THE NATIVE DRUM
Johnny Thompson was no weakling. He was a football player and a
lightweight boxer of no mean ability. He had lived clean and taken good
care of the physical side of his being as every boy should. When the
unseen person seized him so suddenly from behind he was down but not out
by any manner of means. With a deft twist he freed himself from the grasp
of his unknown adversary, and, leaping to his feet, struck out with his
right and left with the best of results. His clenched fists landed with
dull thwacks. There followed the sound of a heavy body staggering
backward into the brush.
Having no desire to do bodily injury to anyone, the boy turned and would
have dashed swiftly away had not a dark arm reached out to entwine itself
about his neck. This startling embrace was followed by a blow on the
head, which left him all but senseless and without further power of
resistance.
Sinking to the ground he awaited the end. To his great surprise, he
discovered that the end of this particular adventure had already come. He
was left there alone in the dark.
Night, jungle night, dark, damp and silent lay all about him. Still but
half conscious of what went on about him, not daring to move, he lay
there quite motionless.
A moment passed, another and yet another.
"There is no--no one about," he told himself at last.
At that, there sounded off in the distance the boom of a native drum; one
stroke, that was all, then again jungle silence hung over all.
"They are a long way off. I must get--get back to camp," he told himself
as in a dream. "Dorn and old Pompee will go out hunting for me."
He tried to rise. In this he failed. His head whirled. He sank back and
must have lost consciousness for when next his benumbed brain registered
a thought, the light of a torch was shining in his eyes and a face was
before him. A strange and very curious pair of eyes were looking into his
own.
The man was incredibly short and broad. He seemed to have scarcely any
legs at all. His face was thin, his nose sharp and very crooked. But his
eyes! Johnny thought he had never looked into a keener pair of eyes. To
Johnny's great surprise, he found that his bruised head had been quite
deftly bandaged. There was a pungent odor of drugs about him.
"They hit you," the short, broad, little man said in quite a
matter-of-fact tone. "Hit you on the head. Good thing I happened along.
Gone bad with you. But you're safe enough now."
Johnny looked into the man's eyes again and wondered who he might be.
"It was the drum," the strange man went on. "You thumped it, didn't you?"
"Yes I--"
"Never thump a native drum here in Haiti. Gets you in trouble, right
away. If the Marines or native police don't get you, someone else will.
Where'd you get the drum, anyway?"
"It was hanging on a tree."
"Uh huh! They left it there. Notice how it was made?"
"No."
"Cut right out of a log, pretty hard log. Plenty of work to make a native
drum. Besides, the natives love their drums. I can't say the drums are a
good thing. Lot of superstition and wild practices hanging about them.
But you can't change people all at once. New ideas will come, the right
sort I mean, even here in Haiti. But it takes time. Haiti's been
practically ignored by our country for a hundred years. Now we're taking
hold.
"Know what would have happened to the drum if the native police had got
it?" he asked, suddenly fixing his sharp eyes on the boy. "Burst in its
head," he continued, answering his own question. "Split it up for
kindling wood. That's what they'd have done. The Marines would have done
the same. You're white like the Marines. Probably these natives thought
you meant to burst their drum. That's why they treated you rough. But
you'll be right enough now."
"Th--thanks. I--" Johnny did not finish. The strange short, broad man had
vanished into the night.
"This," Johnny told himself, rising stiffly, "is the strangest island I
have ever known. You strike a drum on the head and get struck on the head
in return. A short, broad, white man, with the skill of a surgeon, comes
along and fixes you up. Who hit me? Who is this curious doctor-like man?
Where'd he come from? What's he doing down here? Guess I'd better hurry
on back to camp."
His steps were a trifle unsteady at first. His head hurt. As his blood
warmed, he got the better of this and in due time walked into an
illuminated circle which was the light of his own camp fire, to exclaim
as he dropped down beside three shadowy figures:
"Well, here I am and I've had an adventure."
"Adventure!" The voice of the speaker was shrill and high-pitched, the
voice of a boy in his early teens. "Tell us about it." This boy was Dorn
Montcalm.
Dorn Montcalm was the son of a merchant who made his home in one of the
hill villages of Haiti. His father, who had the good of the Island
natives at heart, had taken a great liking to Johnny's aged Professor.
