved your life by working over you, here."
+
+Stuart held out his hand, feebly.
+
+"I didn't know there were any trees which hurt you unless you touched
+them," he said.
+
+"Plenty of them," answered the scientist. "There are over a hundred
+plants which give off smells or vapors which are injurious either to man
+or animals. Some are used by savages for arrow poisons, others for fish
+poisons, and some we use for medicinal drugs. Dixon records a 'gas-tree'
+in Africa, the essential oil of which contains chlorine and the smell of
+which is like the poison-gas used in the World War. And poison-ivy, in
+the United States, will poison some people even if they only pass close
+to it."
+
+"Jes' how does a tree make a smell, Mister Ol' Doc?" queried Mark.
+
+"That's hard to explain to you," answered the scientist, turning to the
+negro. "But every plant has some kind of a smell, that is, all of them
+have essential oils which volatilize in the air. Some, like the bay,
+have these oil-sacs in the leaves, some, like cinnamon, in the bark, and
+so on. The smell of flowers comes the same way."
+
+"An' there is mo' kinds of debbil-trees 'an them on Terror Cove?"
+
+"Plenty more kinds," was the answer, "though few of them are as deadly.
+These are famous. Lord Nelson, when a young man here in Barbados, was
+made very ill by drinking from a pool into which some branches of the
+manchineel had been thrown. In fact, he never really got over it."
+
+"How about me, Doctor?" enquired Stuart. His face was flushing and its
+was evident that the semi-paralysis of the first infection was passing
+into a fever stage.
+
+"It all depends whether you ate any of the fruit or not," the doctor
+answered. "If you didn't, you're safe. But you seem to have spent an
+hour in that poison-tree grove, and that gives the 'devil-trees,' as
+Mark calls them, plenty of time to get in their deadly work. You'll come
+out of it, all right, but you'll have to fight for it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE HURRICANE
+
+
+For many days Stuart lay in an alternation of fever and stupor,
+tormented by dreams in which visions of the red land-crabs played a
+terrible part, but youth and clean living were on his side, and he
+passed the crisis. Thereafter, in the equable climate of Barbados--one
+of the most healthful of the West Indies Islands--his strength began to
+return.
+
+The "Ol' Doc," as he was universally known in the neighborhood, was an
+eccentric scientist who had spent his life in studying the plants of the
+West Indies. He had lived in the Antilles for over forty years and knew
+as much about the people as he did about the plant life.
+
+Kindly-natured, the old botanist became greatly interested in his young
+patient, and, that he should not weary in enforced idleness, sent to
+Bridgetown for Stuart's trunk and his portable typewriter. Day by day
+the boy practised, and then turned his hand to writing a story of his
+experiences with the "debbil-trees" which story, by the way, he had to
+rewrite three times before his host would let him send it.
+
+"Writing," he would say, "is like everything else in the world. You can
+do it quickly and well, after years of experience, but, at the
+beginning, you must never let a sentence pass until you are sure that
+you cannot phrase it better."
+
+Moreover, as it turned out, the Ol' Doc was to be Stuart's guide in more
+senses than one, for when the boy casually mentioned Guy Cecil's name,
+the botanist twisted his head sidewise sharply.
+
+"Eh, what? Who's that?" he asked. "What does he look like?"
+
+Stuart gave a description, as exact as he could.
+
+"Do you suppose he knows anything about flowers?"
+
+"He seemed to know a lot about Jamaica orchids," the boy replied.
+
+The botanist tapped the arm of his chair with definite, meditative taps.
+
+"That man," he said, "has always been a mystery to me. How old would you
+take him to be?"
+
+"Oh, forty or so," the boy answered.
+
+"He has looked that age for twenty years, to my knowledge. If I didn't
+know better, I should believe him to have found the Fountain of
+Perpetual Youth which Ponce de Leon and so many other of the early
+Spanish adventurers sailed to the Spanish Main to find."
+
+"But what is he?" asked Stuart, sitting forward and eager in attention.
+
+"Who knows? He is the friend, the personal friend, of nearly every
+important man in the Caribbean, whether that official be British, French
+or Dutch; he is also regarded as a witch-master by half the black
+population. I have met him in the jungles, botanizing--and he is a good
+botanist--I have seen him suddenly appear as the owner of a sugar
+plantation, as a seeker for mining concessions, as a merchant, and as a
+hotel proprietor. I have seen him the owner of a luxurious yacht; I have
+met him, half-ragged, looking for a job, with every appearance of
+poverty and misery."
+
+"But," cried the lad in surprise, "what can that all imply? Do you
+suppose he's just some sort of a conspirator, or swindler, sometimes
+rich and sometimes poor, according to the hauls he has made?"
+
+"Well," said the botanist, "sometimes I have thought he is the sort of
+man who would have been a privateer in the old days, a 'gentleman
+buccaneer.' Maybe he is still, but in a different way. Sometimes, I have
+thought that he was attached to the Secret Service of some government."
+
+"English?"
+
+"Probably not," the scientist answered, "because he is too English for
+that. No, he is so English that I thought he must be for some other
+government and was just playing the English part to throw off
+suspicion."
+
+"German?"
+
+"It's not unlikely."
+
+Whereupon Stuart remembered the guarded way in which the Managing Editor
+had spoken of "European Powers," and this thought of Cecil threw him
+back upon his quest.
+
+"I'll soon have to be going on to Trinidad," he suggested a day or two
+later. "I think I'm strong enough to travel, now."
+
+"Yes," the old botanist answered, "you're strong enough to travel, but
+you'd better not go just now."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well----" the old West Indian resident cast a look at the sky, "there
+are a good many reasons. Unless I'm much mistaken, there's wind about,
+big wind, hurricane wind, maybe. I've been feeling uneasy, ever since
+noon yesterday. Do you see those three mares'-tail high-cirrus clouds?"
+
+"You mean those that look like feathers, with the quills so much thicker
+than usual?"
+
+"Yes, those. And you notice that those quills, as you call them, are not
+parallel, but all point in the same direction, like the sticks of a fan?
+That means a big atmospheric disturbance in that direction, and it
+means, too, that it must be a gyrating one. That type of cirrus clouds
+isn't proof of a coming hurricane, not by a good deal, but it's one of
+the signs. And, if it comes, the center of it is now just about where
+those mares'-tails are pointing."
+
+"You're really afraid of a hurricane!" exclaimed Stuart, a little
+alarmed at the seriousness of the old man's manner.
+
+"There are few things in the world of which one ought more to be
+afraid!" declared the old scientist dryly. "A hurricane is worse, far
+worse, than an earthquake, sometimes."
+
+Stuart sat silent for a moment, then,
+
+"Are there any more signs?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," was the quiet answer. "Nearly all the hurricane signs are
+beginning to show. Look at the sea! If you'll notice, the surface is
+fairly glassy, showing that there is not much surface wind. Yet, in
+spite of that, there is a heavy, choppy, yet rolling swell coming up on
+the beach."
+
+"I had noticed the roar," Stuart agreed, "one can hear it plainly from
+here."
+
+"Exactly. But, if you watch for a few minutes, you'll see that the
+swells are not long and unbroken, as after a steady period of strong
+wind from any quarter, but irregular, some of the swells long, some
+short. That suggests that they have received their initial impulse from
+a hurricane, with a whirling center, the waves being whipped by gusts
+that change their direction constantly.
+
+"Notice, too, how hollow our voices sound, as if there were a queer
+resonance in the air, rather as if we were talking inside a drum.
+
+"You were complaining of the heat this morning, and, now, there is
+hardly any wind. What does that mean?
+
+"It means that the trade wind, which keeps this island cool even in the
+hottest summer, has been dying down, since yesterday. Now, since the
+trade winds blow constantly, and are a part of the unchanging movements
+of the atmosphere, you can see for yourself that any disturbance of the
+atmosphere which is violent enough to overcome the constant current of
+the trade winds must be of vast size and of tremendous force.
+
+"What can such a disturbance be? The only answer is--a hurricane.
+
+"Then there's another reason for feeling heat. That would be if the air
+were unusually hazy and moist. Now, if you'll observe, during this
+morning and the early part of the afternoon, the air has been clear,
+then hazy, then clear again, and is once more hazy. That shows a rapid
+and violent change in the upper air.
+
+"So far, so good. Now, in addition to observations of the clouds, the
+sea and the air at the surface, it helps--more, it is all-important--to
+check these observations by some scientific instrument which cannot lie.
+For this, we must use the barometer, which, as you probably know, is
+merely an instrument for weighing the air. When the air is heavier the
+barometer rises, when the air grows lighter, the barometer falls.
+
+"Yesterday, the barometer rose very high, much higher than it would in
+ordinary weather. This morning, it was jumpy, showing--as the changes in
+the haziness of the air showed--irregular and violent movements in the
+upper atmosphere. It is now beginning to go down steadily, a little
+faster every hour. This is an almost sure sign that there is a hurricane
+in action somewhere, and, probably, within a few hundred miles of here.
+
+"But tell me, Stuart, since we have been talking, have you noticed any
+change in the atmosphere, or in the sky."
+
+"Well," answered the boy, hesitating, for he did not wish to seem
+alarmist, "it did seem to me as if there were a sort of reddish color in
+the sky, as if the blue were turning rusty."
+
+"Watch it!" said the botanist, with a note of awe in his voice, "and you
+will see what you never have seen before!"
+
+For a few moments he kept silence.
+
+The rusty color gradually rose in intensity to a ruby hue and then to an
+angry crimson, deepening as the sun sank.
+
+Over the sky, covered with a milky veil, which reflected this glowing
+color, there began to rise, in the south-west, an arch of shredded
+cirrus cloud, its denser surface having greater reflecting powers,
+seeming to give it a sharp outline against the veiled sky.
+
+The scientist rose, consulted the barometer, and returned, looking very
+grave.
+
+"It looks bad," he said. "There is not much doubt that it will strike
+the island."
+
+"Take to the hurricane wing, then!" suggested Stuart, a little
+jestingly. In common with many Barbados houses, the botanist's dwelling
+was provided with a hurricane wing, a structure of heavy masonry, with
+only one or two narrow slits to let in air, and with a roof like a gun
+casemate.
+
+There was no jest in the Old Doctor's tone, as he answered,
+
+"I have already ordered that provisions be sent there, and that the
+servants be prepared to go."
+
+This statement brought Stuart up with a jerk. In common with many
+people, it seemed impossible to him that he would pass through one of
+the great convulsions of nature. Human optimism always expects to escape
+a danger.
+
+"But this is the beginning of October!" the boy protested. "I always
+thought hurricanes came in the summer months."
+
+"No; August, September and October are the three worst months. That is
+natural, for a hurricane could not happen in the winter and even the
+early summer ones are not especially dangerous. But the signs of this
+one are troubling. Look!"
+
+He pointed to the sea.
+
+The rolling swell was losing its character. The water, usually either a
+turquoise-blue or a jade-green, was now an opaque olive-black. The waves
+were choppy, and threw up small heads of foam like the swirl of
+cross-currents in a tide-rip.
+
+Stuart began to feel a little frightened.
+
+"Do you really think it will come here?"
+
+"Yes," said the botanist gravely, "I do. In fact I am sure of it.
+Barbados is full in the hurricane track, you know."
+
+"But why?" queried the boy. "I've always heard of West Indian
+hurricanes. Do they only happen here? I don't see why they should come
+here more than any other place."
+
+"Do you know why they come at all?"
+
+Stuart thought for a moment.
+
+"No," he answered, "I don't know that I do. I never thought anything
+about it. I always figured that storms just happened, somehow."
+
+"Nothing 'just happens,'" was the stern rebuke. "Hark!"
+
+He held up his finger for silence.
+
+A low rumbling, sounding something like the pounding of heavy surf on a
+beach heard at a distance, and closely akin to the sound made by Niagara
+Falls, seemed to fill the air. And, across the sound, came cracks like
+distant pistol shots heard on a clear day.
+
+The white arch rose slowly and just underneath it appeared an arch of
+darker cloud, almost black.
+
+At the same moment, came a puff of the cool wind from the north.
+
+"We will have it in less than two hours," said the scientist. "It is a
+good thing that all afternoon I have had the men and women on the place
+nailing the shutters tight and fastening everything that can be
+fastened. We may only get the edge of the hurricane, we may get the
+center. There is no telling. An island is not like a ship, which can
+direct its course so as to escape the terrible vortex of the center.
+We've got to stay and take it."
+
+"But has every hurricane a center?" queried the boy, a little relieved
+by the thought that the storm would not come for two hours. In that
+time, he foolishly thought, it might have spent its force. He did not
+know that hurricanes possess a life of their own which endures not less
+than a week, and in one or two cases, as long as a month.
+
+"You wouldn't ask whether every hurricane has a center," the scientist
+replied, "if you knew a little more about them. As there is nothing for
+us to do but wait, and as it is foolish to go to the hurricane wing
+until the time of danger, I might as well explain to you what a
+hurricane really is. Then, if you live through it----" Stuart jumped at
+the sudden idea of the imminent danger--"you'll be able to write to your
+paper about it, intelligently."
+
+"I'd really like to know," declared Stuart, leaning forward eagerly.
+
+"Well," said his informant, "I'll make it as simple as I can, though, I
+warn you, a hurricane isn't a subject that can be explained in a
+sentence or two.
+
+"You know that summer and winter weather are different. You ought to be
+able to see that summer and winter winds are different. The difference
+in seasons is caused by the respective positions of the northern and
+southern hemispheres to the sun. The greater the heat, the greater the
+atmospheric changes. Hurricanes are great whirls caused by violent
+changes of the air. Therefore hurricanes come only in the summer."
+
+"That's clear and easy!" declared the boy, delighted that he was able to
+follow the explanation.
+
+"Now, as to why hurricanes strike here and nowhere else. I'll try and
+explain that, too. There is a belt of ocean, just north of and on the
+equator, known as the 'doldrums,' where it is nearly always calm, and
+very hot. There is also a belt of air running from Southern Europe to
+the West Indies where the north-east trade winds blow all the year
+round. Between this perpetual calm of the doldrums and the perpetual
+wind of the trades is a region of atmospheric instability.
+
+"Now, consider conditions to the west of us. The Caribbean Sea and the
+Gulf of Mexico, together, form what is almost a great inland sea with
+the West Indian Islands as its eastern shore. The trade winds do not
+reach it. The Pacific winds do not reach it, for they are diverted by
+the high ranges of Central America. The winds from North America do not
+reach it, because these always turn northwards on reaching the
+Mississippi Valley and leave the United States by the St. Lawrence
+Valley.
+
+"So, Stuart, you can see that the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico
+have over them, in summer, a region of air, little disturbed by wind,
+not far from the Equator and which, therefore, becomes steadily heated
+and steadily saturated by the evaporation from the body of water
+below."
+
+"Yes," agreed the boy, "I can see that."
+
+"Very good. Now, such a steady heating of one section of air is bound to
+disturb the balance of the atmosphere. This disturbance, moreover, must
+be acted upon by the rotation of the earth. Just as all the weather in
+the United States comes from the west and travels eastwards, so the
+track of hurricane origins travels eastwards during the course of a
+summer.
