A Mystery Story for Boys
THE ROPE OF GOLD
by
ROY J. SNELL
The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago New York
Printed in the United States of America
Copyright, 1929
by
The Reilly & Lee Co.
All Rights Reserved
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The Dangling Ladder 11
II The Native Drum 27
III The Hidden Pitfall 43
IV He Who Walks Alone 54
V The Giant on the Wall 67
VI A Startling Discovery 79
VII The Voodoo Drum 87
VIII The Yellow Snake's Teeth 98
IX The Jeweled Monkey 111
X Stowaways 126
XI The Drums 141
XII Curlie Gets Their Goat 148
XIII Crusoes For a Night 168
XIV The Marine King 178
XV Dreams 186
XVI The Call of the Drums 191
XVII The White Shadow 198
XVIII The Magic Telescope 210
XIX An Ape-Like Band 220
XX The Chest of Secrets 228
XXI Johnny's Mission 241
XXII The Queen's Ruby 249
XXIII The Battling Giant 258
XXIV The Story Is Told 266
XXV The March of Triumph 272
THE ROPE OF GOLD
CHAPTER I
THE DANGLING LADDER
Night was settling down over the mountain side. Already the valleys far
below were lost in darkness. The massive fortress which the dwellers on
the island of Haiti have always called the Citadel hung like a mountain
cliff above a boy who, hot from climbing, had thrown himself on a bed of
moss at the foot of a gnarled mahogany tree.
"Whew!" he exclaimed softly to himself. "Even three thousand feet above
the sea here in Haiti it's hot. Hot and dry. Fellow'd think--"
He broke short off to stare. A curious thing was happening. Out from a
small dark opening some forty feet up the perpendicular wall of the
massive abandoned fortification, something quite indistinct in the
twilight had moved and was creeping slowly down the moss-grown wall.
"Like a snake," he told himself, "only, here in Haiti, there are no
snakes to speak of and certainly not one as long as that. Only look! It's
down to the window below; a full twenty feet.
"That window--" He caught his breath, then began to count. "One, two,
three, four,--
"That's the window of Curlie's 'laburatory' as he calls it. It--why, it's
a plot! I should warn him. It--"
He half rose, preparatory to a race up the mountain side. Then he settled
back to his seat on the ground.
"Couldn't make it," he told himself. "Ground's too rough. Boulders there
big as a house. Too far around, take a full hour to come in from the
rear. By that time, if anything really serious is to happen, it will be
over.
"Besides, if worst comes to worst,--" He put out his hand to grip a six
foot bow. It was a good yew bow. The arrows at his side were tipped with
triangles of steel sharp as razor blades. Down here in Haiti he had used
these for hunting wild guinea hens and wild pigs.
"But if worst comes to worst," he told himself, settling back against the
trunk of the tree, "it's an easy shot. I wouldn't miss. And the person,
whoever it may be, would not go on."
You who have read our other book called "Johnny Longbow" will know that
his thoughts were true when they assured him that he would not miss; for
Johnny Thompson, by long and careful application to the task, had
mastered the difficult art of archery. And this boy, resting here at the
edge of a tropical forest in that mysterious island of Haiti, was none
other than your old friend Johnny Thompson. How he came here; what
strange stroke of fate it was that brought him into company with the slim
and supple young inventor, Curlie Carson, does not, for the moment,
matter.
For some time after that Johnny's mind was busied with many thoughts. The
thing that dangled there from window to window, was, he thought, a rope.
Later he decided it must be a ladder, a rope ladder of henequin. The
natives of Haiti are expert spinners and rope makers. From the tough
fibers of the henequin leaf they twist the finest cord and stoutest rope.
"But why is he there? And how did he get there?" He was thinking of the
mysterious being whose invisible hand had let down the rope ladder.
"We've been about the place for five days and have seen no one. It's been
quiet here--too quiet. Ghostlike. Fellow can hardly sleep nights in such
a monstrous bat roost with its hundred years of mystery and tragedy
hanging over his head, and it so silent.
"And here," he told himself, flexing his arms that they might be fit for
any emergency, "here we come upon someone who apparently has evil
intentions against Curlie. Of course, it may be only curiosity. And who
wouldn't be curious? Got me guessing. All that stuff--batteries, boxes,
canvas bound packages. Three donkey loads. You'd think he was setting up
a high-power wireless station. But he hasn't, as yet. Hasn't even erected
an aerial."
Curlie _was_ a queer chap, there was no getting round that. Tall, slim,
with mysterious gray-green eyes and with no past he had thus far cared to
mention, he had come into Johnny's life on the way down to Haiti from the
States. From that time until now, save for the hours Curlie spent in the
secret room he had rigged up in the old fort, the two boys had been
inseparable.
"He may not have a past worth mentioning," Johnny had often told himself.
"But he has a splendid present and fine ideals for the future. And that
is all that counts."