They had exchanged many visits. In this way Dorn had become acquainted
with Johnny. When he learned of the proposed search for the "Rope of
Gold" he had begged to be allowed to go along. Permission was granted by
his father only on condition that Pompee, a native servant and a very
giant of a man, be taken along as his bodyguard. Pompee was more than
welcome for, besides being a man of great physical prowess, he was a
famous cook. He knew the value of every native herb, root and fruit. When
occasion demanded, he could gather and prepare a delicious repast in the
heart of the jungle.
So they sat there by the camp fire waiting for Johnny's story, Curlie
Carson, Dorn and Pompee. The shadow and the spell of the Citadel was upon
them. For some time Johnny did not speak. Their temporary abode, a dark
man-made chasm, part of the Citadel, yawned at their back; on either side
rose the massive walls.
"What's happened to your head?" demanded Curlie, suddenly catching sight
of Johnny's white bandages.
"Come to that presently," replied Johnny. "Had a visitor to-night, didn't
you?"
"No! Why of course not!" Curlie seemed quite startled.
"He looked in at your window." Johnny chuckled.
"He couldn't," Curlie laughed out loud. "It's twenty feet from the
ground."
"Then you didn't see him?"
"Of course not. There was no one."
"There was," Johnny's tone was serious.
Curlie Carson leaped to his feet. "What! How--"
"Hung a rope ladder to the great brass cannon above," Johnny said
quietly. "He climbed down after a while. And after that, quite soon, he
saw something that caused him to do a back somersault off the end of his
ladder. Wonder he didn't break his neck."
"But he didn't?" said Curlie, pacing nervously back and forth.
"No," said Johnny. "Apparently these natives are like cats--always land
on their feet."
He was surprised at the evident agitation caused in Curlie's mind by this
disclosure. "What's he cooking up in that dark little laboratory of his?"
Johnny asked himself. He recalled the mysterious packages Curlie's burros
had packed up the mountain.
"Radio is all I can think of," he told himself. "Lots of sense to that.
We had a portable outfit complete in a box and decided not to bring it."
He was to know the answer to all this in due time. For the present it was
to remain the freshest mystery of the grim old Citadel.
Presently Curlie dropped back to his place beside the fire, which by this
time had burned itself down to a dark red bed of blackening coals.
"It's all done by the aid of batteries," he mumbled as if speaking to
himself. "Did that visitor of mine come round and try to break your
head?" he asked, once more staring at Johnny's bandages.
"No, well,--perhaps, who can tell? It was some native or other."
Settling back in his place Johnny told of the night's encounter. "That
proves," he ended, "that some places are not as safe as they seem."
"And that you may expect a doctor to appear upon the scene at any time,"
laughed Curlie.
"Anyway," said Johnny quite soberly, "he was a handy person to meet. Only
hope I get an opportunity to repay him."
Once more silence, the great, ominous, silence of the Citadel hung over
all. For a full ten minutes no one spoke. It was old Pompee who at last
broke the silence.
"Once," his deep voice rumbled, "men lay upon the ground as we rest here
now, waiting for sleep to come. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of
them, prisoners condemned to toil upon the unfinished walls.
"And on this night," his voice rolled deep, and solemn, "as they looked
up they saw a single man toiling there, as they had toiled during the
day. This man was larger than any one of us, larger than any of them. And
he was greater than all of them," Pompee continued. "The greatest, most
powerful ruler Haiti has ever known. He was their emperor. And yet he
toiled there at common labor the long night through. Why?"
As he paused for an answer he looked away at the distant wall to fancy
again that he saw a figure moving there, to imagine that he caught the
rhythmic motion of a mason working in brick, mortar and stone.
"Of course," he went on as no one spoke, "he may have been angry and
impatient at the slow workmen. And yet--"
"He hid something there," said Dorn.
"And that?" asked Johnny.
"Was the 'Rope of Gold'," said Dorn. "It required two men to carry it.
But the emperor was a powerful man, the most powerful ever known in
Haiti." The French boy's tone became eager, insistent. "He could have
wrapped it about him, inside his great purple coat."
"Yes," said Pompee, giving approval. "And that is what he did. But where
is the 'Rope of Gold' now?"
To this question none could give answer, though each wished that he could
do so.
Once more the silence of shadows and night fell upon them.
For some time Curlie spread his slim legs before the fire. Then,
apparently remembering some forgotten mission, he sprang to his feet.
"Going down the mountain," he said shortly. "Be late getting back, past
midnight probably."
"Look out for the natives," warned Johnny.
"Natives?" said Curlie. "Natives of Haiti? They wouldn't hurt you."
"You never can tell." Johnny rubbed his bandaged head.