+
+"For this reason, West Indian hurricanes in June generally have their
+origin west of Jamaica, July hurricanes east of Jamaica, August
+hurricanes in the eastern Caribbean, September hurricanes in the
+Atlantic east and south of the West Indies, and October hurricanes far
+out to sea, perhaps even as far as half-way to the Cape Verde Islands on
+the shores of Africa. This hurricane which is approaching, is from the
+direction of East-South-East, judging from the barometer and other
+conditions, and probably had its cradle a thousand or more miles away."
+
+"And it hasn't blown itself out?"
+
+"Far from it. It is only gathering strength and violence. Not until it
+twists off on its track will it begin to diminish. For hurricanes follow
+a regular track, an invisible trail marked out for them in the sky."
+
+"They do!"
+
+"Yes, all of them. This track is shaped like a rounded cone, or, more
+often, like a boomerang, with a short arm running north-westwards to
+its place of turning and a long arm running northeastwards until its
+force is spent. The point of turning is always in the West Indies zone.
+As the storm is at its worst at the point of turning, it is always in
+the West Indies that the hurricane is most destructive.
+
+"No matter where they start, West Indian hurricanes always sweep
+north-westward until they have crossed the line of the West Indies and
+then wheel around sharply to the north-east, skirting the United States
+coast. Some strike Florida. A good many run along the coast and hit
+Hatteras. Some never actually touch the continent at all, and only a few
+ever strike inland. But some part of the West Indies is hit by every one
+of them."
+
+"Are they so frequent?"
+
+"There's never a year without one or more. There have been years with
+five or six. Of course, some hurricanes are much more violent than
+others. Their destructive character depends a good deal, too, on the
+place where their center passes. Thus if, at the moment of its greatest
+fury, the full ferocity of the whirl is expended on the ocean, not much
+harm is done. But if it should chance to descend upon a busy and
+thriving city, the loss of life will be appalling.
+
+"Of these disastrous hurricanes, it would be fair to state that at least
+once in every four years, some part of the West Indies is going to
+suffer a disaster, and once in every twenty years there is a hurricane
+of such violence as to be reckoned a world calamity."
+
+The botanist rose, took another look at the barometer, and called one of
+the older servants.
+
+"Send every one into the hurricane wing," he said. "See that the storm
+lantern is there, filled and lighted. Tell the cook to pour a pail of
+water on the kitchen fire before she leaves. See, yourself, that every
+place is securely fastened. The rain will be here in ten minutes."
+
+The negro, who was gray with fright, flashed a quick look of relief at
+the orders to seek the hurricane wing, and ran off at full speed.
+
+"The first rain-squalls will not be bad," continued the "Old Doc," "and
+I like to stay out as long as I can, to watch its coming. It will be
+nearly dark when this one strikes us, though, and there won't be much to
+see."
+
+"But what starts them, sir?" queried the boy, who had become intensely
+interested, since the grim phantasmagoria was unfolding itself on sea
+and sky before his eyes.
+
+"As I have told you, it is the creation of a super-heated and saturated
+mass of air, only possible in a calm region, such as the Caribbean west
+of the West Indies, or the doldrum region southeast of them. Let me show
+you how it happens.
+
+"A region of air, over a tropical sea, little moved by wind-currents,
+becomes warmer than the surrounding region of air; the air over this
+region becomes lighter; the lighter air rises and flows over the colder
+layers of surrounding air, increasing the pressure on that ring and
+increasing the inward flow to the warm central area where the air
+pressure has been diminished by the overflow aloft. The overflowing air
+reaches a point on the outside of the cold air area, when it again
+descends, and once more flows inward to the center, making a complete
+circuit. Do you understand so far?"
+
+Stuart knitted his brows in perplexity.
+
+"I--I think so, but I'm not sure," he said. "Then the barometer rose,
+yesterday, because we were in the cold air area, which became heavier
+because there was a layer of warm air on the top of it. The storm has
+moved westward. The cold air section has passed. The barometer is
+falling now because we're in the region of warm air, which is steadily
+rising and is therefore lighter. That shows we're nearer to the center.
+Is that it?"
+
+The scientist tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair in pleased
+appreciation.
+
+"Very good," he said, "you are exactly right. And, from now on, the
+barometer will drop suddenly, for the whirl of the wind will make a
+partial vacuum in the very center of the hurricane."
+
+"But I don't see what makes it whirl," protested the boy. "If it goes up
+in the middle, flows over at the top and comes down at the outside and
+then flows into the middle again, why could it not keep on doing that
+all the time, until the balance was put straight again?"
+
+"It would," the scientist agreed, "but for one thing you have
+forgotten."
+
+"And what's that?"
+
+"The rotation of the earth."
+
+A single drop of rain fell, then another, making a splash as large as a
+twenty-five cent piece.
+
+"Now see it come!" said the scientist.
+
+As though his words had summoned it, a liquid opacity, like a piece of
+clouded glass, thrust itself between their eyes and the landscape. So
+suddenly it came that Stuart actually did not realize that this was
+falling rain, until, looking at the ground, he saw the earth dissolve
+into mud before his eyes and saw the garden turn into what seemed like
+the bed of a shallow river. The wind whistled with a vicious note. The
+squall lasted scarcely a minute, and was gone.
+
+"That's the first," remarked the boy's informant. "We'd better get under
+shelter, they'll come fast and furious soon."
+
+Passing through a low passage connecting the house with the hurricane
+wing, Stuart noticed that, beside the massiveness of the structure, it
+was braced from within.
+
+"In case the house should fall on it," the scientist observed, noting
+Stuart's glances. "I've no wish to be buried alive. In any case, I keep
+crowbars in the wing, so that, in case of any unforeseen disaster, a
+breach could be made in the walls and we could get out that way."
+
+They entered the hurricane wing. It was not as dark as Stuart had
+expected. The scientist, anxious to observe the storms when they should
+come, had built into the wall two double dead-eye windows, such as are
+used in the lower decks of liners and which can resist the impact of the
+heaviest waves.
+
+The crimson light had gone. The vivid sunset reflections, now thrown
+back from the black arch, yet gave a reddish smokiness to the livid and
+sickly green which showed, from time to time, beneath the underhanging
+masses of inky black. The sky to the north and to the south had a
+tortured appearance, as though some demon of a size beyond imagining
+were twisting the furies of the tempest in his clutch.
+
+"You asked," said the scientist, speaking in the hurricane wing, as
+quietly as he had on the verandah, and paying absolutely no heed to the
+moaning and praying of the negroes huddled in the darkest corner, "what
+makes a hurricane whirl. Yet, in the heavens, you can see the skies
+a-twist!"
+
+A second rain-squall struck. Thick as were the walls, they could not
+keep out the wailing shriek of the wind, nor the hissing of the rain,
+which flashed like a continuous cutting blade of steel past the windows.
+The hurricane wing could not rock, it was too low and solidly planted
+for that, but it trembled in the impact.
+
+After a couple of minutes came a lull, and Stuart's ears were filled
+with the cries and howling of the frightened negroes, not a sound of
+which had been audible during the squall. The scientist continued his
+talk in an even voice, as peacefully as though he were in his study.
+
+"You asked what could set the skies a-twist. I told you, the earth's
+rotation. For, Stuart, you must remember that a hurricane is not a small
+thing. This heated region of the air of which we have been speaking,
+with its outer belt of cooler air, and the descending warm air beyond,
+is a region certainly not less than five hundred miles in diameter and
+may be a great deal more.
+
+"Now, the air, as you know, is held to the earth's surface by
+gravitation, but, being gaseous, it is not held as closely as if it were
+in a solid state. Also, there is centrifugal force to be considered.
+Also the fact that the earth is not round, but flattened at the poles.
+Also the important fact that air at the equator is more heated than at
+the Polar regions. All these things together keep the air in a constant
+commotion. The combined effect of these, in the northern hemisphere, is
+that air moving along the surface of the earth is deflected to the
+right. Thus in the case we are considering, the lower currents,
+approaching the heated center, do not come in equally from all
+directions, but are compelled to approach in spirals. This spiral action
+once begun increases, of itself, in power and velocity. This is a
+hurricane in its baby stage."
+
+Another squall struck.
+
+Speech again became impossible. As before, sheets of water--which bore
+no relation to rain, but seemed rather as though the earth were at the
+foot of a waterfall from which a river was leaping from on high--were
+hurled over the land. The shrieking of the wind had a wild and maniacal
+sound, the sound which Jamaicans have christened "the hell-cackle of a
+hurricane." This squall lasted longer, five minutes or more, and when it
+passed, the wind dropped somewhat, but did not die down. It raged
+furiously, its shriek dropped to a sullen and menacing roar.
+
+"Such a hurricane as this," the "Ol' Doc" continued, "has taken many
+days to brew. Day after day the air has remained in its ominous quietude
+over the surface of the ocean, becoming warmer and warmer, gathering
+strength for its devastating career. The water vapor has risen higher
+and higher. Dense cumulus clouds have formed, the upper surfaces of
+which have caught all the sun's heat, intensifying the unstable
+equilibrium of the air. The powers of the tempest have grown steadily in
+all evil majesty of destructiveness. Day by day, then hour by hour, then
+minute by minute, the awful force has been generated, as steam is
+generated by fierce furnace fires under a ship's boilers.
+
+"Why, Stuart, it has been figured that the air in a hurricane a hundred
+miles in diameter and a mile high, weighs as much as half-a-million
+Atlantic liners, and this incredibly huge mass is driven at twice the
+speed of the fastest ship afloat. In these gusts, which come with the
+rain squalls, the wind will rise to a velocity of a hundred and twenty
+miles an hour. It strikes!"
+
+A crack of thunder deafened all, and green and violet lightning winked
+and flickered continuously. The hiss of the rain, the shrieking of the
+wind and the snapping crackle of the thunder defied speech. The heat in
+the hurricane wing was terrific, but Stuart shivered with cold. It was
+the cold of terror, the cold of helplessness, the cold of being
+powerless in such an awful evidence of the occasional malignity of
+Nature.
+
+Between the approach of night and the closing in of the clouds, an inky
+darkness prevailed, though in the intervals between the outbursts of
+lightning, the sky had a mottled copper and green coloration, the copper
+being the edges of low raincloud-masses, and the green, the flying scud
+above.
+
+Squall followed squall in ever-closer succession, the uproar changing
+constantly from the shriek of the hundred-mile wind in the squall to the
+dull roar of the fifty-mile wind in between. The thunder crackled,
+without any after-rumble, and the trembling of the ground could be felt
+from the pounding of the terrific waves half a mile away. Then, in a
+long-drawn-out descending wail, like the howl of a calling coyote, the
+hurricane died down to absolute stillness.
+
+"Whew!" exclaimed Stuart, in relief. "I'm glad that's over."
+
+"Over!" the scientist exclaimed. "The worst is to come! We're in the eye
+of the hurricane. Look!"
+
+Overhead the sky was almost clear, so clear that the stars could be
+seen, but the whirl of air, high overhead, made them twinkle so that
+they seemed to be dancing in their places. To seaward, a violet glow,
+throbbing and pulsating, showed where the lightning was playing.
+
+"I'm going out to see if all's safe," said the scientist. "Do you want
+to come?"
+
+Stuart would have rather not. But he dared not refuse. They had hardly
+left the hurricane wing and got to the outside, when "Ol' Doc" sniffed.
+
+"No," he said, "we'll go back. We're not full in the center. The edge
+will catch us again."
+
+He pointed.
+
+Not slowly this time, but with a swiftness that made it seem unreal, a
+shape like a large hand rose out of the night and blotted out the stars.
+A distant clamor could be heard, at first faintly, and then with a
+growing speed, like the oncoming of an express train.
+
+"In with you, in!" cried the scientist.
+
+They rushed through the low passage and bolted the heavy door.
+
+Then with a crash which seemed enough to tear a world from its moorings,
+the opposite side of the hurricane struck, all the worse in that it came
+without even a preparatory breeze. The noise, the tumult, the sense of
+the elements unchained in all their fury was so terrible that the boy
+lost all sense of the passage of time. The negroes no longer moaned or
+prayed. A stupor of paralysis seized them.
+
+So passed the night.
+
+Towards morning, the painful rarefaction of the air diminished. The
+squalls of rain and all-devouring gusts of wind abated, and became less
+and less frequent.
+
+The sky turned gray. Upon the far horizon rose again the cirrus arc, but
+with the dark above and the light below. Majestically it rose and
+spanned the sky, and, under its rim of destruction, came the sunrise in
+its most peaceful colors of rose and pearl-gray, sunrise upon a ravaged
+island.
+
+Over three hundred persons had been killed that night, and many millions
+of dollars of damage done. Yet everyone in Barbados breathed relief.
+
+The hurricane had passed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LAKE OF PITCH
+
+
+Still weak from his illness after the manchineel poisoning, and
+exhausted as he was after a sleepless night in the grip of a hurricane,
+yet Stuart's first thought on leaving the hurricane wing was to get a
+news story to his paper. The spell of journalism was on him.
+
+Around the "Ol' Doc's" place, the hurricane seemed to have done little
+damage. Not a building had fallen. Trees were stripped bare of their
+leaves, cane-fields laid low, but when the boy commented on this escape,
+the old scientist shook his head.
+
+"I built these structures with hurricanes in view," he said. "This old
+place will stand like a lighthouse. But you'll find it different in the
+negro quarters. Alas! You will find mourning, everywhere."
+
+At the boy's urgency the botanist agreed to lend him a horse and light
+carriage and bade one of the negroes drive the lad to Bridgetown. A
+hasty breakfast was swallowed, and, before six in the morning, Stuart
+was on his way back across the island, his faithful typewriter beside
+him.
+
+They had not gone far before the real tragedy of the hurricane began to
+show itself. Here was a house in splinters, and a group of people,
+crying, with bowed heads, told that death had been there. The fields
+were stripped bare. Near Corrington, a sugar factory showed a piece of
+broken wall as all that remained. The road had been washed away by the
+torrential floods.
+
+In a small settlement, some negroes were working in a frenzy around a
+mass of ruined cottages, from beneath which sounded dolorous cries. The
+carriage stopped and both Stuart and the driver leaped out to aid. Ten
+minutes' work unearthed three sufferers, two but slightly hurt, the
+third with his leg broken. Alas! Others were not so fortunate.
+
+Rising smoke, here and there, showed where fire had followed the
+hurricane. Instead of the songs of labor in the fields, nothing was to
+be heard but cries of distress. As the country grew more thickly
+settled, on the way to Bridgetown, so was the suffering more intense and
+the death-roll heavier. The drive, not more than twelve miles in all,
+took over four hours, so littered was the road with fallen trees and the
+debris of houses.
+
+In the ruins of Bridgetown, Stuart met one of his newspaper friends, the
+news instinct still inspiring him to secure every detail of the
+catastrophe, though there was no newspaper office, the building being in
+ruins and the presses buried under an avalanche of brick.
+
+"The wires are down, too," said this newspaper man, "if I were you, I'd
+chase right over to Trinidad. The mail steamer, which should have gone
+last night, hasn't left yet, or, at least, I don't think she has. She
+couldn't leave till the hurricane passed and the sea calmed down a bit.
+At present, we are cut off from the world. It'll take two or three days,
+a week, maybe, before the shore ends of the submarine cables are
+recovered. If you can catch that steamer, you'll be in Trinidad this
+evening."
