THE VOODOO DRUM
But we must not forget Curlie Carson. Lost from his friends, far away
among the hills, confronted by what seemed the scene of a grim tragedy,
he found himself at first all but overcome by fear and dread. The
brilliant illumination caused by burning palm leaves, however, quickly
drove from his mind the suggestion that something sinister and quite
horrible had happened round the half burned out camp fire. A little back
from the fire, beneath a mango tree, he discovered a broad, sharp-toed
hoof.
"Hog," he mumbled to himself.
The next moment he picked up a broad circle of yellow ivory with edge as
keen as a knife blade.
"Hog," he repeated. A suggestion of awe had crept into his tone. "Tusk of
a wild hog. And what a monster! Wonder who had the hardihood to face that
fellow and kill him. Whoever it was, he found friends enough to help him
pick the bones. Wish--"
He turned to search about among the palm leaves and the bushes. To his
great joy, he found, high and dry and quite clean upon a broad leaf where
it had apparently been forgotten, a liberal slice taken from the great
beast's ham.
"Thanks, kind Providence. Don't mind if I do." He watched the palm leaf
fire burn low. Then raking out a good bed of live coals, placed his gift
from the gods upon it.
At once the evening air was fragrant with broiling pork steak. A half
hour later when Curlie rose to go it was with a feeling that nature was
good to all mankind.
"But where am I and where is Johnny Thompson?"
These questions he could not answer. He did believe that with good
fortune he could find his own way back to camp. This plan, since there
seemed to be no likelihood of his coming upon his missing friend, he
proceeded to put into execution.
His small flashlight was still with him. By its light he was able to
follow winding trails, avoid brambles and save himself from many a fall
over hidden rocks and narrow stream beds.
He had been traveling so for some two hours, when of a sudden, appearing
to come from nowhere, a sound smote his ear. A single boom of a native
drum. It shattered the silence of the night and set small wild creatures
scurrying.
"Now what?" He came to a sudden halt.
A moment of silence and there it was again. This time three strokes: Tum!
Tum! Tum!
"Over to the right," he told himself. "Natives. They may have Johnny. At
worst it's to be one of those forbidden native dances, and that's
something. Something that few enough white folks see these days."
He waited until the drum sounded again. Tum--Tum--Tum--Tum. Then he
struck straight away in the direction from which the sound appeared to
come. Nor did he pause until the drummer was so near at hand that the
drum seemed to be his own ears pulsating in wild rhythm.
Parting the bushes, he peered into the open space beyond. Before him was
a spot quite clear of trees and bushes. The grass had been cropped short
by wild goats. And there in the center, squatting low, drum between
knees, thumping the drum with naked hands, was not some swarthy native
drummer but a slim white girl dressed in a bright blouse and plaid
knickers.
"Of all places!" he thought. "Miles from human habitation. A girl and a
drum at night."
Still the girl drummed on. Like one in a trance she sat with eyes raised
to the stars and sent out such rolls and thunder with such vibrations as
the boy had not heard before.
But even as he listened in awed surprise there sounded a stealthy
movement off to his right, another to his left. A twig snapped. A branch
made a swishing sound.
He was becoming frightened. Was this some plot? Was the girl a plant, a
lure to lead him on? He could not believe this. There was about her face,
not a perfectly molded face, but well cut and strong, something of a look
he had seen on the face of angels in an ancient painting.
No, the girl is not a part of a plot, for now in a second of silence, she
too has caught a sound. Instantly her drum beats cease. She grips the
drum by a strap and drags it noiselessly into the brush. Here she backs
far into the shadows, straight toward the spot where Curlie stands. A
step forward, a hand outstretched and he might touch her.
"Think she'd hear my heart beating," he said to himself, but in the
shadows he could not see her.
"Well," he thought again, "the show is over. But I wonder?"
* * * * * * * *
During all this time, where was Johnny Thompson? Curlie had followed his
trail over many a weary mile in vain. He had come upon a burned out camp
fire and the remains of a feast of wild pig. This pig, as you have
guessed, was that killed by Johnny. It was this very beast which had
worked his liberation from the mysterious natives. He had not returned to
camp, for Doris had journeyed to the Citadel, filled with high hopes of
finding him there, only to have her hopes dashed to the ground. He was
not there.
After retrieving his quiver of arrows and slaying the wild boar, Johnny
had found himself free to go where he chose. Not one of the natives who
had witnessed his marvelous archery and the deadly power of his bow dared
resist him.
But where did he wish to go? For a moment he found himself engaged in a
mental struggle. Strange as it may seem, he felt an almost overwhelming
desire to stay and see this unusual affair through. There was something
to be said for this course of action. The natives had, more than likely,
saved his life by dragging him from the pit in the ancient fort. Not one
of them all had laid violent hands upon him. They had shown him every
respect. They had forced him to come with them; that was all.