For some time, as twilight turned to darkness, nothing further happened.
Keeping his eye on the dangling ladder, Johnny allowed his mind to wander
over the events that had led up to the present dramatic moment.
The whole affair had begun way back in freshman high school days.
Johnny's science professor had become, in a way, his pal. His natural
interest in all matters pertaining to science had made him a leader in
that field.
Then too, like Johnny, the Professor was fond of travel. Together, at odd
moments, they had traversed all of the New World and much of the Old. All
of this, of course, on maps and charts. But always, in the end, they came
back to one spot, the Island of Haiti.
"Johnny," the Professor had said over and over, "that is the most
interesting island in the world, has the most absorbing history, and most
tempting mountain jungles. Johnny," he had always pounded the table at
this juncture, "I'll soon be sixty. Thirty-five years of teaching! That's
enough for any man. When I am sixty we'll really go to Haiti!"
So here they were. In the meantime Johnny had done a little wandering on
his own account, but as soon as he heard that his beloved Professor had
gone to Haiti, he had followed.
He had found the Professor head over heels in work. For more than a
hundred years this strange republic, not Spanish, not French, nor
English, but pure native, red, black and brown, had struggled along
without aid from her sister republic, Johnny's own beloved land. But now
the United States had taken a hand and Professor Star had been given a
share in the work. A splendid, kind-hearted humanitarian, he had accepted
the challenge and, with no pay save his living expenses, had assumed
responsibility for the comfort, happiness and well-being of more than ten
thousand natives.
"It's a big task," he told Johnny. "An almost impossible task without
money. See that mason-work?" he had said one day as they walked through a
tangled mass of vines and bushes.
"What is it?" Johnny had asked.
"The old French aqueduct, Johnny!" He had gripped the boy's arm hard.
"This narrow valley was once one of the richest in the world. Irrigated
it was, by water from the mountain streams. And, Johnny, if we had money
for cement, we'd rebuild that aqueduct and these half-starved and
half-naked people would be happy and prosperous.
"And we, Johnny, you and I," his eyes had shone with high hope. "We would
become rich, for more than half of the land is uninhabited waste that can
be bought for an incredibly small sum. And with water for irrigation it
can be reclaimed and sold--for who knows how much? Get an American
planter interested in it. Then see! We'd be rich, my boy! Think of an old
professor and a boy getting rich!" He had laughed a cackling sort of
laugh.
But Johnny knew that he had meant what he said, every word of it. And he
was for it from the start. But where was the money for repairing the
aqueduct? That was the rub.
"All we need," Johnny had smiled back, "is to find the 'Rope of Gold'."
"Johnny," the old Professor had spoken again, his voice grown husky,
"sometimes when one sees the need, he is tempted to believe in fables,
even in pots of gold at the foot of the rainbow. Do you see that massive
pile of stone way up yonder, built by the only real emperor the island
ever knew?"
Johnny had looked away at the distant Citadel, the massive fortress which
was so near now, down whose side the rope ladder dangled.
"Johnny," the Professor had grown quite excited, "this emperor of theirs,
Christophe, was apprenticed as a boy to a stone mason. They say that as
an old man, and a very rich emperor, who owned a third of the
plantations, he went many times to work alone on those walls at night.
And they say that he built boxes and boxes of gold into the twenty foot
walls, together with mortar and stone. Men often have dug for it, but
they never found the place. Possibly," he had ended rather wearily,
"there was no gold. But there should be. We need it. Christophe, when at
his best, had wonderful dreams regarding the future of his people. Those
people need the gold as never before."
"I wonder," Johnny now thought to himself as he looked away at the
massive wall where the rope ladder still dangled and where a pale light
gleamed from the lower window, "I wonder how much of that ancient tale
was true?"
As he looked up and up until his eye reached the very crest of the
crumbling fortress, he fancied he saw a figure moving there. It suggested
the ghost of the emperor still laying stones in the wall.
"But that," he told himself stoutly, "is pure fancy. So, too, are the
tales the natives tell of the ghost emperor who returns from time to time
to work once more at night repairing the walls to hide his treasure. I
wonder--"
He broke short off. A dark figure had appeared at the upper opening from
which the rope ladder dangled.
One breathless moment, as if looking for some movement far or near,
listening for a sound, the figure of a native huddled there on the giant
window ledge.
It was strange, Johnny thought. Crouching there in the shadow, one hand
on the muzzle of a century old brass cannon that had once barked its
defiance to the world, this native seemed a spirit come from out the
past.
"He's not that," the boy told himself. "But who is he? When did he come?"
They had been at the ancient fortress. He and Curlie Carson had been
prowling about its dungeons and secret passages for four days and had not
so much as seen a sign of a living human being. The silence they had
found oppressive by day and spooky by night.
"And here is a man. I wonder--" His wonderings came to a sudden end. A
strange phenomena had broken in upon them. Just as the native, having
cast fears aside, had swung out upon the slender rope ladder, one of
those curious after-glows of a sunset drenched the Citadel with golden
light.