+
+"But suppose the cables are broken there, too?" suggested Stuart.
+
+"They're not likely to be," his friend replied, "we just caught the
+southern end of the hurricane here--lucky we didn't get the middle!--and
+so Trinidad is likely to have escaped entirely. But you'll have to hurry
+to catch that steamer. I'll get in touch with Ol' Doc, the best way I
+can, and send your trunk on to you down there. Got your typewriter?
+That's all right, then. Write your story on the boat. Now, hurry up!
+Here!"
+
+He shouted to a passing negro.
+
+"Go down to the pier, Pierre, get a boat, any boat, and take this
+passenger. He's got to catch the steamer."
+
+"Me catch um!"
+
+And he did, though it was by the narrowest margin, for the mail steamer
+had steam up, and only waited until this last passenger should come
+aboard.
+
+Stuart had counted on being able to enrich his account of the hurricane
+with personal stories from the passengers on the steamer, all of whom
+had been through the disaster, some on board ship and some ashore. There
+was no chance of this. Although a glorious day, not a soul among the
+passengers was on deck. All were sleeping, for all, alike, had waked and
+watched.
+
+Stuart was dropping with weariness and sleep, but he remembered what the
+Managing Editor had said to him about a "scoop" and he thought that this
+might be the great opportunity of his life to make a reputation for
+himself on his first trip out. A well-placed half-sovereign with the
+deck steward brought him a cup of strong coffee every two hours, and
+though his mind was fogged with weariness, so vivid had been his
+impressions that they could not help but be thrilling.
+
+Though one of the most richly verdant of all the West India islands,
+Trinidad had little beauty to Stuart, on his first sight of it. He saw
+it through a haze of weariness, his eyes red-rimmed through lack of
+sleep. The harbor is shallow, and Stuart, like other passengers, landed
+in a launch, but he had eyes only for one thing--the cable office. Since
+his only luggage consisted of a portable typewriter--his trunk having
+been left behind at "Ol' Doc's"--the customs' examination was brief.
+
+At the Cable Office, Stuart learned, to his delight, that not a message
+had either reached the office or gone out about the Barbados hurricane.
+He had a scoop. He put his story on the wires, staggered across the
+street to the nearest hotel, threw off coat and boots and dropped upon
+the bed in an exhausted slumber. And, as an undercurrent to his dreams,
+rang the triumph song of the journalist:
+
+"A Scoop!"
+
+Stuart slept the clock round. It was evening again when he awoke. A wash
+to take the sleep out of his eyes, and down he went to see how big a
+dinner he could put away. But the doorman at the hotel, an East Indian,
+came forward to him with a telegram on a salver. The boy tore it open,
+and read:
+
+     "GOOD--STUFF--SEND--SOME MORE--FERGUS."
+
+And if Stuart had been offered the Governor Generalship of all the West
+Indian Islands put together, he could not have been more proud.
+
+He spent the evening interviewing some of the passengers who had come on
+the mail steamer the day before and who had stayed in Port of Spain and,
+before midnight, filed at the cable office a good "second-day story."
+Remembering what his friend the reporter had told him, Stuart realized
+that though he was still sending this matter to Fergus, as it was
+straight news stuff, it probably was being handled by the Night
+Telegraph staff. That would not help to fill Fergus' columns in the
+Sunday issue, and the boy realized that, no matter what live day stuff
+he got hold of, he must not fall behind in his series of articles on the
+Color Question in the West Indies.
+
+This question--which takes on the proportions of a problem in everyone
+of the West Indian Islands--was very different in Trinidad than in
+Barbados. The peoples and languages of Trinidad are strangely mixed.
+Though it is an English colony, yet the language of the best families is
+Spanish, and the general language of the negro population is Creole
+French, a subvariant of that of Haiti. The boy found, too, on his first
+long walks in the neighborhood of Port-of-Spain, that there was a large
+outer settlement of East Indian coolies, and quite a number of Chinese.
+The English, in Trinidad, were few in number.
+
+In his quest for interviews about the hurricane, one of the chattiest of
+Stuart's informants had been a Mr. James, a resident of Barbados, but
+whose commercial interests were mainly in Trinidad. Since, then, this
+gentleman evidently knew the life in both islands, his comparisons would
+be of value, and the following day Stuart asked him for a second
+interview.
+
+"I'm starting out to my place on the Nariva Cocal," the planter replied,
+"going in about an hour. Very glad to have you as my guest, if you wish,
+and the trip will give you a good view of the island. Then we can chat
+on the way."
+
+Stuart jumped at the opportunity. This was exactly what he was after,
+for the Nariva Cocal, with its thirteen-mile long coco-nut grove on the
+shore of the ocean, is famous. The boy knew, too, that this section was
+very difficult of access, the Nariva River forming a mixture of river,
+tidal creek, lagoon, mangrove swamp and marsh, hard to cross.
+
+For some little distance out of Port-of-Spain the train passed through
+true tropical forests of a verdure not to be outrivaled in any part of
+the New World. "Here," says Treves, "is a very revel of green, a hoard,
+a pyramid, a piled-up cairn of green, rising aloft from an iris-blue
+sea. Here are the dull green of wet moss, the clear green of the
+parrot's wing, the green tints of old copper, of malachite, of the wild
+apple, the bronze-green of the beetle's back, the dead green of the
+autumn Nile." And these are expressed, not in plants, but in trees. The
+moss is waist-high, the ferns wave twenty feet overhead, the bamboo
+drapes a feathery fringe by every stream, the cocoa trees grow right up
+to the road or railroad which sweeps along as on an avenue between them,
+while at every crossing the white roadway is lined by the majestic
+sentinels of plantain, coco-nut palm and breadfruit tree.
+
+Beyond St. Joseph, the ground became a low plain, level and monotonous,
+and given over to sugar-cane. Near d'Abadie, this crop gave place to
+cocoa, the staple of the center of the island, and this extended through
+Arima to Sangre Grande, the terminus of the railroad. During the trip
+Stuart's host had enlightened him by an exact and painstaking
+description of the growing of these various crops and the methods of
+their preparation for market.
+
+At Sangre Grande, the railroad ended and a two-wheeled buggy was
+waiting. The planter ordered the East Indian driver to follow in the
+motor-bus which conveys passengers to Manzanilla, and took the reins
+himself, so as to give a place to Stuart. The road had left the level,
+and passed over low hills and valleys all given over to cocoa trees.
+
+"See those bottles!" commented Mr. James, pointing to bottles daubed
+with paint, bunches of white feathers and similar objects hung on trees
+at various points of the road.
+
+"Yes," answered Stuart, "what are they for?"
+
+"Those are our police!" the planter explained. "This colony is well
+governed, but planters have had a good deal of trouble keeping the
+negroes from stealing. We used to engage a number of watchmen, and the
+police force in this part of the island was increased. It didn't do any
+good, you know! Stealing went on just the same.
+
+"So my partner, down here, went and got hold of the chief Obeah-man or
+witch-doctor of the island--paid him a good stiff price, too--and asked
+him to put a charm on the plantation. He did it, and those bottles and
+feathers are some of the charms. We pay for having them renewed every
+year. It costs a tidy bit, but less than the watchmen and police did."
+
+"And have the thefts stopped?"
+
+"Absolutely. There hasn't been a shilling's worth of stuff touched since
+the obeah-man was here."
+
+"But obeah wouldn't have any effect on East Indian coolies," objected
+Stuart.
+
+"Coolies don't steal," was the terse reply, "those that are Mohammedans
+don't, any way. Trinidad negroes do. They're different from the
+Barbadian negroes, quite different. Obeah seems to be about the only
+thing they care about."
+
+"I ran up against some Obeah in Haiti," remarked Stuart, "though Voodoo
+is stronger there."
+
+"I never heard of much real Voodoo stuff here in the Windward Islands,"
+the planter rejoined, "but Obeah plays a big part in negro life. And, as
+I was just telling you, the whites aren't above using it, sometimes."
+
+"In Haiti," responded Stuart, "Father and I once found an Obeah sign in
+the road. Father, who knows a lot about those things, read it as a charm
+to prevent any white man going that way. I thought it was silly to pay
+any attention, but Father made a long detour around it. A week or so
+after I heard that a white trader had been driving along that road, and
+he drove right over the sign. Half a mile on, his horse took fright,
+threw him out of the buggy and he was killed."
+
+The planter shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I know," he said. "It's all right to call it coincidence, but down in
+these islands that kind of coincidence happens a bit too often. For me,
+I'll throw a shilling to an Obeah-man any time I see one, and I won't
+play any tricks with charms if I know enough about them to keep away."
+
+The buggy jogged along at a smart pace until the shore was reached, and
+then set down the beach over the hard wet sand. On the one side heaved
+the long rollers of the Atlantic, on the other was the continuous grove
+of coco-nut palms, thirteen miles long, one of the finest unbroken
+stretches in the entire world.
+
+A hospitable welcome was extended to Stuart at the house of the Nariva
+Cocal, and, after dinner, the planter took him to the shores of the
+Nariva River, not more than twenty or thirty yards from the house,
+which, at this place, had a bank free of marsh for a distance of perhaps
+a couple of hundred yards.
+
+"It was just at a place like this, but a little higher up-stream," said
+the planter, "that the snake story happened which Kingsley described in
+'At Last.' Four girls were bathing in this river, because the surf is
+too heavy for sea-bathing, and one of them, who had gone into the water
+partly dressed, felt something clutch at her dress.
+
+"It was a huge anaconda.
+
+"The other three girls, with a good deal of pluck, I think, rushed into
+the shallow water and grabbed hold of their comrade. The snake did not
+let go, but the dress was torn from her body by the wrestle between the
+strength of the reptile and that of the four girls. I know one of the
+sisters quite well. She's an old woman, now, but she lives in Sangre
+Grande, still."
+
+Turning from the river, Stuart and the planter strolled some distance
+down the knife-like sandy ridge between the ocean and the swamp. This
+narrow ridge, at no point a hundred yards wide and averaging less than
+half that, contains over 300,000 palms, and this plantation alone helps
+to make Trinidad one of the greatest coco-nut markets of the world.
+
+"I notice," said Stuart, anxious to get material for his articles, "that
+nearly all your laborers here are East Indian coolies. Are they better
+than negroes?"
+
+"They come here under different conditions," explained the planter. "The
+negro is free to work or not, as he chooses, but the coolie is
+indentured. He has to work. He earns less than the negro, but, by the
+time we pay his voyage and all the various obligations that we have to
+undertake for an indentured laborer, the coolie isn't much cheaper to us
+than the negro. But, while the negro can do more work in a day than the
+coolie, he won't. Moreover, if he feels, after a few days' work, that he
+has had enough of it, he just goes away. A Trinidad negro with a pound
+or two in his pocket won't do a tap of work until the last penny be
+spent. The coolie will work quietly, steadily, continuously. What is
+more, he saves his money. That's bringing about a deuced curious
+situation in Trinidad, you know.
+
+"One of the queer things about the West Indies, as you know yourself,
+having lived in Cuba, is that there is really no middle class. Here, in
+Trinidad, there are the wealthy Spanish families and the English
+officials and planters. The blacks are the laborers. For many decades
+there has been no class between. Now, the East Indians, who came here as
+coolies, are beginning to follow the commercial instinct of the east,
+and to open small shops or to buy land. Hence the negro, who used to
+despise and look down on the coolie because he worked for even less
+money, is now finding himself subordinate to an East Indian class which
+has risen to be his superior. Then the East Indians have commenced
+rice-growing, and now are employing negroes, oversetting the old social
+basis.
+
+"There's one thing, son, which few people realize in this color question
+in the West Indies. That is that the negro has not got the instincts of
+a shopkeeper. He doesn't take to trade, ever. If he gets educated, he
+wants at once to be a doctor, a lawyer, or, still more, a preacher. But
+this is a commercial age, and any race which shows itself unfitted for
+commerce is bound to stay the under dog, you know. Trinidad shows that,
+given equal conditions, the East Indian coolie will rise, the negro
+will not."
+
+The following morning, Mr. James having gone over the books of the
+plantation with his manager, the two started back for Port-of-Spain.
+
+"Why don't you live here, Mr. James?" asked the boy. "It's a lovely
+spot, in that coco-nut grove, with the sea right at your doors."
+
+"Climate, my boy," was the answer. "I told you, on the way over here,
+that Trinidad is reckoned one of the most prosperous islands of the West
+Indies--though it really belongs more to the coast of South America than
+it does to the Antilles--but, if you stop to think for a moment, you'll
+see that the prosperity of Trinidad is due to the fact that it has a
+warm, moist, even climate all the year round. That's fine for cocoa and
+coco-nuts, but it's not good for humans. The warm moist air of Trinidad
+is deuced enervating. No, let me go back to Barbados. It may not be as
+beautiful--I'll admit that it isn't--but at least there is a north-east
+breeze nearly all the year round to keep me jolly cool."
+
+The two travelers talked of various subjects, but, once more aboard the
+train at Sangre Grande, the question of Trinidad's wealth recurred to
+Stuart, and he sought further information.
+
+"You spoke of the island as being prosperous, Mr. James," he said. "Has
+the Pitch Lake, discovered so many centuries ago by Sir Walter Raleigh,
+had anything to do with it?"
+
+"Directly, not such a great deal, though, of course, it is a steady
+source of income, especially to the Crown. Asphalt is less than a
+twentieth part of the value of the exports of the island, so, you see,
+Trinidad would have been rich without that. Indirectly, of course, the
+Pitch Lake has been the means of attracting attention to the island,
+especially in earlier times. The facts that Trinidad is out of the
+hurricane track and off the earthquake belt have had a good deal to do
+with its prosperity, too, you know. My friend Cecil always declares that
+Trinidad and Jamaica together, the two richest of the West Indian
+islands, ought to run the whole cluster of Caribbean islands, just as
+little England runs the whole British Empire."
+
+"Who was it said that?" asked Stuart curiously, though his heart was
+thumping with excitement.
+
+"A chap I know, Cecil, Guy Cecil, sort of a globe-trotter. One of the
+biggest shareholders in this Pitch Lake. Funny sort of Johnny. Know
+him?"
+
+"I--I think I've met him," answered the boy. "Tall, eyes a very light
+blue, almost colorless, speaks very correct English, fussy about his
+clothes and doesn't talk about himself much."
+
+"That's the very man!" cried the planter, "I couldn't have described him
+better myself. Where did you meet him?"
+
+Stuart answered non-committally and steered the subject into other
+channels, determining within himself that he would certainly go out to
+the Pitch Lake, if only with the hope of finding out something more
+about this mysterious Guy Cecil, whose name seemed to be cropping up
+everywhere.
+
+The following day, having seen his friend the planter off on the
+homeward bound mail steamer, Stuart prepared for his visit to the famous
+Pitch Lake, though the planter had warned him that he would be
+disappointed.
+
+Going by railway to Fernando, Stuart took a small steamer to La Brea,
+the shipping point for the asphalt, a town, which, by reason of its
+association with pitch, has a strange and unnatural air. The beach is
+covered with pieces of pitch, encrusted with sand and stones, worn by
+the water into the most grotesque shapes and forming so many
+resting-places for hundreds of pelicans. Some of these blocks of
+hardened asphalt had been polished by the sea until they shone like
+jewels of jet as large as a table, others, fringed with green seaweed,
+gave the shore an uncanny appearance of a sea-beach not of this earth.
