WE GAIN AN ALLY
It was an hour before dawn that we pushed away from the schooner in one
of the boats; Captain Marat, Grant Norris, Ray, Robert and myself. We
passed among the sleeping vessels with their white night-lights showing
aloft.
The harbor light still continued its revolutions, sending bright rays
out over the sea. Norris and Ray were at the oars. The land breeze was
cool; there was little sound except the swish of the oars. But as we
moved on down the shore, presently there came the night sounds from the
country, frogs' voices in the ascendent. Then all at once, it seemed,
light burst on the high peaks of the mountains; in a few minutes it was
full day. The royal palm and cocoanut trees lined the shore, curving out
over the sand beach.
We came opposite two boats on the white sand; and a pair of huts showed
above the bushy growth. Here we went to shore. Jean Marat entered into
talk with some black children who had appeared on the beach at our
approach. Did white men ever land there? he asked. No, no white man had
been there for ever so long--years. Did black sailors ever land there?
Yes, two the evening before. "And oh yes, two days--three days before,
some black men came in a boat with--oh, such a big basket! Two men carry
the basket and go back in the country." There was but one road or trail,
going any distance back. There was a small village a few hours walk
toward the hills.
I felt my heart leap with hope at the mention of the basket. And yet I
was never destined to hear of it again.
"It looks like we're on the right trail," said Norris, when Jean Marat
had interpreted for us the last statement of the little blacks.
"Yes," said Marat. "And now," he added, turning to Robert and me, "you
still feel you weesh to go, only you two together?"
"Yes," I answered for us both. "As you have admitted, we two alone won't
attract so much attention. And then we have the black wigs and paint. If
we get up in the hills and need you we can signal."
Our equipment made but a small pack each. The rifles we bore in their
canvas cases.
"Now, boys," cautioned Marat, when we stood among the cocoanut palms at
the beginning of the path, "now, boys, go ver' slow and ver' careful.
W'en you have find thee place--if you are so fortunate, just come for
us."
"Or if you get up on the side of one of those mountains," broke in Ray,
"you can signal us at night."
"And look here," began Norris, "if signalling is going to be that easy,
you let us know how things are going--before the third day, or by all
that's holy! I'll be hiking after you to see what's up."
Grant Norris was not one that was used to holding back while others were
doing, he was always eager to be in the forefront of the fray.
"Well you can depend on it, Norris," I assured him, "we'll not delay
letting you know, when we've located them."
And so, after a shake of the hand all round, Robert and I plunged into
the brush. Cocoanut palms and cabbage palms leaned over our path; the
sweet odor of orange blossoms delighted our nostrils. Beyond the second
of the cottages--a palm-thatched ajoupa--the ragged leaves of banana
plants gave an added touch to the tropic scene. A mile or more back from
the beach, the trail took us into open country; here tall grass bordered
the way.
Two leisurely hours of tramping had brought us again among the trees.
The ground became broken, and we had some stiff climbs. And then at last
we came upon a wee bit of a village. There were dwellings of various
descriptions; some were of stone, most seemed to be of palm-thatch. And
there were numbers of children, though none who could understand two
words of English. But they pointed a way toward the hilly side of the
hamlet, as if to indicate that that way we should find something in our
line. And at last we came upon one who could make something of our
speech.
In the midst of a cluster of palms stood a stone cottage, better kept
than any we'd passed; and the garden showed straighter rows. While
Robert and I stood contemplating the scene, there came from the back, a
woman; black, like all the rest, but with superior features and an
intelligent eye.
"Yes, sar, I speak the English," she answered our inquiry.
We began with no fuller explanation than that we were strangers; but she
invited us to a seat on a bench in a cool arbor at the back, and before
we could protest, she had up a small table and dishes of food.
One thing leads to another in talk, and it was not long till it became
plain that our hostess was in no sort of sympathy with the voodoo.
"It is very horrible, the things they do," she said. And she told of a
neighbor who had lost a child at the hands of the voodoo worshipers less
than two months gone. "If it was not for my brother, Carlos, I would
leave thees island," she said.
And thus it came about that we finally confided to this woman the
purpose of our visit to the region, telling her the story of the
kidnapping of the Cambon child, making mention of Mordaunt, alias Duran,
and all.
She showed much excitement while she listened, and when we had finished,
she spoke with vehemence.
"Oh, thad Duran!" she said. "Ah, my brother, he will help you. Wait till
Carlos come. I cannot explain now, but he will be very glad to help
you."
Carlos was gone to the city on some marketing errand, and would be back
by night, she said.