Curlie disappeared. The fire burned lower and lower till only a spark
remained. Then, because their musty bedchamber within the grim walls
seemed unusually damp and chill on this night, Johnny and Dorn dragged
their blankets to a flat open space. There rolling themselves up side by
side, with the massive Pompee near by, they prepared for sleep.
Dorn, the dark-eyed French boy, was soon breathing in the steady way of a
deep sleeper. But Johnny could not sleep. Life that day had been strange.
He had thought little of this journey in the beginning. True, he had
hoped, boy fashion, that something might come of it; that they might find
something of real value that would aid the aged Professor in his work. It
was to be, at worst, a well deserved vacation, a week's experience worth
telling of when he returned to his home in the States.
But the presence of natives where there had been no natives before,
especially of a long-haired bronze type such as he had not seen before,
was vaguely disturbing.
"It's like coming quite suddenly upon a bumblebee's nest," he told
himself, "only a great deal worse. What can they want? Is there really
something hidden here that they know of and do not wish disturbed? What
will come of it all?"
Finding that sleep would not come, he rose at last to begin the ascent of
a flight of stairs leading to the top of the Citadel.
"Go a little way up," he told himself. "Cool my blood. Dorn's safe
enough. There's Pompee to protect him."
As he began to climb, the bracing night air, acting as a stimulant, drove
him up and up until at last he stood at the very top of the Citadel, one
hundred and thirty feet above the ground.
"Here," he told himself with a quick intake of breath, "Christophe the
Emperor stood on that memorable night spreading mortar and laying bricks.
And it may be," he caught his breath, "that I am standing at this very
moment above the treasure he buried so long ago.
"Oh, Christophe!" he exclaimed. "In your younger days, before the love of
gold and power drove you mad, you dreamed great dreams for the good of
your people. Now, as never before, they need the wealth you hid away in
your time of great might."
He would have added, "If it be within your power reveal the hiding place
to me now," but somehow a feeling came over him that this would be akin
to the wild superstitions that pervaded the land, so he fell into
silence.
The top of the Citadel is broad and very long; a perfect promenade for a
moonlight night.
Now fancying himself a guard pacing his beat in the silent night, and now
endeavoring to live again the days of long ago, Johnny paced the ramparts
in silence.
Never had there been such a night, and never a lovelier sight in all the
world. At the back of the Citadel distant mountains loomed, blue,
indistinct, mysterious.
Before him he caught the glint of the far away sea. At its shore, he
knew, palms grew rank and tall, shading beautiful white stucco homes. The
water of the sea was blue and clear as the most transparent glass. Green
parrots flitted from tree to tree. And in the evening the mocking birds
sing.
"It's the most beautiful island in all the world," he told himself, as he
walked slowly along with bowed head, "and yet its history is the saddest
of all.
"Columbus found it. He made an earnest attempt to colonize it. Yet it
brought him only sorrow, a dungeon and chains. The French conquered it.
It brought them only death. Christophe dreamed dreams. He, too, ended in
defeat. And why? Gold! Columbus might have succeeded but the greedy
Spaniards demanded gold and more gold. He was obliged to enslave the
natives to obtain gold. The French were no better. Slavery has always
brought tragedy.
"Gold. Christophe was thought of as a hero and a liberator until he fell
in love with glittering gold.
"Gold," he stopped short in his tracks. He was here at this very moment
in a search for gold, the 'Rope of Gold.'
"Ah, yes," he told himself after a moment's thought. "But we want it at
least in part for others, not entirely for ourselves."
He strolled slowly on. As he did so, he saw in his mind's eye a broad
aqueduct running down from the mountain and on out over a desolate,
cactus grown plain. It was broken in places, but once it was repaired it
would bring water to thousands of thirsty acres. Not alone that, but it
would bring pure, cold water to those who now traveled far to carry
luke-warm water on donkeys' backs.
"Hundreds die needlessly every year because of the water," the Professor
had said. "If only we had the money for rebuilding the waste places."
"He must have it," the boy told himself. "Somehow--"
Of a sudden, he felt himself sinking. His first thought was that he had
walked off the wall.
But no, he was in the very center.
Stones crumbled and glided beneath his feet. He threw his arms out madly.
It was no use. Down, down he went.
He knew on the instant that the unusual had happened.
"It's a secret opening in the wall," he told himself. "I have found the
hiding place of the 'Rope of Gold'."
"Or you have found death," a voice seemed to whisper. "You are more than
a hundred feet above the mountain top."