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]
[Footnote 1: This ruin, now, is nominally in territory under the
jurisdiction of an American provost-marshal. It is therefore less
difficult of access than formerly, but it is still considered unsafe for
travelers.]
A gleam of sun revealed the extraordinary impregnability of the place.
The double-walled entrance from the hillside, pierced by but a single
gate, could only be battered down by heavy artillery, and no guns
powerful enough for such a feat could be brought up the hill. The Inner
Citadel, access to which was only by a long flight of steps, is
unapproachable from any other point, and a handful of defenders could
keep an army at bay.
The cliff-side is as sheer as Gibraltar, affording not even a foothold
for the most venturesome climber. The walls are built upon its very
verge and are as solid as the rock itself. Its gray mass conveys a
sense of enormous power. "It towers upon the last and highest
precipice," says Hesketh Prichard, "like some sinister monster of the
elder world, ready to launch itself forth upon the spreading lands
below."
The Citadel commands the whole of the Plain of the North clear to the
distant sea. At its south-eastern end it faces toward the frontier of
St. Domingo, the sister republic, fifty miles away. Christophe built it
as a central base, controlling the only roads and passes which command
the range from Dondon to 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 outmanoeuvred at the last.
Following Cecil's example, Leborge and Manuel rolled out to the center
of the room some blocks that had fallen from the walls, and sat down.
Stuart noticed that the Cuban so placed himself that he was well out of
a possible line of fire between the negro general and the embrasure
where the boy was hidden. This carefulness, despite its air of
negligence, reminded Stuart of the 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----
[Illustration: FOR A HUNDRED FEET THEY FELL AND STUART CLOSED HIS EYES
IN SICKENING DIZZINESS]
"Mole St. Nicholas."
The words held no meaning for Stuart, though he had seen reference to
them in his father's papers. He suspected that the phrase might be some
catch-word referring to a subject too dangerous for mention, possibly
the Presidency of Haiti. Following out this theme, the boy guessed that
he was a witness to the hatching of one of the political revolutions,
which, from time to time, have convulsed the Republic of Haiti. If so,
the matter was serious, for, as the boy knew, ever since the treaty of
1915, the United States was actively interested in forcing the
self-determination of Haiti, meanwhile holding the country under a
virtual protectorate. Such a revolution, therefore, would be a
deliberate attack upon the United States.
This impression was heightened by his catching the words "naval base,"
which could only deal with possible developments in a state of war.
Stuart strained his ears to the utmost, but isolated words were all that
he could glean.
Later, Stuart was to learn that his guess was at fault in general, but
that the conclusion he had reached--namely, that injury to the United
States was intended--was not far wide of the mark.
As the conference proceeded, it became evident to the hidden observer
that the relations between the conspirators were growing strained. The
Cuban seemed to be in taunting mood. The veins on the negro general's
bull neck began to swell, and he turned and called Manuel,
"Pale Toad!"
A moment after, his raucous voice insulted the Englishman with the
description,
"Snake that does not even hiss!"
Stuart expected to see violence follow these words, but the Cuban only
moved restlessly under the insult; the Englishman smiled. It was a
pleasant smile, but Stuart was keen enough to grasp that a man who
smiles when he is insulted must either be a craven or a dangerous man
with an inordinate gift of self-control. Cecil could not be a coward, or
such men as Manuel and Leborge would not so evidently fear him,
therefore the other character must befit him.
Another word which repeated itself frequently was----
"Panama."
This confirmed Stuart in his suspicions that the conspiracy, whatever it
might portend, was directed against the authority of the United States,
since the Panama Canal Zone is under American jurisdiction.
The conference was evidently coming to a crisis. The negro was becoming
excited, the Cuban nervous, the Englishman more immovable than ever.
Came a sudden movement, following upon some phrase uttered by Manuel,
but unheard by the boy, and the Cuban and Leborge leaped to their feet,
a revolver in each man's right hand.
Spoke the Englishman, in a quiet voice, but sufficiently deepened by
excitement to reach the boy's ears:
"Is there any reason, Gentlemen, why I should not shoot both of you and
finish this little affair myself?"
A revolver glittered in his hand, though no one had seen the action of
drawing.
In the flash of a second, Stuart understood Manuel's plot. It was the
Cuban who had provoked the negro to draw his weapon, counting on the
boy's shooting his supposed enemy, as had been agreed upon. Then Manuel
would drag him out of his hiding-place and kill him for an eavesdropper.
He crouched, motionless, and watched.
"Sit down, and put up your weapons," continued Cecil, his voice still
tense enough to be heard clearly. "This is childishness. Our plans need
all three of us. It will be time enough to quarrel when we come to
divide the spoils. First, the spoils must be won."
Negro and Cuban, without taking their eyes from other, each fearing that
the other might take an advantage, realized from Cecil's manner, that he
must have the drop on them. With a simultaneous movement, they put away
their guns. The negro sat down, beaten. Manuel, with a swift and hardly
noticeable side-step, moved a little nearer to Cecil, putting himself
almost within knife-thrust distance.