+Unlike the universally white towns of the West Indies, La Brea is black.
+The impress of pitch is everywhere. The pier is caked with the pitch,
+the pavements are pitch, and, on the only street in the town as Stuart
+passed, he saw a black child, sitting on a black boulder of pitch, and
+playing with a black doll made of pitch.
+
+Taking a negro boy as a guide, Stuart started for the famous deposit of
+asphalt, about one mile inland. The countryside leading thither was not
+absolutely barren, but it was scrawny and dismal. A coarse sand
+alternated with chunks of black asphalt. A few trees managed to find a
+foothold here and there, and there was sparse vegetation in patches.
+
+There was nothing exciting, nothing momentous in the approach to the
+lake. Nor was there anything startling in the sight of the lake itself.
+
+Although previously warned, Stuart could not repress an exclamation of
+disappointed surprise at his first view of this famous lake, the
+greatest deposit of natural asphalt in the world.
+
+A circular depression, so slight that it was hard for the boy to realize
+that it was a depression at all, had, toward its center, a smaller flat,
+115 acres in extent. There were no flames, no sulphurous steam, no
+smoke, no bubbling whirls of viscid matter, nothing exciting whatever.
+The stretch before him resembled nothing so much as mud-flat with the
+tide out. The dried-up bed of a large park pond, with a small island or
+two of green shrubbery, and some very scrawny palms around the edge
+would exactly represent the famous Pitch Lake of Trinidad.
+
+Arriving at the edge, Stuart stepped on the lake with the utmost
+precaution, for he had read that the lake was both warm and liquid. Both
+were true. But the warmth was only slight, and the liquidity was so
+dense that, when a piece of pitch was taken out, it took several hours
+for the slow-moving mass to fill up the hole.
+
+"The sensation that walking upon this substance gave," writes Treves,
+"was no other than that of treading upon the flank of some immense
+beast, some Titanic mammoth lying prostrate in a swamp. The surface was
+black, it was dry and minutely wrinkled like an elephant's skin, it was
+blood-warm, it was soft and yielded to the tread precisely as one would
+suppose that an acre of solid flesh would yield. The general impression
+was heightened by certain surface creases, where the hide seemed to be
+turned in as in the folds behind an elephant's ears. These skin furrows
+were filled with water, as if the collapsed animal was perspiring.
+
+"The heat of the air was great, the light was almost blinding, while the
+shimmer upon the baked surface, added to the swaying of one's feet in
+soft places, gave rise to the idea that the mighty beast was still
+breathing, and that its many-acred flank actually moved."
+
+The task of taking the pitch out of this lake, Stuart found to be as
+prosaic as the lake itself. Laborers, with picks, broke off large
+pieces--which showed a dull blue cleavage--while other laborers lifted
+the pieces on their heads--the material is light--and carried them to
+trucks, running on a little railroad on the surface of the lake, and
+pulled by a cable line.
+
+The tracks sink into the lake, little by little, and have to be pried
+up and moved to a new spot every three days, but as they are specially
+constructed for this, the labor is trifling. The laborers work right
+beside the railroad trucks. It makes no difference where the ditch is
+dug, from which the asphalt is taken, as the hole left the night before
+is filled again by the following morning.
+
+It has been estimated that this deposit alone contains over 9,000,000
+tons of asphalt. It is 135 feet deep, and though enormous quantities of
+the stuff have been taken out, the level has not fallen more than ten
+feet.
+
+In the lake are certain small islands, which move around from place to
+place, apparently following some little-known currents in the lower
+layers of the pitch.
+
+Stuart went on to the factory, hoping to get some further information
+about Guy Cecil, but met with a sudden and unexpected rebuff. Not only
+did no one about the place seem to know the name, but they refused to
+admit that they recognized the description, and seemed to resent the
+questions.
+
+Trying to change the subject, Stuart commenced to ask questions about
+where the asphalt came from, and the manager, who seemed to be a
+Canadian, turned on the boy, sharply.
+
+"See here," he said, "I don't know who you are, nor where you come from.
+But I'll give a civil answer to a civil question. As for this Cecil, I
+don't know anything about him. As for where this asphalt come from, I
+don't know, and nobody knows. Some say it's inorganic, some say is from
+vegetable deposits of a long time ago, some say it's fish. The chemists
+are still scrapping about it. Nobody knows. Now, is there anything
+more?"
+
+The manner of the response was not one to lead Stuart to further
+attempts. He shook his head, and with a curt farewell went back to La
+Brea, Fernando and Port de Spain.
+
+At the hotel he found a telegram.
+
+     "GET--STORY--PRESENT--CONDITION--ST. PIERRE--MARTINIQUE--FERGUS."
+
+Two days later Stuart boarded the steamer for Martinique, the Island of
+the Volcano.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE MORNING OF DOOM
+
+
+"Ay," said the first mate to Stuart, as they paced the bridge on the
+little steamer which was taking the boy to Martinique, "yonder little
+island is St. Lucia, maybe the most beautiful of the West Indies, though
+it isn't safe for folks to wander around much there."
+
+"Why?" asked Stuart in surprise, "are the negroes mutinous?"
+
+"No, bless ye!" the mate gave a short laugh. "Mighty nice folks in St.
+Lucia, though Castries, the capital, is a great fever town. It isn't the
+folks that are dangerous. Snakes, my bully boy, snakes! It's the home of
+the fer-de-lance."
+
+"The Yellow Viper?" queried Stuart.
+
+"The same. An' the name's a good one. It's more viperous than any other
+snake of the viper bunch, an' its disposition is mean and yellow right
+through. Ever see one?"
+
+"No," said Stuart, "I haven't. I heard there were some in Trinidad, and
+there have been a few reported in Cuba. But I guess they're rare there.
+What do they look like?"
+
+The mate spat freely over the side, while he gathered his powers for a
+description.
+
+"If ye can think of a fish that's been a long time dead," he suggested,
+"an' has turned a sort of phosphorescent brown-yellow in decayin', ye'll
+have a general idea of the color. The head, like all the vipers, is low,
+flat an' triangle-shaped. The eye is a bright orange color, an' so
+shinin' that flashes from it look like sparks of red-yellow fire. I've
+never seen them at night, but folks who have, say that in the dark the
+eyes look like glowin' charcoal.
+
+"If I had to take a walk through the St. Lucia woods, I'd put on armor,
+I would! Why, any minute, something you take for a branch, a knot of
+liana, a clump of fruit, a hangin' air-plant, may take life an' strike.
+An' that's all ye'll ever know in this world."
+
+"There's no cure for it?"
+
+"None. A little while after a fer-de-lance strikes, ye're as dead as if
+you'd been dropped in mid-Atlantic, with a shot tied to your feet."
+
+"Maybe I'm just as glad I'm not going to land there," said Stuart,
+"though I guess it's one of the most famous fighting spots of the world.
+I read once that for a hundred and fifty years there was never a year
+without a battle on that island. Seven times it was held by the English
+and seven times by the French."
+
+"Like enough," replied the mate. "It's owned by the English now, but
+Castries is a French town, through and through. But Castries sticks in
+my memory for a reason which means more to a deep-water sailor than any
+land fightin'. We were lyin' in the harbor at Castries when the _Roddam_
+came in, ay, more'n twenty years ago."
+
+"What was the _Roddam_?" queried Stuart, scenting a story.
+
+"Have ye forgotten," answered the mate in a return query, "or didn't ye
+ever know? Let me tell ye what the _Roddam_ was!"
+
+"We were lyin' right over there, in Castries Harbor, dischargin'
+coal--which was carried down by negro women in baskets on their
+heads--when we saw creep round the headland of Vigie, where you can see
+the old barracks from here, the shape of a steamer. She came slowly,
+like some wounded an' crippled critter. Clear across the bay we could
+hear her screw creakin,' an' her engines clankin' like they were all
+poundin' to pieces. What a sight she was! We looked at her, struck still
+ourselves an' unable to speak. They talk of a Phantom Ship, but if ever
+anything looked like a Phantom Steamer, the _Roddam_ was that one.
+
+"From funnel-rim to water-line she was grey an' ghost-like, lookin' like
+a boat seen in an ugly dream. Every scrap o' paint had been burned from
+her sides, or else was hangin' down from the bare iron like flaps o'
+skin. She had been flayed alive, an' she showed it. Some of her derricks
+were gone, the ropes charred an' the wires endin' in blobs o' melted
+metal. The planks of her chart-house were blackened. Her ventilators had
+crumpled into masses without any shape.
+
+"Laborin' like a critter in pain, she managed to make shallow water, an'
+a rattle o' chain told o' the droppin' o' the anchor. After that,
+nothin'! There wasn't a sign o' life aboard.
+
+"The harbor folks pulled out to take a look at the craft. As they came
+near, the smell o' fire an' sulphur met them. A hush, like death, seemed
+to hang over her. The colored boatmen quit rowin', but the harbor-master
+forced them on. Her ladder was still down. The harbor-master climbed
+aboard.
+
+"On deck, nothin' moved. The harbor-master stepped down into grey ashes,
+sinkin' above his knee. With a scream he drew back. The ashes were hot,
+almost white-hot, below. The light surface ash flew up about him and
+half-suffocated him. His boot half-burned from his foot and chokin', the
+harbor-master staggered back to the rail for air.
+
+"No life was to be seen, nothin' but piles o' grey ash, heaped in
+mounds. Ash was everywhere. From it rose a quivering heat, smellin' o'
+sulphur an' the Pit.
+
+"Yet everyone couldn't be dead on this ghost-ship, for someone must ha'
+steered her into the harbor, an' dropped the anchor. Makin' his way
+along the rail, the harbor-master made his way to where he could reach
+the iron ladder goin' to the bridge, an' climbed it. The bridge was
+clear of ash, blown free by the mornin' breeze.
+
+"The chart-house door was open. In it, lyin' across the steam steerin'
+wheel, was Captain Freeman, unconscious. His face was so blistered that
+his eyes were nearly shut. His hair was singed right down to the skull.
+His hands were raw an' bleedin'. His clothes were scorched into
+something that was black an' brittle. The harbor-master lifted him, an'
+laid him on the chart-house bunk."
+
+"What others were there?"
+
+"Pickin' his way, he got to the bow an' found the deck hand who had let
+down the anchor. He was blind an' his flesh was crisped and cracking.
+
+"From below, crawled up four o' the engine-room crew. Most o' the others
+aboard lay dead under those heaps o' hot ash on the deck."
+
+"What had happened?"
+
+"This had happened. The _Roddam_ had been through the eruption of Mont
+Pelee, the only ship which escaped o' the eighteen that were in the
+harbor. She got away only because she made port just fifty-two minutes
+before the eruption, an' had been ordered to the quarantine station,
+some distance off."
+
+"Did you see anything of the eruption yourself?"
+
+"We knew that somethin' had happened, even down here in St. Lucia. It
+turned almost as black as night for a few minutes, an' our skipper, who
+was ashore, said he had felt a slight earthquake. But we saw enough of
+it, right after."
+
+"How?" queried Stuart.
+
+"We had a lot o' foodstuff in our cargo, some of which was billed for
+Caracas. But, as soon as we heard the story, our captain told the
+engineer to get up full steam an' make for Fort-de-France. He knew the
+owners would have wanted him to go to the relief of the folks of
+Martinique. We got there the next day an' saw sights! Sights I can't
+ever forget!"
+
+The eruption of Mont Pelee and the destruction of the town of St.
+Pierre, in 1902, over 30,000 people being killed in the space of three
+seconds, was one of the most tragic disasters of history, and the ruins
+of St. Pierre are today the most astounding ruins that the world
+contains of so vast and terrible a calamity, outrivaling those of
+Pompeii.
+
+The cataclysm did not come without warning. As early as March 23, a
+scientist ascended the volcano and reported that a small crater was in
+eruption. By the end of April, to quote from Heilprin, "vast columns of
+steam and ash had been and were being blown out, boiling mud was flowing
+from its sides and terrific rumblings came from its interior. Lurid
+lights hung over the crown at night-time, and lightning flashed in
+dazzling sheets through the cloud-world. What further warnings could any
+volcano give?"
+
+On April 25, a crater broke into a small eruption, throwing out showers
+of rock-material, which, however, did not reach the town, distant a mile
+from the foot of the volcano. On May 5, an avalanche of boiling mud,
+many acres wide, tumbled down from the volcano, and went roaring along
+the bed of the Riviere Blanche at the rate of a mile a minute. A large
+sugar factory was engulfed and some 159 lives lost. On May 6 and 7, the
+sulphur fumes were so strong in the streets that horses, and even
+people, dropped from suffocation.
+
+Again--what further warning could any volcano give?
+
+There were other warnings. On April 30, light ashes had begun to fall.
+On May 1 an excursion was announced for the summit of Mont Pelee for
+those who wished to see a volcano in action, but that morning a deeper
+coat of ashes blanched the streets. The Jardin des Plantes--one of the
+richest tropical gardens of the West Indies--lay buried beneath a cap of
+gray and white. The heights above the city seemed snow-clad. The country
+roads were blocked and obliterated, and horses would neither work nor
+travel. Birds fell in their noiseless flight, smothered by the ash that
+surrounded them, or asphyxiated by poisonous vapors or gases that were
+being poured into the atmosphere.
+
+"The rain of ashes never ceases," the local paper wrote on May 3. "At
+about half-past nine, the sun shone forth timidly. The passing of
+carriages is no longer heard in the streets. The wheels are muffled.
+Many business houses are closed to customers.... The excursion which
+had been organized for tomorrow morning cannot take place, the crater
+being absolutely inaccessible. Those who had planned to take part will
+be informed on what date this excursion will become possible."
+
+On May 4 the paper wrote: "The sea is covered in patches with dead
+birds. Many lie asphyxiated on the roads. The cattle suffer greatly,
+asphyxiated by the dust of ashes. The children of the planters wander
+aimlessly about the courtyards, with their little donkeys, like human
+wrecks. They are no longer black, but white, and look as if hoar frost
+had formed upon them.... Desolation, aridity and eternal silence prevail
+over the countryside."
+
+Next day, May 5, was the day when the mud crater opened. It was followed
+by an upsurging wave from the ocean, which added to the fear of the
+people, but which receded slowly and with little damage. On the day
+following, Pelee was shrouded in a heavy cloud, and ashes and cinders
+fell over a wide stretch of country. The surface waters had disappeared.
+Trees had been burned of their leaves. Yet a commission appointed to
+investigate the condition of the volcano made light of it, saying "the
+relative position of the craters and the valleys, leading towards the
+sea, enables the statement that the safety of St. Pierre is complete."
+
+Wednesday, May 7, opened one of the saddest and most terrorizing of the
+many days that led up to the final eruption. Since four o'clock in the
+morning, Mont Pelee had been hoarse with its roaring, and vivid
+lightning flashed through its shattered clouds. Thunder rolled over its
+head, and lurid glares played across the smoky column which towered
+aloft. "Some say," says Heilprin, "that at this time it showed two fiery
+crater-mouths, which shone out like fire-filled blast furnaces. The
+volcano seemed prepared for a last effort.