The effect was magical. "As if it came from Arabian Nights," Johnny told
himself, thrilled to the very center of his being. The figure of the
native, quite naked save for a loin cloth, was transformed into a bronze
statue.
"And the ladder seems our 'Rope of Gold'," Johnny breathed.
The after-glow endured through a space of ten seconds. Then all was dark
as before. It lasted long enough for the boy to see that a machete, a
great, long-bladed knife, hung at the native's side.
"And Curlie is alone, unsuspecting," he told himself, and a chill ran up
his spine.
At once his mind was in a whirl. Should he shout, warning his pal and
perhaps frightening the native away?
This, he thought, might be wise. Yet, nothing serious might be
contemplated. Most natives wore machetes at their sides. Besides, there
was his own bow and arrow, a very useful weapon. An arrow shattered
against the wall would serve to drive the intruder away.
"And if worst comes to worst--"
He gripped his bow, nocked an arrow, then sat there breathless, waiting.
The thing that happened in the next sixty seconds was surprising and
dramatic.
With astonishing speed the native glided down the ladder.
"He's there! He--he's looking in."
Gripping his bow hard, Johnny took a long breath. He felt that the time
had come for sending the arrow of warning. And yet--he wanted to know
more. So he waited. The bronze figure, faintly illumined by the pale
light from within, hung there for a few moments, motionless.
Then with the speed of thought, things happened. From within there came a
sudden flash of blinding red light. The next instant the wall was a blank
of darkness.
The whole thing was over in a space of time not measured by seconds, yet
Johnny had seen it all. The native, his eyes distorted by fright, had
leaped backward and down. Turning a complete somersault, he had gone
speeding to earth, twenty feet below.
"He'll be killed!" Johnny exclaimed aloud.
But no. The space at the foot of the wall was clear of brush. The next
moment he saw the man plainly. He went skulking along the wall to at last
lose himself in the shadows of some ancient palm trees.
"We've seen the last of him," Johnny told himself as he rose to take a
long breath. "I must be getting back to camp. Dorn and old Pompee will
think something has happened to me."
As he made his way rapidly over a narrow path, down a slope and up the
other side, then through a dark and tangled forest, his thoughts were
busy.
"Big piece of nonsense, this search for the 'Rope of Gold'," he told
himself. "May never have existed. Anyway, we'll never find it.
Fascinating though, and lots of fun, this search; and life can't be all
work."
They _had_ worked, he and Curlie Carson. For two months, under the
Professor's direction, they had taught native children the simplest
rudiments of learning, had assisted native planters at their work and had
taught them new methods of tilling the soil.
It had been a short summer and now, only a few days more and he, Johnny,
hoped to be going back to the States. And Curlie Carson, the strange lad
with the wanderlust and a bent for inventions, would go elsewhere too.
They had heard many times of the 'Rope of Gold'; a very fancy rope it had
been, hand-wrought with flowers of white gold and leaves of green gold
woven through it, so the story ran.
When the native emperor, the magnificent Christophe, was at the height of
his power, this rope of gold had been strung through loops of silver all
the way down the sides of the massive steps that led up to his palace. A
hundred feet long it was. When rolled up it required two men to carry it.
When revolution threatened, so the story ran, the emperor had hidden the
rope away in the Citadel and there it remained to this day. But where?
This was the question the two boys had tried to solve. Thus far they had
made no headway. The ancient walls, the dungeons, and secret passages had
yielded nothing more valuable than dust, bats, rats and general decay.
"It's something one's not likely soon to forget," the boy told himself.
He fell to musing on the life of that native emperor and the
fortification he had built.
"He thought the French would come back," the Professor had said to him
one day. "He had great dreams for the progress of his people. You can
hardly blame him for wanting to defend them. In the end he forgot his
great dreams for his people and began worshipping gold and that immense
pile of brick and stone. Had he put his trust in God instead of in power
and gold," the kindly old professor had rumbled on, "had he written his
name on the hearts of men, his name would have lived forever. Now there
is only that crumbling pile of masonry to remind the world that he lived
at all."
"It's all very strange," Johnny thought. "If one could but have lived
then. If he--"
He stopped short in his tracks. His eye had caught sight of something
unusual, a white thing hanging from the lower branch of a large tree.
"Couldn't have been here when I came along an hour ago." His curiosity
increased. "I'd have noticed it."
He took two steps forward, then put out a hand to touch it. The thing
gave forth a hollow sound.
"How queer!" he thought. "A native drum, hanging here."
Without thinking much about what he was doing, he took down the drum,
which was a three foot section of a hollowed-out log with a goat skin
strung across one end, placed it between his knees and gave it two quick,
sharp blows with his hand.
The result was two resounding roars that set the hills echoing.
The next instant, quite without warning, the boy was seized and thrown
violently to the ground.