A slight, a very slight elevation of the barrel of the tiny revolver
glittering in the Englishman's hand warned the Cuban that the weapon was
covering his heart. An even slighter narrowing of the eyelids warned him
that Cecil was fully ready to shoot.
With a low curse, the Cuban retreated to his stone and sat down. He did
not sprawl loosely in dejection, as had the negro, but he sat with one
foot beside the stone and his body leaning half-forward, his muscles
tense, like a forest cat awaiting its spring.
The conference came to a head quickly, as Stuart saw. The outbreak of
mistrust and hostility, followed by discussion, proved how closely
linked were the plotters. Yet each man wanted the business done as
quickly as possible, and wanted to be free from the danger of
assassination by his comrades.
Leborge drew from his pocket a paper which he showed to the other two,
and, in turn, Manuel and Cecil produced documents, the Englishman using
his left hand only and never dropping the barrel of his revolver. Few
words were exchanged, and these in the low tones in which the conference
had been carried on before. Of the contents of the papers, Stuart could
not even guess. Whatever they were, they seemed to be satisfactory,
for, so far as the boy could judge, harmony returned among the
conspirators. But the Englishman kept wary watch with his gun.
"All goes well, then," concluded Leborge, rising and shivering in the
damp air, for the clouds were eddying through the ruined windows in raw
and gusty blasts.
"It can be done next spring!" declared the Cuban.
"It will be done, as agreed," was the Englishman's more cautious
statement.
"Then," said Manuel, raising his voice a trifle in a way which Stuart
knew he was meant to hear, "the sooner I get down to Cap Haitien the
better. I had trouble enough to get up."
"It might be well," suggested the Englishman, "if Leborge should repeat
his trick of appearing as the ghost of Christophe. The guards will be so
frightened that they will think of nothing else, and you will be able to
get away without any unpleasantness."
"And you?" queried the Cuban. "How will you go?"
Again the Englishman nodded toward the window.
"I will use the wings you were kind enough to say I must possess," he
answered, enigmatically.
Peering out cautiously from his post of observation in the embrasure,
Stuart saw that both Manuel and Leborge hesitated at the entrance to
the dark passage which led from the Dining Hall and Queen's Chamber to
the inner court, from whence went the paths leading respectively to the
outer gate, whither Manuel must go, and to the battlements, where
Leborge was to reappear as the ghost of Christophe.
"You are afraid of each other?" queried Cecil, with his faint smile.
"Well, perhaps you have reason! I will go through the passage with both
of you. As I said before, each of us needs the other."
Relief and hate passed like shadows across the faces of Leborge and
Manuel. Each had intended to kill the other in the dark of those
passages, each had feared that he might be slain himself. As Cecil knew,
once out in the open, mutual distrust and watchfulness would ensure the
keeping of the peace.
Stuart, listening intently for the sound of shots, heard in the distance
the Englishman's voice:
"I forgot my pipe. I'll just go back for it."
And then he heard steps coming at a light, but fast run. Evidently Cecil
wanted to gain time.
The Englishman came in swiftly, picked up his pipe--which he had left on
the stone--slipped across toward the window, moved a loosened stone and
drew out from a cavity in the wall a green bundle from which some straps
were hanging. These he buckled on as a body-harness. Stuart had never
seen fingers that moved so quickly, or which had less appearance of
hurry.
A thought struck him. Impulsively, he leaped from the embrasure.
A glitter told him that the gun was covering him.
He spoke breathlessly.
"Manuel expected me to kill Leborge. He'll kill me for not doing it."
In answer to a commanding look of interrogation, Stuart went on:
"I'm an American, and straight. I'll tell you all about it, later. Guess
there isn't much time, now. Take me with you."
Cecil knew men. He looked at the boy, piercingly, and answered:
"Very well. If you've got the nerve."
"I have!"
Eye flashed to eye.
Came the decision:
"Your belt's too small. Take mine!"
The Englishman unfastened his own belt, grasped the boy by the
shoulders, spun him round, ran the belt under his arms and through the
two sides of the harness he had strapped on himself. He took a step and
a heave and both were on the window-sill.
At the sight of the abyss below, a sudden panic caught Stuart's breath
and heart, and he seemed to choke.
"What do we do?" he gasped.
"We jump!" said Cecil.
They leaped clear.
For a hundred feet they fell, and Stuart closed his eyes in that
sickening dizziness which comes from a high fall.
Then he felt Cecil's arm grip him in a bear hug, and, a second after,
his breast bone seemed to cave in, as a sudden jerk and strain came on
the strap by which he was bound to the Englishman.
Instinctively he tried to squirm free, but the grip and the strap held
firm.
Then the falling motion changed into a slow rocking see-saw, coupled
with a sense of extraordinary lightness, and Stuart, looking overhead,
saw the outstretched circle of a modern parachute.