+
+"When daylight broke through the clouds and cast its softening rays over
+the roadstead, another picture of horror rose to the eyes. The
+shimmering waters of the open sea were loaded with wreckage of all
+kinds--islands of debris from field and forest and floating fields of
+pumice and jetsam. As far as the eye could reach, it saw but a field of
+desolation." The river of Basse-Pointe overflowed with a torrent of
+black water, which carried several houses away. Black rains fell.
+
+Again, and for the last time--could a volcano give any further warning?
+
+Yet the governor, a scientific commission, and the local paper joined in
+advising the inhabitants of St. Pierre not to flee the city, the article
+closing with the words, "Mont Pelee presents no more dangers to the
+inhabitants of St. Pierre than does Vesuvius to those of Naples."
+
+Next day the governor was dead, the members of the commission were dead,
+the editor was dead, and the presses on which this article had been
+printed had, in one blast, been fused into a mass of twisted metal.
+
+Came the 8th of May, 1902.
+
+Shortly after midnight the thunders ceased for a while, but by four
+o'clock, two hours before the shadows of night had lifted, an ominous
+cloud was seen flowing out to sea, followed in its train by streaks of
+fiery cinders. The sun was barely above the horizon when the roaring
+began again. The Vicar-General describes these sounds as follows: "I
+distinguished clearly four kinds of noises; first the clap of thunder,
+which followed the lightning at intervals of twenty seconds; then the
+mighty muffled detonations of the volcano, like the roaring of many
+cannon fired simultaneously; third, the continuous rumbling of the
+crater, which the inhabitants designated the 'roaring of the lion,' and
+then last, as though furnishing the bass for this gloomy music, the deep
+noise of the swelling waters, of all the torrents which take their
+source upon the mountain, generated by an overflow such as has never yet
+been seen. This immense rising of thirty streams at once, without one
+drop of water having fallen on the sea-coast, gives some idea of the
+cataracts which must pour down upon the summit from the storm-clouds
+gathered around the crater."
+
+"Hundreds of agonized people," writes Heilprin, in his great scientific
+work on the catastrophe, "had gathered to their devotions in the
+Cathedral and the Cathedral Square, this being Ascension Day, but
+probably there were not many among them who did not feel that the tide
+of the world had turned, for even through the atmosphere of the sainted
+bells, the fiery missiles were being hurled to warn of destruction. The
+fate of the city and of its inhabitants had already been sealed.
+
+"The big hand of the clock of the Military Hospital had just reached the
+minute mark of 7:50 a.m. when a great brown cloud was seen to issue from
+the side of the volcano, followed almost immediately by a cloud of
+vapory blackness, which separated from it and took a course downward to
+the sea. Deafening detonations from the interior preceded this
+appearance, and a lofty white pennant was seen to rise from the summit
+of the volcano.
+
+"With wild fury the black cloud rolled down the mountain slope, pressing
+closely the contours of the valley along which had previously swept the
+mud-flow that overwhelmed the factory three days before, and spreading
+fan-like to the sea.
+
+"In two minutes, or less, it had reached the doomed city, a flash of
+blinding intensity parted its coils, and St. Pierre was ablaze. The
+clock of the Military Hospital halted at 7:52 a.m.--a historic time-mark
+among the ruins, the recorder of one of the greatest catastrophic events
+that are written in the history of the world."
+
+Just before the cloud struck, its violet-grey center showed, and the
+forepart of this was luminous. It struck the town with the fury of a
+tornado of flame. Whirls of fire writhed spirally about it. The mountain
+had belched death, death in many forms: death by fire, death by
+poisonous gases, death by a super-furnace heat, but, principally, death
+by a sudden suffocation, the fiery and flaming cloud having consumed all
+the breathable air.
+
+Whole streets of houses were mown down by the flaming scythe. Walls
+three to four feet in thickness were blown away like paper. Massive
+machinery was crumpled up as if it had been clutched in a titanic
+white-hot metal hand. The town was raked by a hurricane of incandescent
+dust and super-heated gas.
+
+The violet luminosity, with its writhing serpents of flame, was followed
+in a second or two by a thousand points of light as the town took fire,
+followed, almost instantaneously, by a burst of light of every color in
+the spectrum, as a thousand substances leaped into combustion, and then,
+in a moment----
+
+Night!
+
+An impenetrable cloud of smoke and ash absolutely blotted out the sun.
+The sky was covered. The hills were hidden. The sea was as invisible as
+at midnight. Even the grayness of the ash gave back no light; there was
+none to give.
+
+Three seconds had elapsed since the violet-gray cloud of fury struck the
+town, but in those three seconds 30,000 people lay dead, slain with
+such appalling swiftness that none knew their fate. No one had tried to
+escape.
+
+The eruption was witnessed, from a distance, by only one trained
+observer, Roger Arnoux, and a translation of his record is, in part, as
+follows:
+
+"Having left St. Pierre at about five in the evening (May 7) I was
+witness to the following spectacle: Enormous rocks, being clearly
+distinguishable, were being projected from the crater to a considerable
+elevation, so high, indeed, as to occupy a quarter of a minute in their
+flight.
+
+"About eight o'clock of the evening we recognized for the first time,
+playing about the crater, fixed fires that burned with a brilliant white
+flame. Shortly afterwards, several detonations, similar to those that
+had been heard at St. Pierre, were noted coming from the south, which
+confirmed me in my opinion that there already existed a number of
+submarine craters from which gases were being projected, to explode when
+coming in contact with the air.
+
+"Having retired for the night, at about nine o'clock, I awoke shortly
+afterwards in the midst of a suffocating heat and completely bathed in
+perspiration.... I awoke again about eleven thirty-five, having felt a
+trembling of the earth ... but again went to sleep, waking at half-past
+seven. My first observation was of the crater, which I found
+sufficiently calm, the vapors being chased swiftly under pressure of an
+east wind.
+
+"At about eight o'clock, when still watching the crater (M. Arnoux was
+the only man who saw the beginning of the eruption and lived to tell the
+tale), I noted a small cloud pass out, followed two seconds after by a
+considerable cloud, whose flight to the Pointe de Carbet (beyond the
+city) _occupied less than three seconds_, being at the same time already
+in our zenith, thus showing that it developed almost as rapidly in
+height as in length. The vapors were of a violet-gray color and
+seemingly very dense, for, although endowed with an almost inconceivably
+powerful ascensive force, they retained to the zenith their rounded
+summits. Innumerable electric scintillations played through the chaos of
+vapors, at the same time that the ears were deafened by a frightful
+fracas.
+
+"I had, at this time, an impression that St. Pierre had been
+destroyed.... As the monster seemed to near us, my people,
+panic-stricken, ran to a neighboring hillock that dominated the house,
+begging me to do the same.... Hardly had we arrived at the summit when
+the sun was completely veiled, and in its place came almost complete
+blackness.... At this time we observed over St. Pierre, a column of
+fire, estimated to be 1,200 feet in height, which seemed to be endowed
+with the movement of rotation as well as onward movement." St. Pierre
+was no more.
+
+Rescuers were soon on their way. Twenty-three minutes after the clouds
+had been seen rising from Mont Pelee and the cable and telephone lines
+were broken, a little steamer left Fort-de-France, the capital. It
+reached half-way, then, finding that the rain of stones and ashes
+threatened to sink it, returned. The boat started anew at ten o'clock
+and rounded the point of Carbet. The volcano was shrouded in smoke and
+ashes. For three miles the coast was in flames. Seventeen vessels in the
+roadstead, two of which were American steamers, burned at anchor. The
+heat from this immense conflagration prevented the boat from proceeding
+and it returned to Fort-de-France, reaching there at one o'clock,
+bringing the sinister tidings.
+
+At midday, the Acting Governor of Martinique ordered the _Suchet_ to go
+with troops to be under the direction of the Governor, then at St.
+Pierre. About three o'clock, a party was landed on the shore. The pier
+was covered with bodies. The town was all in fire and in ruins. The heat
+was such that the landing party could not endure more than three or four
+minutes. The Governor was dead also.
+
+"St. Pierre," writes a witness on another rescue ship, which arrived at
+almost the same moment, "is no more. Its ruins stretch before us, in
+their shroud of smoke and ashes, gloomy and silent, a city of the dead.
+Our eyes seek the inhabitants fleeing distracted, or returning to look
+for the dead. Nothing to be seen. No living soul appears in this desert
+of desolation, encompassed by appalling silence.... Through the clouds
+of ashes and of smoke diffused in our atmosphere, the sun breaks wan and
+dim, as it is never seen in our skies, and throws over the whole
+picture a sinister light, suggestive of a world beyond the grave."
+
+Two of the inhabitants, and two only, escaped; one a negro prisoner, who
+was not found until three days later, burned half to death in his prison
+cell; and one, a shoemaker, who, by some strange eddy in the all-killing
+gas, and who was on the very edge of the track of destruction, fled,
+though others fell dead on every side of him.
+
+A second eruption, coupled with an earthquake, on May 20, completed the
+wreckage of the buildings. This outburst was even more violent than the
+first. There was no loss of life, for no one was left to slay.
+
+Five years later, Sir Frederick Treves visited St. Pierre. "Along the
+whole stretch of the bay," he writes, "there is not one living figure to
+be seen, not one sign of human life, not even a poor hut, nor grazing
+cattle.... A generous growth of jungle has spread over the place in
+these five years. Rank bushes, and even small trees, make a thicket
+along some of the less traversed ways.... Over some of the houses
+luxuriant creepers have spread, while long grass, ferns and forest
+flowers have filled up many a court and modest lane."
+
+Twelve years later, a visitor to St. Pierre found a small wooden pier
+erected. A tiny hotel had been built. Huts were clustering under the
+ruins. Several parties were at work clearing away the ruins, but slowly,
+for the government of the colony would not assist in the work,
+believing that the region was unsafe. At the time of this visit, Mont
+Pelee was still smoking.
+
+This was the ruined city which Stuart was going to see. On board the
+steamer were the two or three books which tell the story of the great
+eruption, and the boy filled his brain full of the terrible story that
+he might better feel the great adventure that the next day should bring
+him.
+
+The steamer reached Fort-de-France in the evening, and the boy found the
+town, though ill-lighted, gay. A band was playing in the Plaza, not far
+from the landing place and most of the shops were still open. Morning
+showed an even brighter Fort-de-France, for, though when St. Pierre was
+in its glory, Fort-de-France was the lesser town, the capital now is the
+center of the commercial prosperity of the island. For this, however,
+Stuart had little regard. Sunrise found him on the little steamer which
+leaves daily for St. Pierre.
+
+The journey was not long, three hours along a coast of steep cliffs with
+verdant mountains above. Small fishing hamlets, half-hidden behind
+coco-nut palms, appeared in every cove. The steamer passed Carbet, that
+town on the edge of the great eruptive flood, which had its own
+death-list, and they turned the point of land into the harbor of St.
+Pierre.
+
+Before the boy's eyes rose the Mountain of Destruction, sullen, twisted,
+wrinkled and still menacing, not all silent yet. The hills around were
+green, and verdure spread over the country once deep in volcanic ash.
+But Mont Pelee was brown and bald still.
+
+Nineteen years had passed since the eruption, but St. Pierre had not
+recovered. At first sight, from the sea, the town gave a slight
+impression of being rebuilt. But this was only the strange combination
+of old ruins and modern fishing huts. The handsome stone wharves still
+stood, but no vessels lay beside them.
+
+The little steamer slowed and tied up at a tiny wooden pier. A statue,
+symbolical of St. Pierre in her agony, had been erected on the end of
+the pier. The boy landed, and walked slowly along the frail wooden
+structure, to take in the scene as it presented itself to him.
+
+Alas, for St. Pierre! As Lafcadio Hearn described it--"the quaint,
+whimsical, wonderfully colored little town, the sweetest, queerest,
+darlingest little city in the Antilles.... Walls are lemon color, quaint
+balconies and lattices are green. Palm trees rise from courts and
+gardens into the warm blue sky, indescribably blue, that appears almost
+to touch the feathery heads of them. And all things within and without
+the yellow vista are steeped in a sunshine electrically white, in a
+radiance so powerful that it lends even to the pavement of basalt the
+glitter of silver ore.
+
+"Everywhere rushes mountain water--cool and crystal--clear, washing the
+streets; from time to time you come to some public fountain flinging a
+silvery column to the sun.... And often you will note, in the course of
+a walk, little drinking fountains contrived in the angle of a building,
+or in the thick walls bordering the bulwarks or enclosing public
+squares; glittering threads of water spurting through lion-lips of
+stone."
+
+Alas for St. Pierre!
+
+Above the pier but one street had been partly restored, and, at every
+gap, the boy's gaze encountered gray ruins. The ash, poured out by the
+mountain in its vast upheaval, has made a rich soil. To Stuart's eyes,
+the town was a town of dreams, of great stone staircases that led to
+nowhere, of high archways that gave upon a waste. The entrance hall of
+the great Cathedral, once one of the finest in the West Indies, still
+leads to the high altar, but that finds its home in a little wooden
+structure with a tin roof, shrinking in what was once a corner of the
+apse.
+
+Built as a lean-to in the corner of what had once been a small, but
+strongly-built house was a store, a very small store, outside the door
+of which a crippled negro was sitting. Thinking that this might be one
+of the old-timers of St. Pierre, Stuart stopped and bought a small
+trinket, partly as a memento, partly as a means of getting into
+conversation.
+
+"But yes, Monsieur," answered the storekeeper, "it was my wife and I--we
+escaped. My wife, she had been sent into Morne Rouge, that very morning,
+with a message from her mistress. Me, I was working on the road, not
+more than a mile away. I saw nothing of it, Monsieur. About half-past
+seven that morning (twenty-two minutes, therefore, before the final
+eruption) a shower of stones fell where I was working. One fell on my
+back, and left me crippled, as you see. But my four children, ah!
+Monsieur, they sleep here, somewhere!"
+
+He waved his hand toward the riot of ruin and foliage which now marks
+the city which once prided itself on being called "the gayest little
+city in the West Indies."
+
+"Yet you have come back!" exclaimed Stuart.
+
+"But yes, Monsieur, what would you? It pleased God that I should be born
+here, that my children should be taken away from me here; and, maybe,
+that I should die here, too."
+
+"You are not afraid that Mont Pelee will begin again?"
+
+The negro shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It is my home, Monsieur," he said simply. "Better a home which is sad
+than the place of a stranger which is gay. But we hope, Monsieur, that
+some day the government of Martinique will accept a parole of good
+conduct from the Great Eater of Lives"--he pointed to Mont Pelee--"and
+give us back our town again."
+
+Next morning, studying the life of the little town, Stuart found that
+many others shared the view of the crippled negro. The little
+market-place on the Place Bertin, though lacking any shelter from
+pouring rain or blazing sun, was crowded with three or four hundred
+market women. Daily the little steamer takes a cargo from St. Pierre,
+for the ash from the volcano has enriched the soil, and the planters are
+growing wealthy. There are many more little houses and thatched huts
+tucked into corners of the ruins than appear at first sight, and a hotel
+has been built for the tourists who visit the strange spot.