What was there back of their actions? Had they been sent? If so who had
sent them and why? All down the centuries since Columbus set the ensign
of Spain upon these newly discovered shores, such procedures as this had
come about. A queen of some distant tribe takes a fancy to some gallant
young Spaniard. She sends a band of men for him. He is brought, whether
he wills it or not, to the court. There, in time he is showered with
riches and made a king.
A native chief learns that gold and odd bits of jewelry can be traded for
steel knives, hawk's bells and bright silk scarfs. His kingdom is far
away. He sends a band to waylay a trader and bring him from afar, only to
at last return him unharmed and laden with rich treasure.
"But that," the boy told himself, "was very long ago. There's no use
romancing. Dorn and Pompee will be worried about me. Curlie will risk his
neck to find me. I must return to camp."
Some persons are natural scouts. To them an overturned pebble, a bent
twig, moss on trees, a thousand simple things, are a sign. Johnny was not
of this brotherhood.
Just as night began to fall he found himself descending a gently sloping
hillside where the ground was red as a native clay pipe when, upon
rounding a curve, he came within sight of a small, square house that
gleamed white in the light of the setting sun.
"Good!" he exclaimed. "Now I shall not spend the night alone."
In this he was mistaken. As he neared the place, no dog came out to bark
a warning, no naked native children scurried through the doorway to their
mother. The place was silent, deserted, lonely. Yet in the fact that this
had once been a home; that children had once played with young goats
before the door; that a mother had beaten corn for bread and a father had
returned from a day of toil, Johnny found comfort. For this boy Johnny
was an exceptional character. Himself a wanderer, he was ever dreaming of
home, ever thinking of that time when, with loved ones about him, he
would sit before his own hearth fire in a home he called his own.
Having explored the half ruined house and found its roof sound, he
brought in dry banana leaves to make a bed on the shelf beneath the
rafters.
He found ripe bananas in a little run below the house. Half content with
this sparse supply of food, he sat down to listen. Nor did he listen
long. From above him, on the sloping hillside which had once been a badly
cleared cornfield, there came a sound much like a shrill scream.
Stringing his bow and nocking an arrow, he began scouting away up the
hill. Now he peered out from behind a clump of young banana plants. And
now a great boulder hid him. Now he crept rapidly over a patch of barren
red soil. But ever he moved upward. Now and then to his listening ears
came welcome sounds, cries, calls, duckings that told him that the quarry
was not far away.
And now, as he lifted his head above a low-growing bush, he caught his
breath as he murmured:
"Now! Now's the time."
Bending his bow for a quick aim, he let fly. Then such a screaming and
whirring of wings! A whole covey of wild guinea fowl went wheeling and
screaming away into the sunset. A whole covey? Not quite. A fat young
cock lay still upon a flat rock. He had been shot through and through by
one of Johnny's arrows.
"Supper!" the boy exulted as he lifted the bird from the rock and
retrieved his arrow.
There were dry branches to be had from the trees in the nearest run.
These were rapidly converted into a heap of glowing coals. Lacking a
kettle for boiling his fowl, Johnny first plucked off the feathers then
rolled it in a two inch coat of red clay. After that he buried it, clay
and all, beneath a great mound of glowing coals and sat down to await
results.
"Life," he told himself as he sat there with the abandoned home at his
back, "is strange. Here was this chap who made this place a home. To him
five dollars a year was a fortune. Wild guineas shot or snared, bananas
and mangoes growing in the runs, corn from the hills, goat's meat and
goat's milk, all to be had for the asking. These were his. And clothes,"
he chuckled, "down here a long shirt and a broad smile makes a wonderful
suit, better than the best dress suit a tailor ever made.
"But back where I came from," he mused on, "a dress suit, a business
suit, golf suit, top coat, winter coat, rain coat, high shoes, oxfords,
golf shoes, tennis shoes, scarfs, shirts, collars, socks by the dozen.
Men work days, nights and sometimes Sundays for a living wage. And how
much is a living wage? Two thousand, three thousand, five thousand
dollars. Poor souls! They grow gray and go to hospitals, sanitariums, and
early graves. And here a man lives well enough on five dollars a year."
Seizing a stout stick he scattered the coals to right and left. An oval
mound of hard, baked clay lay before him. This he cracked with a rock and
behold! Before him lay a feast fit for a king, a guinea fowl baked in
clay among the coals.
As he lay down to sleep on that narrow shelf beneath the rafters, he
tried to imagine the natures of those who had slept there before him.
Their images did not linger long for he was soon lost in slumber.