And so we lay aside our packs, and, to while away the time, set off to
explore the region, a mile or so farther inland. Our hostess warned us
to keep aloof from an old ruin of a palace we were likely to see on our
tramp. The place, she said, had a bad name. The natives had it that the
old ruin was now the abode of _zombis_ (devils); and there were stories
of men who had gone to explore the place and had never returned. Some of
the stories were fanciful, she admitted, but she had herself seen one
man return nursing a bullet wound, and who had refused to talk of his
experience, and had gone away never to return.
Robert and I moved on up the valley, curious for a look at this tabooed
ruin. The path for some time led through heavy forest growth, where was
a perfect tangle of lianas, running from ground to tree, and tree to
tree, in a great network.
Presently we came to an open space. Robert was ahead.
"There she is," he said, pointing.
The ground sloped away, down to the left hand of our path. The forest
trees hid the bottom of the valley--a big ravine I prefer to call
it--and over there, over-topping the trees on the other side of the
valley, a mile away, loomed a wonderful structure--or the ruins of one.
For a minute we gazed in speechless wonder.
The air was clear, and from our high vantage point we could see with
unusual distinctness the high walls of each story which seemed to rise a
wide step behind that of the story below. Flanking a great arched portal
at the ground, either side rose wide stone buttressed terraces,
zigzagging in their ascent. The top--the fourth or fifth story of the
palace showed only crumbling walls, and trees grew up there, evidently
rooted in the crevices. And one tree, I saw, poked its head through a
window opening. The grandeur and bizarre beauty of the structure made it
seem like a chapter out of "Arabian Nights Entertainments."
"Who'd think to see a thing like that here!" I said.
"I'd like to get inside of it," said Robert. And I saw it was a hope he
expressed.
"And what about the devils that live there?" I quizzed him, though I had
the same thought as he.
"I don't take any stock in that part of those stories," said
Robert--"Any more than you do," he added, studying my face.
"Well, suppose we try getting a little closer," I said.
So we again took up the march, now moving down into the ravine. When we
had crossed the open ground, we found a way into the tangled growth. It
was apparently an old, though now unused, path, that must have been cut
through the forest with much labor. When we reached the stream, it was
at a shallow fording; and then we ascended the other side of the ravine
by a path, grass overgrown like that of the descent. Seldom would we see
more than fifty feet in front, so close was the growth, and winding the
path.
We moved silently, the effort of the climb taking all our breath. When
we had gone what we judged to be some over half the distance to the
palace, we came to a halt, to rest, and to consider. We had hoped that
by this time we should have come to a close view of the structure. But
there was yet no sign of a break in the trees.
"Perhaps if we go a little farther we'll come to some opening,"
suggested Robert.
Directly, the slope of ascent became more gentle, and we went with
greater ease. But we were soon brought to a sudden halt. We had just
made a sharp turn of the path, when we came upon a bleached human skull,
fixed in the notch of a tree. Below it were nailed two long bones. They
evidently were meant to be crossed, though now they lay almost parallel,
doubtless due to the giving way of some rusty support. The skull was
small, apparently that of a child; and the sight was not cheerful.
"It's a warning," I whispered.
Robert nodded agreement, and then there was a question in his eyes.
"Better try it a little farther," I said.
And so we moved on cautiously. The trees were very tall and very close
set together, making the wood very dark, where not so much as a fly
buzzed. I was debating whether to call a halt, when the light of open
ground showed ahead. By way of caution I pulled Robert with me off the
path to the right; there might be danger in the path; and we crawled
through the heavy undergrowth and tangle of lianas to the edge of the
forest.
When we looked out across the open it was to find ourselves almost under
the walls of that great ruin. The tooth of decay had gnawed big gaps in
the top parts, but the lower stories still boasted a sound fabric; and
might even be habitable. What a place to play in!
But we got a rough awakening from our dreaming contemplation: There came
the sudden crack of a gun, and the ball whizzed close over our heads,
causing us to drop flat on the ground and wriggle away lively into the
underbrush.
For above a quarter of an hour we crouched in our burrow, not daring to
move, or even converse in a whisper. Then, with infinite labor and
extreme caution, we finally worked our way back to the path, down which
we trotted, half expecting a shot from some ambush.
We had just passed the ford at the bottom of the ravine when we were
startled by the sudden appearance of a black directly in our path.
It proved to be Carlos, the brother of our hostess, who had come in
search of us. When we had recited our adventure he was inclined to
scold.
"Id is ver' danger' to go to thad place," he said, "Melie say she tell
you about thad."
The shadows already covered the open spaces and it was night when we
came to the cottage of Carlos and Melie Brill.
Carlos told us that he had got it of friends in the city that M. Duran's
schooner had been in the harbor.
"And where did the schooner go that he did not go with it?" I asked.
"Oh, the schooner she go not so ver' far," said Carlos. "She hide in one
bay not ver' far away, I guess."