+
+The crater in Mont Pelee is silent now; the great vent which hurled
+white-hot rocks, incandescent dust and mephitic gases, is now covered
+with a thick green shrubbery, only here and there do small smoke-holes
+emit a light sulphurous vapor; but the great mountain, treeless,
+wrinkled, implacable, seemed to Stuart to throw a solemn shadow of
+threat upon the town. The secret of St. Pierre, as Stuart wrote to his
+paper, "lies in the hope of its inhabitants, but its real future lies in
+the parole of good conduct from the Great Eater of Human Lives, Mont
+Pelee."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A CORSAIR'S DEATH
+
+
+There is not a corner of the world which is more full of historic
+memories than is the West Indies. Dominica, the next island which Stuart
+passed after he had left Martinique, besides being one of the scenic
+glories of the world, described as "a tabernacle for the sun, a shrine
+of a thousand spires, rising tier above tier, in one exquisite fabric of
+green, purple and grey," has many claims to fame. Here, the cannibal
+Caribs were so fierce that for 255 years they defied the successive
+fleets of Spaniards, French and English who tried to take possession of
+the island. Some three hundred Caribs still dwell upon the island upon a
+reservation provided by the government. The warriors no longer make war,
+and fish has taken the place of the flesh of their enemies as a staple
+diet.
+
+Under the cliffs of Dominica is a memory of the Civil War, for there the
+Confederate vessel _Alabama_ finally escaped the Federal man-of-war
+_Iroquois_. A few miles further north, between Dominica and Guadeloupe,
+in The Saints Passage, was fought, in 1782, the great sea-battle between
+Rodney and De Grasse, which ended in the decisive victory of the
+English over the French and gave Britain the mastery of the Caribbean
+Sea. It ranks as one of the great historic sea-fights of the world.
+
+The next island on the direct line to the north, St. Kitts, is not
+destitute of fame. As Cecil had told Stuart, St. Kitts or St.
+Christopher was first a home for buccaneers, and later one of the keys
+to the military occupation of the West Indies. Its neighbor, St. Nevis,
+together with other claims to romance, has a special interest to the
+United States in that Alexander Hamilton--perhaps one of the greatest of
+American statesmen--was born there.
+
+Near St. Kitts lies Antigua, where the _Most Blessed Trinity_--despite
+her name, one of the most famous pirate craft afloat--settled after her
+bloody cruises. Its captain was Bartholomew Sharp, described as "an
+acrid-looking villain whose scarred face had been tanned to the color of
+old brandy, whose shaggy brows were black with gunpowder, and whose long
+hair, half singed off in a recent fight, was tied up in a nun's wimple.
+He was dressed in the long embroidered coat of a Spanish grandee, and,
+as there was a bullet hole in the back of the garment, it may be
+surmised that the previous owner had come to a violent end. His hose of
+white silk were as dirty as the deck, his shoe buckles were of dull
+silver."
+
+Sharp, with 330 buccaneers, had left the West Indies in April, 1760.
+They landed on the mainland, and, crossing the isthmus, made for
+Panama. Having secured canoes, they attacked the Spanish fleet lying at
+Perico, an island off Panama City, and, after one of the most desperate
+fights recorded in the annals of piracy, they took all the ships,
+including the _Most Blessed Trinity_. Then followed a long record of
+successful piracy, of battle, murder and sudden death, of mutiny and
+slaughter grim and great. Sharp, who, with all his crimes, was as good a
+navigator as he was reckless a fighter, sailed the _Most Blessed
+Trinity_ with his crew of desperadoes the whole length of South America,
+rounded the Horn and, after eighteen months of adventure, peril and
+hardship, reached the West Indies again.
+
+"The log of the voyage," writes Treves, "affords lurid reading. It
+records how they landed and took towns, how they filled the little
+market squares with corpses, how they pillaged the churches, ransacked
+the houses and then committed the trembling places to the flames.
+
+"It tells how they tortured frenzied men until, in their agony, they
+told of hiding places where gold was buried; how they spent an unholy
+Christmas at Juan Fernandez; how, in a little island cove, they fished
+with a greasy lead for golden pieces which Drake is believed to have
+thrown overboard for want of carrying room. It gives account of a cargo
+of sugar and wine, of tallow and hides, of bars of silver and pieces of
+eight, of altar chalices and ladies' trinkets, of scented laces, and of
+rings torn from the clenched and still warm fingers of the dead.
+
+"The 'valiant commander' had lost many of his company on the dangerous
+voyage. Some had died in battle; others had mumbled out their lives in
+the delirium of fever, sunstroke or drink; certain poor souls, with
+racked joints and bleeding backs, were crouching in Spanish prisons; one
+had been marooned on a desert island in the Southern Pacific Ocean." At
+the last, Sharp turned over the ship to the remainder of his crew and
+set sail, rich and respected (!) for England.
+
+On the way from St. Kitts to St. Thomas, Stuart passed the two strange
+islands of St. Eustatius and Saba, remnants of the once great Dutch
+power in the West Indies. Statia, as the first island is generally
+called, is a decadent spot, its commerce fallen to nothing, the
+warehouses along the sea-front of its only town, in ruins. Yet once,
+strange as it may seem, for a few brief months, Statia became the scene
+of a wild commercial orgy, and the place where once was held "the most
+stupendous auction in the history of the universe."
+
+It happened thus: When the American Revolulutionary War broke out,
+England being already at war with France, commercial affairs in the West
+Indies became complicated by the fact that the Spanish, the French and
+the English, all enacted trading restrictions so stringent that
+practically every port in the West Indies was closed. The Dutch, seizing
+the opportunity, made Statia a free port. Immediately, the whole of
+French, English, Spanish, Dutch and American trade was thrown upon the
+tiny beach of Fort Oranje.
+
+More than that, Statia became the center for contraband of war. All the
+other islands took advantage of this. Statia became a huge arsenal.
+American privateers and blockade-runners were convoyed by Dutch
+men-of-war, which, of course, could not be attacked. Smugglers were
+amply provided with Dutch papers. Goods poured in from Europe every day
+in the week. Rich owners of neighboring islands, not knowing how the
+French-English strife might turn out, sent their valuables to Statia for
+safe keeping. The little island became a treasure-house.
+
+At times more than a hundred merchant vessels could be seen swinging to
+their anchors in the roadstead. A mushroom town appeared as by magic.
+Warehouses rose by scores. The beach was hidden by piles of boxes, bags
+and bales for which no storeroom could be found. Merchants came from all
+ports, especially the Jews and Levantines, who, since the beginning of
+time, have been the trade-rovers of the sea. Neither by day nor by night
+did the Babel of commerce cease. Unlike other West Indian towns, where
+such a condition led to gaiety and pleasure, Fort Oranje retained its
+Dutch character. It was a hysteria, but a hysteria of buying and selling
+alone.
+
+Then, one fine day, February 3, 1781, Rodney came down with a British
+fleet and captured Fort Oranje and all that it contained. There were
+political complications involved, but Rodney bothered little about that.
+Fort Oranje was a menace to British power. Rodney took it without
+remorse, appropriated the more than $20,000,000 worth of goods lying on
+the beach and the warehouses, and the 150 merchantmen, which, on that
+day, were lying in the bay. Jews and Levantines were stripped to the
+skin and sent packing. The Dutch surrendered and took their medicine
+phlegmatically. The French, as open enemies, were allowed to depart with
+courtesy.
+
+Then came the great auction. Without reserve, without remorse, over
+$20,000,000 worth of goods were put up for what they would fetch. Boxes,
+crates, bales and bags melted away like snow before the sun. Warehouses
+bursting with goods became but empty shells. Traders' booths were
+abandoned, one by one. Just for a few months the commercial debauch
+lasted, then Rodney sailed away. Since then, the selling on the beach of
+Statia has been confined to a little sugar and a few yams.
+
+For the United States, the little fort above Fort Oranje has a historic
+memory. From the old cannon, still in position on that fort, was fired
+the first foreign salute to the Stars and Stripes, the first salute
+which recognized the United States as a sovereign nation.
+
+It was on the 16th of November, 1776, that the brig _Andrea Doria_,
+fourteen guns, third of the infant American navy of five vessels, under
+the command of Josiah Robinson, sailed into the open roadstead of St.
+Eustatius, and dropped anchor almost under the guns of Fort Oranje.
+
+"She could have chosen no more fitting name," writes Fenger, "than that
+of the famous townsman of Columbus.... The _Andrea Doria_ may have
+attracted but little attention as she appeared in the offing ... but,
+with the quick eyes of seafarers, the guests of Howard's Tavern had
+probably left their rum for a moment to have their first glimpse of a
+strange flag which they all knew must be that of the new republic.
+
+"Abraham Ravene, commandant of the fort, lowered the red-white-and-blue
+flag of Holland in recognition of the American ship. In return, the
+_Andrea Doria_ fired a salute.
+
+"This put the commandant in a quandary. Anchored not far from the
+_Andrea Doria_ was a British ship. The enmity of the British for
+Holland, and especially against Statia, was no secret.
+
+"In order to shift the responsibility, Ravene went to consult De Graeff,
+the governor. De Graeff had already seen the _Andrea Doria_, for Ravene
+met him in the streets of the Upper Town. A clever lawyer and a keen
+business man, the governor had already made up his mind when Ravene
+spoke.
+
+"'Two guns less than the national salute,'" was the order.
+
+"And, so, the United States was for the first time recognized as a
+nation by this salute of eleven guns.
+
+"For this act, De Graeff was subsequently recalled to Holland, but he
+was reinstated as Governor of Statia, and held that position when the
+island was taken by Rodney in 1781. The Dutch made no apology to
+England."
+
+Saba, which lies close to Statia, depends for its interest on its
+location. It is but an old volcanic crater, sticking up out of the sea,
+in the interior of which a town has been built. As a writer describes
+it, "if the citizens of this town--which is most fitly called
+Bottom--wish to look at the sea, they must climb to the rim of the
+crater, as flies would crawl to the edge of a tea-cup, and look over.
+They will see the ocean directly below them at the foot of a precipice
+some 1,300 feet high. To go down to the sea it is necessary to take a
+path with a slope like the roof of a house, and to descend the Ladder,
+an appalling stair on the side of a cliff marked at the steepest part by
+steps cut out of the face of the rock."
+
+This strange town of Bottom is built with a heavy wall all round it, to
+save it from the torrents which stream down the inside slopes of the
+crater during a rain. Its population is mainly white, flaxen-haired
+descendants of the Dutch.
+
+More amazing than all, most of the inhabitants are shipbuilders, but the
+ships, when built, have to be let down by ropes over the side of the
+cliff. These fishing smacks are not only built in a crater, but on an
+island which has neither beach, harbor, landing stage nor safe anchoring
+ground, where no timber is produced, where no iron is to be found, and
+where cordage is not made. The island has no more facilities for the
+shipbuilding trade than a lighthouse on a rock in the middle of the sea.
+
+[Illustration: ABOVE THE HOARSE SHOUTS OF RUFFIANS AND JACK-TARS, ROSE
+TEACH'S MURDEROUS WAR CRY.]
+
+Passing Saba, the steamer went on to her next port of call, St. Thomas.
+Here was seen the influence of another European power. Barbados and
+Trinidad are English; Martinique, French; Statia and Saba, Dutch; but
+St. Thomas is Danish. It is the chief of the Virgin Islands, and
+rejoices in a saintlier name than many of its companions which are known
+as "Rum Island," "Dead Man's Chest," "Drowned Island," "Money Rock,"
+"Cutlass Isle" and so forth, the naming of which shows buccaneer
+authorship. Even in the town of Charlotte Amalia, the capital of St.
+Thomas, the stamp of the pirate is strong, for two of the hills above
+the city are marked by the ruins of old stone buildings, one of which is
+called "Bluebeard's Castle," and "Blackbeard's Castle," the other. It
+was once, no doubt, one of the many ports of call of that Nero of
+pirates, Blackbeard Edward Teach.
+
+Cecil's description of the buccaneers had greatly stimulated Stuart's
+interest in pirate stories, and, rightly thinking that he could sell a
+story to his paper by new photographs of "Blackbeard's Castle" and by a
+retelling of the last fight of that savage scoundrel, he set himself to
+find out what was known of this career of this "Chiefest and Most
+Unlovely of all the Pyrates" as he is called in a volume written by one
+of his contemporaries.
+
+In appearance he was as fierce and repulsive as in character. He was of
+large size, powerfully built, hairy, with a mane-like beard which, black
+as his heart, grew up to his very eyes. This beard he twisted into four
+long tails, tied with ribbons, two of which he tucked behind his
+outstanding ears, and two over his shoulders. His hair was like a mat
+and grew low over his forehead. In fact, little of the skin of his face
+was visible, his fierce eyes glaring from a visage like that of a
+baboon. In fighting, it was his custom to stick lighted fuses under his
+hat, the glare of which, reflected in his jet-like eyes, greatly
+increased the ferocity of his appearance.
+
+Teach was an execrable rascal, who ruled his ship by terror. The worst
+of his crew admitted him master of horror as well as of men. It was his
+custom ever and anon to shoot a member of his crew, whenever the fancy
+pleased him, in order that they should remember that he was captain.
+
+Blackbeard is famous in the annals of piracy for his idea of a pleasant
+entertainment. One afternoon, when his ship was lying becalmed, the
+pirates found the time pass heavily. They had polished their weapons
+till they shone like silver. They had gambled until one-half of the
+company was swollen with plunder and the other half, penniless and
+savage. They had fought until there was nothing left to fight about, and
+it was too hot to sleep.
+
+At this, Teach, hatless and shoeless, and, says his biographer, "a
+little flushed with drink"--as a man might be who spent most of his
+waking hours swigging pure rum--stumbled up on deck and made a proposal
+to his bored companions.
+
+"I'm a better man than any o' you alive, an' I'll be a better man when
+we all go below. Here's for proving it!"
+
+At which he routed up half a dozen of the most hardened of the crew,
+kicked them down into the hold, joined them himself and closed the
+hatches. There in the close, hot hold, smelling of a thousand odors,
+they set fire to "several pots full of brimstone and other inflammable
+matters" and did their best to reproduce what they thought to be the
+atmosphere of the Pit.
+
+One by one, the rest gave in and burst for the comparatively free air of
+the deck, but Teach's ugly head was the last to come up the hatch, and
+his pride thereon was inordinate. It was the surest road to the
+Captain's good favors to remind him of his prowess in that stench-hole
+on a tropic afternoon.
+
+Teach's death was worthy of his life. Lieutenant Maynard of H. M. S.
+_Pearl_ learned that Teach was resting in a quiet cove near Okracoke
+Inlet, not far from Hatteras, N. C. He followed the pirate in a small
+sloop. Teach ran his craft ashore.
+
+Maynard was determined to get alongside the pirate, so with desperate
+haste he began to throw his ballast overboard. More than that, he staved
+in every water cask, until, feeling that he had enough freeboard, he
+slipped his anchor, set his mainsail and jib, and bore down upon the
+stranded sea robber.
+
+As he came on, Teach, with fuses glowing under his hat, hailed him, and,
+standing on the taffrail, defied him and drank to his bloody end in a
+goblet of rum.... Teach, surrounded by his sullen and villainous gang,
+shrieked out the chorus of a sea song as the sloop drew near and, when
+she had drifted close enough, he pelted her deck with grenades.
