Plotting in Pirate Seas

Round the World with The Boy
Journalists: I
PLOTTING IN PIRATE SEAS
FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER

"NOT THAT WAY—TWO MORE STEPS, BOY, AND
YOU ARE DEAD".
By FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER
Round the World with The Boy Journalists
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
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
AMERICAN ALL THROUGH
PAGE
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 ARE DEAD"
Frontispiece
FOR A HUNDRED FEET THEY FELL AND
STUART CLOSED HIS EYES IN SICKENING
DIZZINESS
PAGE
72
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
144
ABOVE THE HOARSE SHOUTS OF
RUFFIANS AND JACK-TARS, ROSE
TEACH'S MURDEROUS WAR CRY
224
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
break-neck 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 Café. No," he continued, as the boy
turned towards the new part of the town, built under American
oversight, "not there. To the Café de l'Opéra. 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 Café de l'Opéra, 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 café, 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 Pétion 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 Café 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 Ferrière, 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 Ferrière.
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
Ferrière. 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
Ferrière 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 spot-light 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 Ferrière 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 Ferrière.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
1

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 Vallière, 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
outmanœuvred 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 rôle 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——

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
northwestward.
"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 Ferrière. 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 viséed 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 visé 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.

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 Pelée, 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 Pelée 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 Rivière 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
Pelée 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, Pelée 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 Pelée 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 débris 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 Pelée 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 Pelée 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 Pelée 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 Pelée 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 Pelée 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 Pelée—"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 Pelée 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 Pelée."
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 Ravené, 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, Ravené went to consult De
Graeff, the governor. De Graeff had already seen the Andrea Doria,
for Ravené 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 Ravené 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.

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 dénouement. 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 Ferrière 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 Cafê [Café] de l'Opéra. Go down the street and
keep a few steps in front."
Manuel turned into the Cafê [Café] de l'Opéra, 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

Plotting in Pirate Seas

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