We had not spoken long with Carlos Brill, till it became plain that in
his mind this man, Duran, was associated with some kind of emotion, and
it was equally plain that that emotion could not be given the name of
love. The real nature and source of this sentiment he seemed disposed to
keep to himself; though he was in no pains to make us believe that his
willingness to help us was entirely disinterested.
Melie Brill had a meal prepared. The chief dish was a soup, as she
called it; carrots, yams, pumpkins, turnips, bananas, salt pork, and
pimentos, boiled all together. Pineapple and bananas made the desert.
Our host gave us to understand we were already installed, as of the
household. They would listen to no other way of it.
These two, brother and sister, were not much of a kind with their
neighbors. It was plain, dark as they were, they were of some mixed
blood, it was shown in the features and hair, which was straight, not
even deigning to curl.
Before we had finished our supper there appeared the black neighbor who
had so recently lost a child to the voodoo. She seemed to have sensed,
in some manner, the purpose of our visit, for she wished Robert and me
all kinds of success. This was interpreted to us by Melie Brill, for the
woman had only the West Indian-French. She gave me a kind of fetish; it
was of some very hard wood, the shape of a bird, bill and tail, and the
thickness of a marble. She said that within was a drop of blood of a
great wizard, and that it would preserve me from a violent death (and so
from the attacks of the _zombis_) and would insure success in my
undertakings. She was soon gone, for it is the practice among all the
natives to retire to bed early.
The desire to press our business was upon Robert and myself, and we put
a number of questions. We desired to know who they were who inhabited
the ruined palace, and who it could have been who fired the shot at us
over there.
"I do not know who it is who stay there," Carlos answered, "an' I do not
know who fire' the shot."
"Don't you think it's that man, Duran, who makes that his headquarters?"
I pressed.
Carlos exchanged a look with his sister before he spoke. "I have suspect
for some time, that Duran he keep there, when he not away in hees
schooner," he said. "I have think that for two year."
"Hasn't anyone seen him around there?" queried Robert.
"No," returned Carlos. "No one have seen any white man that way, but I
suspect Duran he go there."
"Then," I asked, "do you think that's where he has hidden little Marie
Cambon?"
"Yes, ver' like'," said Carlos.
Further talk only strengthened our conviction. Next we required of
Carlos to guide us to a barren hillside--some spot in range of the
harbor, so many miles below. This Carlos professed to be easy of
accomplishment.
We went the way we had been in the afternoon. The forest was of an inky
blackness; even the stars could seldom be seen from the path. Carlos had
no trouble to keep the road. A perfect hush was over everything until
the night birds and frogs tuned up to show that the world was not dead.
When we got out into that open space, instinctively we turned our eyes
across the valley in the direction of the mysterious palace. And then,
as if for our particular benefit, a light flashed over there. It
disappeared in the same moment, only to appear again, perhaps at another
point near. Again it went out, and though we waited some minutes, it
showed no more.
"There's some one there, sure enough," observed Robert.
"Thee people here have see' the light many times," said Carlos. "They
theenk it is the _zombis_."
"I guess Duran is the king Zombi," said Robert.
Carlos laughed. "I theenk you right," he said.
We passed through another patch of forest and climbed to a ledge on the
steep hillside. To gather a pile of wood was the work of but five
minutes. Then we set it akindle.
Using our jackets for a screen, we began to signal, alternately covering
and exposing our fire. Our friends on the _Pearl_ must have kept a good
watch, for hardly two minutes had passed, till we made out an answering
signal.
"Ray is on the job," said Robert.
Then I spelled out, in short and long flashes, the following words:
Good So Far.
Then came from the sea the terse acknowledgment: O.K.
"That ought to hold Norris," said Robert.
"Yes, till tomorrow night," I returned. "If we don't signal them again
tomorrow night, Norris will be piling up here hand over foot."
Carlos had been very quiet, taken up with watching our procedure. That
mode of communication was far from unknown to him, but it seemed to him
marvelous that white folk should use it. But the wonder of it all was
that we could spell out any words we pleased in that way.
"An' if you tell your frien's to come, they weel come?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered, "they will come, in a hurry."
That somehow seemed to please Carlos; and he became pensive. We had put
out the fire and were already on our way back through the black forest.
When we came again to the open space, we stopped for near half an hour,
in the hope that we might again have a sight of the mysterious light
over at the old ruin.
While we squatted on the ground, watching, my mind was taken up with the
problem of how to discover where little Marie Cambon was hid; and would
our little handful of men be sufficient to storm the place? I put the
questions to Carlos.
"No--No!" declared Carlos, "the voodoos are too many, and they watch
ver' careful, as you have find out."
He referred to our being fired on.
"Wait till tomorrow, then maybe I fin' out sometheeng," he said.
Carlos and his sister made us a pallet in the arbor at the back.