+
+At this moment, the two vessels touched, whereupon Teach and his crew,
+with hideous yells, and a great gleam of cutlass blades, leapt upon the
+sloop's deck. Through the smoke cloud the awful figure of the pirate
+emerged, making for Maynard. At the same time, the men hidden in the
+sloop scrambled up from below, and the riot of the fight began.
+
+As Teach and Maynard met, they both fired at each other, point blank.
+The lieutenant dodged, but the robber was hit in the face, and the blood
+was soon dripping from his beard, the ends of which were, as usual,
+tucked up over his ears.
+
+There was no time to fumble with pistols now. So they fought with
+cutlasses. Teach, spitting the blood from his mouth, swore that he would
+hack Maynard's soul from his body, but his opponent was too fine an
+adept with the sword to be easily disposed of. It was a fearful duel, a
+trial of the robber's immense strength against the officer's deftness.
+
+They chased each other about the deck, stumbling across dead bodies,
+knocking down snarling men, who, clutched together, were fighting with
+knives. Ever through the mirk could be seen the pirate's grinning teeth
+and his evil eyes lighted by the burning and smoking fuses on either
+side of them, ever above the groans of the wounded and the hoarse shouts
+of ruffians and jack tars, rose Teach's murderous war cry.
+
+At last, Maynard, defending himself from a terrific blow, had his sword
+blade broken off at the hilt. Now was the pirate's chance. He aimed a
+slash at Maynard. The lieutenant put up the remnant of his sword and
+Teach's blow hacked off his fingers. Had the fight been left to the duel
+between the two, Maynard had not a second to live. But, just as the
+pirate's blow fell, one of the navy men brought his cutlass down upon
+the back of the pirate's neck, half severing it. Teach, too enraged to
+realize it was his death blow, turned on the man and cut him to the
+deck.
+
+The current of the fight changed. From all sides the jack tars, who
+dared not close with the pirate chief, fired pistols at him. The decks
+were slippery with blood. Still fighting, Teach kicked off his shoes,
+to get a better hold of the planks. His back was to the bulwarks. Six
+men were attacking him at once.
+
+Panting horribly, and roaring curses still, Teach, with his dripping
+cutlass, kept them all at bay. He had received twenty-five wounds, five
+of which were from bullets. His whole body was red. The half-severed
+head could not be held straight, but some incredible will power enabled
+him to twist his chin upwards, so that, to the last, his eyes glared
+with the fierce joy of battle, and the lips, already stiffening, smiled
+defiantly.
+
+The six men drew back, aghast that a creature so wounded could still
+live and move, but Teach drew a pistol and was cocking it, when his
+eyelids closed slowly, as though he were going to sleep, and he fell
+back on the railing, dead.
+
+So, in fitting manner, perished the last of the great pirates of the
+Spanish Main.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE HUNGRY SHARK
+
+
+"Hyar, sah! Please don' you go t'rowin' nuffin to de sharks, not 'roun'
+dese waters, anyhow."
+
+"Why?" asked Stuart in return, smiling at the grave face of the negro
+steward on board the steamer taking him from Porto Rico to Jamaica. His
+stay at Porto Rico had been brief, for he found a telegram awaiting him
+from Fergus, bidding him hurry at once to Kingston.
+
+"No, sah," repeated the negro, "dar witch-sharks in dese waters,
+debbil-sharks, too. Folks do say dem ol' buccaneers, when dey died, was
+so bad dat eben de Bad Place couldn't take 'em. Now, dey's sharks,
+a-swimmin' to an' fro, an' lookin' for gol', like dem yar pirates used
+ter do."
+
+"Oh, come, Sam, you don't believe that!" protested the boy. "What could
+a shark do with gold, if he had it?"
+
+"Sho's you livin', Sah," came the response, "I done see two gol' rings
+an' a purse taken out'n the inside of a shark. An' you know how, right
+in dese hyar waters, a shark swallowed some papers, an' it was the
+findin' o' dose papers what stopped a lot o' trouble between Great
+Britain an' the United States, yes, Sah!"
+
+The gift of silver crossing a palm has other powers besides that of
+inspiring a fortune-teller. It can inspire a story-teller, as well.
+Stuart, scenting a story which he could send to the paper from Kingston,
+put half-a-crown where he thought it would do most good, namely, in the
+steward's palm and heard the strange (and absolutely true and authentic)
+story of the shark's papers.
+
+"Yes, Sah," he began, "I know jes' how that was, 'cause my gran'pap, he
+was a porter in de Jamaica Institute, an' when I was a small shaver I
+used to go wid him in the mornin's when he was sweepin' up, and I used
+to help him dust de cases. Yes, Sah. Bime by, when I got big enough to
+read, I got a lot o' my eddication from dose cases, yes, Sah!
+
+"This hyar story begins dis way. On July 3, 1799--I remember de dates
+persackly--a brig, called de _Nancy_, lef' Baltimore for Curacao. Her
+owners were Germans, but 'Merican citizens, yes, Sah. Her cargo was
+s'posed to be dry goods, provisions an' lumber, but dere was a good deal
+more aboard her, guns, powder an' what they call contraband, ef you know
+jes' what that is. I don't rightly."
+
+"I do," agreed Stuart. "Go ahead."
+
+"Well, Sah, dis hyar brig _Nancy_, havin' stopped at Port-au-Prince,
+started on down de coast, when, strikin' a heavy blow, she los' her
+maintopmast. She was makin' for a little island, not far 'way, to make
+some repairs, when she was captured by H.M.S. _Sparrow_, a cutter
+belongin' to H.M.S. _Abergavenny_, de British flagship stationed at Port
+Royal. De _Sparrow_ was commanded by Lieutenant Hugh Wylie, and dis hyar
+Wylie sent her in with anoder prize, a Spanish one, to Port Royal. So,
+naterally, Wylie brings a suit for salvage against de _Nancy_, bein' an
+enemy vessel."
+
+"But where does the shark come in?" queried Stuart, growing impatient.
+
+"Jes' you wait a minute, Sah!" the negro responded, "I bring um in de
+shark pretty quick. De owners of de _Nancy_, dey come to court an' show
+papers that de _Nancy_ never was no 'Merican ship at all, an' dat
+Lieutenant Wylie, he make one great big mistake in capturin' dis hyar
+brig.
+
+"But, what you t'ink, Sah? Right at dat moment, up steps in de
+court-room, Lieutenant Fitton, of H.M.S. _Ferret_, another cutter
+belongin' to the _Abergavenny_ an' hands the judge some papers.
+
+"'Your Honor,' he says, 'these are the true papers of the brig _Nancy_.
+Those you have before you are false.'
+
+"'Where did you find these papers?' ask de judge.
+
+"'In the belly of a shark, My Lord,' answers Lieutenant Fitton, clear
+an' loud.
+
+"For de sake, Sah, dem Germans must ha' turn green! In de belly ob a
+shark, Yah, ha-ha!" And the steward roared in white-toothed laughter.
+
+"But how were they found there?" came the boy's next question.
+
+"Yes, Sah, I was jes' comin' to that. Dis hyar Fitton, wid one cutter,
+was a-cruisin' together wid Wylie, in de other cutter, when Wylie broke
+away to take de _Nancy_.
+
+"Bein' nigh breakfast time, Fitton signals to Wylie to come to
+breakfast. Wylie, he right busy wid _Nancy_ an' can't come right away.
+Fitton, fishin' while he waitin' for Wylie, catch a small shark. Dey cut
+him open, jes' to see what he got inside, an' dar, right smack in de
+belly, dey see a bundle o' papers.
+
+"'Hi!' says Fitton, 'dat somet'ing important!' and he keep de papers an'
+tow de shark to Port Royal."
+
+"I suppose," said Stuart, "the captain of the _Nancy_ must have thrown
+the papers overboard. But why should the shark swallow them? I know
+sharks will turn over and make ready to swallow most things, but they
+don't take them in, as a rule, unless they're eatable."
+
+"Yes, Sah, quite right, Sah, but dar was a reason. De papers, Sah, had
+been hidden in a pork barrel on board de _Nancy_, an' de shark must ha'
+t'ought dey smelt good. When Fitton showed dese hyar papers in court, de
+experts what were called in on de case said dat dere was grease on 'em
+what wouldn't come from no shark's stomach. No, Sah.
+
+"Dey figured, right den an' dar, dat de grease must ha' been on de
+papers, fust. So dey started lookin' on board de _Nancy_ an', for de
+sake, dey found, right in a pork barrel, a lot more papers, all written
+in German an' showin' a reg'lar plot for privateerin' against the United
+States.
+
+"Dose papers, Sah, dey're right thar in de Institute in Jamaica, wid a
+letter from de official, who was in charge ob de case, ober a hundred
+years ago. In de United Service Museum, in London, is de head of de
+shark what swallowed de papers. I reckon, Sah, dat was de fust time dat
+a shark ever was a witness in a court!"
+
+And, with a loud laugh, the steward went to respond to the call of
+another of the passengers.
+
+Strange as was the story of the shark swallowing the papers and being
+forced to give them up again, still stranger was the story that Stuart
+heard from one of the passengers. This tale, equally authentic, was of
+an occurrence that happened even earlier, in that famous town of Port
+Royal, which, in the long ago days, was the English buccaneer center,
+even as Tortugas was the center of the French sea-rovers.
+
+This was the story of Lewis Galdy, a merchant of Port Royal, French-born
+and a man of substance, who went through one of the most extraordinary
+experiences that has ever happened to a human being.
+
+He was walking down the narrow street of that buccaneer town, on June 7,
+1692, when the whole city and countryside was shaken by a terrific
+earthquake shock. The earth opened under the merchant's feet and he
+dropped into the abyss. He lost consciousness, yet, in a semi-comatose
+state, felt a second great wrenching of the earth, which heaved him
+upwards. Water roared about his ears, and he was at the point of
+drowning, when, suddenly, he found himself swimming in the sea,
+half-a-mile from land.
+
+As the place where he had been walking was fully three hundred yards
+inland, he had been carried in the bowels of the earth three-quarters of
+a mile before being thrown forth. A boat picked him up, and he lived for
+forty-seven years after his extraordinary escape.
+
+Jamaica, indeed, has been the prey of earthquakes, the most serious of
+which wrecked the city of Kingston, in 1907. The shocks lasted ten
+seconds, and the town of 46,000 inhabitants was a ruin. The death list
+reached nearly a thousand. From this shock, however, as Stuart found,
+the city has recovered bravely, largely due to the lighter system of
+building common to British islands, and all places which have an
+American impress, while in French, Dutch and Danish islands, buildings
+are more solidly constructed. Frame houses, however, are less damaged by
+earthquake than are stone structures.
+
+There was, however, little opportunity for Stuart to make tours in
+Jamaica or to work out any articles for his "Color Question" series. A
+registered letter from the paper awaited the boy in Kingston, the
+reading of which he concluded with a long, low whistle.
+
+That night, without attracting attention, Stuart left the city on foot,
+taking neither tramway nor railroad, and made a long night march. The
+roads were steep, but the cool air compensated for that difficulty, and
+having spent a long time on board ship the boy was glad to stretch his
+legs. On the further side of Spanish Town he saw what he sought, a
+rickety automobile under a lean-to-shed.
+
+He hurried to the negro owner, who was lolling on the verandah.
+
+"I want to go to Buff Bay," he said. "How soon can you get me there?"
+
+"De road ain' none too good, Sah," the Jamaican answered, "your bes' way
+is to take de train f'm Spanish Town. Dat'll land you right in Buff
+Bay."
+
+"I don't want to," answered Stuart, making up the first excuse that came
+to mind, "I get train-sick. Can't your car make it?"
+
+The boy knew that there is nothing in the world that so much touches a
+man's pride as to have his car slighted, no matter whether it be the
+craziest kettle on wheels or a powerful racer.
+
+"Make it? Yes, Sah!" The exclamation was emphatic. "I can have you in
+thar by noon."
+
+Business arrangements were rapidly concluded, and in a few minutes they
+started out, Stuart having borrowed an old straw hat from the driver, in
+order, as he said, that he could take a good sleep under it, which
+indeed, he did. But his main reason was disguise.
+
+The negro looked back at his passenger once or twice, and muttered,
+
+"Train-sick? Huh! Looks more like ter me he's in pickle wid de police!
+Wonder if I didn't ought to say somet'ing?"
+
+Then a remembrance of some of his own earlier days came to him, and he
+chuckled.
+
+"Fo' de sake!" he said. "I wouldn' want to tell all I ever did!"
+
+And he drove on through Linfield, without summoning the guardians of the
+law.
+
+Stuart, unconscious how near he had been to an unpleasant delay, slept
+on. Questioning would have been awkward, search would have been worse,
+for, in the pocket of his jacket, was Fergus's letter he had received in
+Kingston, which closed with the words,
+
+"Get to the Mole St. Nicholas with utmost speed! Spare no expense, but
+go secretly!"
+
+That this bore some new development in the Great Plot, there was no
+doubting, and the letter had told him to be sure to leave Kingston
+without letting Cecil catch a glimpse of him. That meant that Cecil was
+still in Kingston. In that case, what could the other conspirators be
+doing without him?
+
+Towards noon, a whiff of salt air wakened Stuart. He stirred, rubbed his
+eyes and looked round.
+
+"The north shore, eh!" he exclaimed on seeing the sea.
+
+"Yes, Sah! Annotta Bay, Sah!"
+
+"Do you know anyone around these parts?"
+
+"Fo' de sake, yes, Sah! I was born in dese parts. I jes' went to Spanish
+Town a few years ago, when my wife's folks died."
+
+"Do you know anyone who has a motor boat?"
+
+"You want to buy one?"
+
+"Not unless I have to. Do you happen to know of any?"
+
+"Well, Sah," said the negro cautiously, "thar's a preacher here what has
+one, but--but--he's a mighty careful man is Brother Fliss, an'----"
+
+Stuart, refreshed from his sleep, grasped the hitch at once.
+
+"You think I'm in trouble and running from the police, eh? Not a bit of
+it! Here, run up to this preacher's. I'll convince him, in a minute."
+
+A little further on, the machine turned to the left, and just as it
+turned off, a racing car flashed by. Something about one of the figures
+was familiar.
+
+"Whose car was that?"
+
+The driver turned and stared at the cloud of dust.
+
+"I didn't rightly see, it might ha' been----" He stopped. "I'll tell you
+whar you can get a boat, Sah!" he suggested. "Mr. Cecil, he keeps one
+down at his place a bit down de road."
+
+"Cecil!" Stuart had to control himself to keep from shouting the name.
+"Has he a place on this coast?"
+
+"Yes, Sah; fine place, Sah, pretty place. Awful nice man, Mr. Cecil.
+He'll lend you de boat, for nuffin', likely. Brother Fliss, good man,
+you un'erstand, but he stick close to de money."
+
+"Let's go there, just the same," said Stuart, "I don't want to be under
+obligations. I'd rather pay my way."
+
+The negro shrugged his shoulders and, in a few minutes, the car stopped
+at the preacher's house.
+
+As the driver had suggested, Brother Fliss "stick close to de money" and
+his charge was high. He was an intensely loyal British subject, and an
+even more loyal Jamaican, and when Stuart showed his card from the paper
+and at the same suggested that he needed this help in order to trace up
+a plot against Jamaica, the preacher was so willing that he would
+almost--but not quite--have lent the boat free.
+
+Being afraid that the automobile driver might talk, if he returned to
+Spanish Town, and thus overset all the secrecy that Stuart flattered
+himself he had so far maintained, the boy suggested that the negro come
+along in the boat. This suggestion was at once accepted, for the mystery
+of the affair had greatly excited the Jamaican's curiosity.
+
+The preacher, himself, received the suggestion with approval.
+Usually--for the craft, though, sturdy, was a small one--he was his own
+steersman and engineer. Now, he could enjoy the luxury of a crew, and
+the driver, who was a fairly good mechanic, was quite competent to
+handle the small two-cylinder engine.
+
+So far as the boy was concerned, he had another reason. The quest might
+be dangerous. Undoubtedly Cesar Leborge and Manuel Polliovo would be
+there. Equally certainly, Guy Cecil, who had protected him before, would
+not. A companion would be of aid in a pinch.
+
+And it was all so dark, so mysterious, so incomprehensible! He had
+learned nothing new about the plot. He had no documents with which to
+confront the conspirators. He had no protection against these two men,
+one of whom, he knew, had vowed to kill him.
+
+The motor boat glided out on the waters north of Jamaica, on her way to
+that grim passage-way between Cuba and Haiti, that key to the Caribbean,
+which is guarded by the Mole St. Nicholas.
+
+Yet, withal, Stuart had one protector. Behind him stood the power of a
+New York newspaper, and, with that, he felt he had the power of the
+United States. There is no flinching, no desertion in the great army of
+news-gatherers. There should be none in him.
+
+With no support but that, with nothing to guide him but his faith in the
+paper that sent him forth, Stuart set his face to the shore of that
+semi-savage land, on the beach of which he expected to find his foes
+awaiting him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+TRAPPED!
+
+
+All that night the little motor boat chugged on. She was small for so
+long a sea-passage, but the preacher knew her ways well. Many a journey
+had he taken to the Caymans and other Jamaican possessions in the
+interests of his faith.
+
+In the night-watches, Stuart grew to have a strong respect for him, for
+the preacher was one in whom the missionary spirit burned strongly, and
+he was as sincere as he was simple. Each of the three on board took
+turns to sleep, leaving two to manage the boat. Stuart got a double dose
+of sleep, for the preacher, seeing that the boy was tired, ran the craft
+alone during the second part of his watch.
+
+Dawn found them in the Windward Passage, with the Mole of St. Nicholas
+on the starboard bow. They slowed down for a wash and a bite of
+breakfast, and then the preacher, with a manner which showed it to be
+habitual, offered a morning prayer.
+
+The Mole St. Nicholas, at its southern end, has some small settlements,
+but Stuart felt sure that it could not be here that he was to land. They
+cruised along the shore a while, and, on an isolated point, saw an old
+half-ruined jetty, with four figures standing there. As the boat drew
+nearer, Stuart recognized them as Manuel Polliovo, Cesar Leborge and two
+Cacos guerillas, armed with rifles and machetes.
+
+"Are you afraid to follow me?" queried Stuart to the negro who had
+driven the automobile.
+
+"'Fraid of dem Haiti niggers? No, Sah. I'm a Jamaican!"
+
+This pride of race among certain negroes--not always rightly valued
+among the whites--had struck Stuart before. Indeed, he had done a
+special article on the subject during the voyage on the steamer.
+
+Reaching the wharf, Stuart sprang ashore. The Jamaican at once sought to
+follow him, but the two Cacos tribesmen stepped forward with uplifted
+machetes. The odds were too great and Stuart's ally fell back.
+
+"It is very kind of you to come and pay us a visit!" mocked Manuel, as
+Stuart stepped upon the wharf. "We prefer, however, to have you alone.
+We do not know your guests."
+
+"You know me, then?"
+
+"I knew the ragged horse-boy to be Stuart Garfield, all the way on the
+road to Millot and the Citadel," the Cuban purred. "I cannot
+congratulate you on your cleverness. The disguise was very poor."
+
+Stuart thrust forward his chin aggressively, but no retort came to
+mind.
+
+"I missed you, on the return journey," Manuel continued.
+
+"Yes," the boy answered. "I came down another way."
+
+"Perhaps you borrowed a pair of wings from the Englishman?"
+
+Stuart made no reply.
+
+But this ironic fencing was not to Leborge's taste. He broke in,
+abruptly,
+
+"You spy on us once, Yes! You spy on us again, Yes! You spy no more,
+No!"
+
+He made a rough gesture, at which one of the Cacos dashed upon the boy,
+pinned his arms to his sides and harshly, but deftly, tied him securely
+with a rope. This done, the Haitian took the boy's small revolver from
+his pocket and cast it contemptuously on the ground.
+
+"The white carries a pistol, Yes! But he does not even know how to shoot
+it!"
+
+The phrase irritated Stuart, but he had sense enough to keep still. As a
+matter of fact, he was a fairly good shot, but, with four to one against
+him, any attempt at violence would be useless. Besides, Stuart had not
+lost heart. He had landed, in the very teeth of his foes, confident that
+Fergus would never have directed him to go to the Mole St. Nicholas,
+unless the editor had cause. The boy's only cue was to await
+developments.
+
+At this juncture, the Jamaican preacher, with a good deal of courage, as
+well as dignity, rose in the boat. He thrust aside, as unimportant, the
+machete of the Caco who threatened him, and the assumption of authority
+took the guerilla aback. Quietly, and with perfect coolness, he walked
+up to the Haitian general. A little to Stuart's surprise, he spoke the
+Haitian dialect perfectly.
+
+"You're goin' to untie de ropes 'round dat boy, Yes!" he declared, "an'
+if you're wise, you do it quick. De Good Book say--'Dose who slay by de
+sword, shall be slain by de sword, demselbes,' Yes! I tell you, dose dat
+ties oders up, is goin' to be tied up demselbes, Yes!"
+
+"What are you doin' here?" demanded Leborge, with an oath.
+
+"I's a minister ob de gospel," said the preacher, standing his ground
+without a quaver, in face of the threatening aspect of the giant
+Haitian, "an' I tell you"--he pointed a finger accusingly--"dat, for
+ebery oath you make hyar in de face ob de sun, you is goin' to pay, an'
+pay heabily, before dat sun go down!
+
+"You's a big nigger," the preacher went on, his voice taking the high
+drone of prophetic utterance, "an' you's all cobered wit' gol' lace. De
+Good Book say--'Hab no respec' for dem dat wears fine apparel.' No!
+'Deir garments shall be mof-eaten, deir gol' an' silver shall be
+cankered, an' de worm'--hear, you nigger!--'de worm, shall hab 'em'!"
+
+Leborge, superstitious like all the Haitian negroes, cowered before the
+preacher who advanced on him with shaking finger.
+
+But Manuel was of another stripe.
+
+He strode forward, put a lean but sinewy hand on the preacher's shoulder
+and twisted him round, with a gesture as though he would hurl him into
+the water, when there came a sharp,
+
+"Spat!"
+
+The Cuban's hat leaped from his head and fluttered slowly to the ground,
+a bullet-hole through the crown.
+
+Manuel stared at it, his jaw dropping.
+
+"White man----" the preacher began.
+
+The Cuban took no heed. The shot, he figured, could have come from no
+one but the negro in the boat, and he wheeled on him, flashing his
+revolver. As he turned to the sea, however, he saw a motor boat coming
+at terrific speed into the harbor. He took one glance at it.
+
+"We've got to get rid of the boy before he comes!" he cried.
+
+Leborge, with a wide grin, gave a nod of approval, and Manuel's gun came
+slowly to the shoulder, for cat-like, he wanted to torture the boy
+before he fired.
+
+Quicker than his grave manner would have seemed to forecast, the
+preacher stepped fairly between the Cuban and his victim.
+
+"De Good Book say----" he began, but Manuel gave him a push. There was a
+slight struggle and a flash.
+
+The preacher fell.
+
+Manuel turned on Stuart, who had tried to catch the falling man,
+forgetting for the instant that his hands were tied. He stumbled, and
+the pistol centered on his heart.
+
+Came another,
+
+"Spat!"
+
+A shrill scream rang out. Manuel's gun fell to the ground, suddenly
+reddened with blood. The Cuban's hand had been shot through.
+
+Clumsily kneeling, Stuart put his ear to the wounded man's heart. It was
+beating strongly. The bullet seemed to have struck the collar bone and
+glanced off, stunning the nerves, but not doing serious injury.
+
+For a moment, the four men stood dazed.
+
+Whence came these bullets that made no sound? Could the Englishman be
+shooting? They stared out to sea.
+
+The "chug-chug" of the motor boat was deafening, now. It stopped,
+suddenly, and, standing in the bow, the figure of Cecil could be plainly
+seen. He held no gun in his hand, however.
+
+Never was the Englishman's quiet power more strongly shown than in the
+fact that, in this tense moment, the conspirators waited till he landed.
+Leborge shuffled his feet uneasily. Manuel, his face twisted with pain,
+and holding his wounded arm, glared at his fellow-conspirator,
+undauntedly.
+
+"My friend," said Cecil to him, calmly, "I have many times instructed
+you that nothing is to be done until I give the word."
+
+The Cuban cursed, but made no other answer.
+
+"As for you," the Englishman continued, turning to Leborge, "I have told
+you before that the time to quarrel about the sharing of the spoils was
+after the spoils were won. Why have you posted men to murder Manuel and
+me, in the granadilla wood, between here and Cap Haitien?"
+
+The giant would have liked to lie, but Cecil's determined gaze was full
+on him, and he flinched beneath it, as a wild beast flinches before its
+tamer.
+
+"If you had waited for me," the calm voice went on, "I might have helped
+you to escape, but now----"
+
+He raised his hat and passed his hand over his hair, as though the sun
+had given him a headache.
+
+At the same moment, as though this gesture had been a signal, from the
+low bushes a hundred yards away burst a squad of a dozen men, rifles at
+the "ready," in the uniform of American marines.
+
+Manuel and Leborge cast wild glances around, seeking some place to flee,
+but there was none. They were cut off.
+
+"Quick, Cecil!" they cried, together. And Leborge added, "Your boat! She
+is fast!"
+
+"Not as fast as a rifle bullet," was the quiet answer.
+
+At the double the Marines came over the scrubby ground, and, running
+beside the officer in command was a figure that Stuart recognized--his
+father!
+
+The officer of the Marines came up.
+
+"Seize them!" he said briefly.
+
+The boys in blue disarmed and bound the four, one of the Marines freeing
+Stuart's arms the while. The second he was free, Stuart sprang forward
+and grasped his father's hand with a squeeze that made the older man
+wince.
+
+"Father!" he cried. "It's really you!"
+
+The American official clapped the boy on the shoulder with praise and a
+look of pride.
+
+"Reckon that high-powered air rifle came in handy, eh?" he answered.
+
+"Was it you, Father, who did the shooting?"
+
+"No, not me. Wish I could shoot like that! We brought along the crack
+sharp-shooter of the camp."
+
+One of the Marines looked up and grinned.
+
+"This chap," the official continued, "could hit the hind leg of a fly
+that's scratching himself on a post fifty yards away!"
+
+Then, to Stuart's enormous surprise, he turned to the prisoners with an
+air of authority.
+
+"In the name of the United States," he said, "you are arrested. You,
+Cesar Leborge, for having plotted against American authority in Haiti,
+while holding rank in the Haitian Army; also for having accepted a bribe
+from other Haitian officials for betraying your fellow-conspirator; also
+for having given money and issued orders to a band of Cacos to post
+themselves in ambush with the purpose and intent of murdering Haitian
+and American citizens.
+
+"You, Manuel Polliovo," he continued, turning to the second prisoner,
+"are arrested on a Cuban warrant for the murder of one Gonzales Elivo, a
+guard at the prison from which you escaped two years ago; also upon a
+charge of assault and attempted murder against this negro minister, for
+which there are several witnesses present; also on a charge of attempted
+murder of Stuart Garfield, son of an American citizen; also on a Haitian
+warrant for conspiring against the peace of the Republic."
+
+Stuart stood with wide-open eyes, watching the denouement. He stepped
+back, and waited to see what would be said to Cecil, who, so far, had
+remained motionless.
+
+The Marines, at a word from their officer, turned to go, taking the
+prisoners with them.
+
+"And Cecil, Father?" the boy asked, in a low voice.
+
+"Mr. Guy Cecil, my son," replied the American official, "is my very good
+friend, as well as yours, and the very good friend of the United States.
+No man knows more of the inner workings of affairs in the West Indies,
+and he has the confidence of his Government.
+
+"It was through him that I was first advised of this plot to seize the
+northern peninsula of Haiti, from the Citadel of La Ferriere to the Mole
+St. Nicholas, to make of this stretch a small republic as was done at
+Panama, and to sell the Mole St. Nicholas, as a naval base, to a certain
+European power which is seeking to regain its lost prestige.
+
+"It was a pretty plot, and your investigations, my boy, will help to
+bring the criminals to judgment.
+
+"Also, I think, Mr. Cecil will release you from your promise not to tell
+the secret, and you can write your story to the press. It will be a
+scoop! Only----" he smiled--"don't say too much about the crimes of the
+arch-conspirator, Guy Cecil!"
+
+"Then he's not a conspirator, at all!" cried Stuart, half-sorry and
+half-glad.
+
+"Rather, an ally," his father answered, "an ally with me, just as his
+government is in alliance with our government, an alliance among the
+English-speaking peoples to keep the peace of the world."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Several typographical errors in the original
+edition have been corrected. The following sentences are as they
+originally appeared, with corrections noted in brackets.]
+
+     Chapter I
+
+     "But, it is you, Yes!" he cried, using the Haitian idom [idiom]
+     with its perpetual recurrence of "Yes" and "No," and went on, "and
+     where is Monsieur your father?"
+
+
+     Chapter II
+
+     To the Cafe [Cafe] de l'Opera. Go down the street and keep a few
+     steps in front."
+
+     Manuel turned into the Cafe [Cafe] de l'Opera, a tumble-down frame
+     shack with a corrugated iron roof, to order a cooling drink and to
+     puzzle out this utterly baffling mystery.
+
+     The Cacos may be described as Haitian patriots or revolutionists,
+     devotees of serpent and voodoo worship, loosely organized into a
+     secret guerille [guerilla] army.
+
+
+     Chapter V
+
+     ["]A privateer on the Caribbean and the Spanish Main, in those
+     days, was a man who had sufficient money or sufficient reputation
+     to secure a ship and a crew with which to wage war against the
+     enemies of his country.
+
+
+     Chapter VI
+
+     ["]What happens? I can tell you what happens in this province of
+     Oriente.
+
+
+     Chapter VII
+
+     It had not occured [occurred] to him that the consular official
+     would not be as excited as himself. He spluttered exclamations.
+
+
+     Chapter VIII
+
+     The greater part of the island seemed, to the boy, uttterly
+     [utterly] unlike any place he had seen in the tropics.
+
+
+     Chapter IX
+
+     Spech [Speech] again became impossible.
+
+
+     Chapter X
+
+     There are many more little houses and thatched huts tucked into
+     corner [corners] of the ruins than appear at first sight, and a
+     hotel has been built for the tourists who visit the strange spot.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Plotting in Pirate Seas, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler
+
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