Chapter X: Stowaways

That the boat they had sighted was a large one, far too large to be tipped on its side they learned soon enough; not, however, until they had become utterly exhausted by their mad race with the storm.

And such a storm as it promised to be. The sky was inky black. The mountains, the nearby hills, even the cocoanut groves were blotted out. The sea, a sheet black as iron lay so still it appeared that one might walk upon it.

"Cou--couldn't turn it over. If it--it was only a bark canoe! And look!" Doris panted. "It's a young ship."

It was indeed. The craft they had taken for a row-boat was a square masted schooner, with mast thrown carelessly over the side.

"We might get under the sail," suggested Doris.

"Too much wind," said Johnny. "Blow away. Give me a hand. I'll look inside of her."

Doris gave him a lift and up he went.

"Yo--ho!" he cried ten seconds later. "What luck! A cabin, a regular canvas cabin in her prow. And not a soul on board. Give us your hand and up you come."

"But dare we?" screamed Doris above the roar of the storm.

There was no time for answering this question. The storm was upon them. She could see it racing in white sheets down the beach.

Up they went, up and over, scramble, tumble, scramble, and they were there, all hidden in the prow with a roof of stout painted canvas over their heads and a brown curtain of the same material hanging before them.

"What could be sweeter?" said Johnny, dropping into a corner.

"How it rains!" Doris shuddered as torrents of water came pelting down.

Once more the native girl was whispering to her snake tooth charm.

Nieta was the only member of the little party who really feared lightning. Now they were sheltered from the rain and far from tall trees, where danger from lightning really lurks, Doris and Johnny settled back each in a dark corner for a good rest.

"Wonder whose boat it is?" said Doris.

"Native boat," said Johnny. "Tell by the way the canvas is sewed and the boards are nailed."

"Probably came from Cape Haitian," said Doris. "Gone up in the hills to hunt wild guineas or cocoanuts. We'll get them to take us to town with them."

This was a consoling thought. To trek back up the mountain in the dark and wet after the storm would be difficult indeed.

"Wonder where Mr. Monk is?" said Doris.

"It's curious about that ring," said Johnny. "It looked old--old as the hills. The gold was all tarnished and the stone didn't look a bit like the ones I've seen; wasn't cut the same."

Doris made no answer to this. She had suddenly recalled some strange stories told to her by a very old black woman of Cape Haitian. The stories had to do with days long gone by. They told of the rule of Christophe, the only powerful emperor Haiti has ever known.

"And Honey," the toothless old crone had said to her, "I had it right from my own Mammy and I know it's true; the ladies of that Emperor's court wore diamonds and rubies and pearls, such jewels as you only hear of now, but don't most never see.

"And when the uprisin' came and the Emperor was expectin' to be overthrowed, the wicked old Emperor took all the jewels an' gold an' buried it somewheres; nobody's found out where. No Honey, not nobody has ever found it yet."

"What if--" Doris thought to herself now. "But then of course that could never be."

"And besides," she added a moment later, "we'll never see the monkey again, so how could we follow him?"

Then, because she was far from her home and her new found friend, Johnny Thompson, was near at hand, because the wild beat of the storm gave her a feeling of loneliness and a longing for someone to confide in, she told him of her day dreams, of her hope that she might find the monkey and follow him to the hiding place of the ancient treasure.

"There must be something to that story of the hidden treasure of the black Empress," said Johnny quite soberly. "Of course there are many wild tales told of that romantic king of the blacks. This much is history. I read it in a book written six years after his death. When the emperor felt his throne crumbling beneath him he went one evening to the Citadel. There he worked until past midnight. At two o'clock in the morning he knocked at the door of one of his dukes, a trusted ally.

"The duchess opened the door and was frightened half out of her wits. The emperor said nothing was wrong. He required the service of the duke; that was all.

"The duke dressed, then accompanied him to the castle. At the back of the castle they entered a door to drag forth a strong box. It was all the two of them could do to lift it.

"Having carried it a little way they hid it, so the story goes. When the work was done the emperor explained to his ally that the box was filled with the queen's treasures; that, if anything ever happened to him, there was enough there to support his family in comfort for many years.

"A few days more and the emperor was dead." Johnny's story was at an end.

"And the treasure?" Doris leaned eagerly forward trying to read his face in the half darkness.

"Who knows about that?" Johnny laughed a low laugh. "If we knew where it was hidden we would go for it. If that had been told in the book, the treasure would have been removed long ago.

"So far as anyone knows, the duke never betrayed the emperor's secret. Perhaps he too died during the uprising. As for the queen, everyone knows that she sailed for Europe on the first available boat and never returned to Haiti.

"You see," he explained, as he felt that Doris was about to ask one more question, "the Emperor had sent a great deal of gold to England by a sea captain he trusted. This was at the queen's disposal. Since it was enough why risk her head by a return to Haiti in search of further wealth?

"So," he added, with another low laugh, "the treasure is yours; provided you find it. I too have been on a search for some of the emperor's treasure, the 'Rope of Gold'."

"I know," she said quietly. "How have you succeeded? When I was at your camp you were mysteriously absent."

Johnny told her of his search, of Curlie Carson's strange doings, of his kidnapping by the natives, and his all but miraculous escape.

"And so here we are," he added. "Two treasure hunters lost in the night and the storm."

"Here--here's wishing you luck," said Doris, reaching out in the half darkness to grip his hand.

"But say," Johnny asked, "what would you do with all those diamonds, rubies and all that if you found them?"

"I'd sell them. Don't care much for jewels. They're too hard to keep. People steal them.

"And then," she half closed her eyes, to lean far back in her corner, "then I'd buy dresses and shoes and things like that. I like bright things. I want a blue dress with orange trimmings and an orange dress with blue trimmings, and a green dress with an old gold sash, and a white dress with a pink sash; all of them silk, real shimmering silk that shines in the moonlight."

"That," said Johnny quite suddenly, "will do. Here's hoping you never find them. I like girls with arms strong as a man's, who can hike ten miles and who mostly wear khaki knickers."

"And yet," he set the gleam of his flashlight measuring her up and down, "if that's what spells happiness for you, you should have all your dresses and wear them too."

"I suppose," he added, "that you also want a fur coat."

"No," she said, in sudden anger. "I don't. I want a midnight blue cape with an Alaskan white fox collar."

"That," said Johnny at once sorry for his caustic remarks, "shows your good taste. I've been in Alaska. Know real fur when I see it. And like it as well as you. Here," he said, putting out a hand, "is wishing you best of luck and happiness! Everyone in the world has a right to happiness."

"I say!" he exclaimed after a brief silence. "How'd you like some lunch?"

"Fine! Please serve it at once," laughed Doris.

"No fooling. Pockets full of good, ripe bananas."

He began digging into his pockets. In the end, he brought out three; quite a little feast.

After the first wild burst that came like a flood, the rain settled down to a steady, monotonous patter--patter--patter on the staunch canvas roof.

Night crept in upon the world like the falling of a great curtain. All three, Johnny, Doris and Nieta had traveled far that day. They had been hot. Now they were cool. They had been excited. Now they were calm. They had been weary. Now their bodies were in repose.

Slowly a drowsiness crept over them. The slow patter--patter of rain on their roof, the low rush of wind through the palms whispered of sleep.

And why not? Just three winks. Here they were cosy and safe. The storm would end. Then they would wake to think of other things.

Perhaps they did not think it through in just this manner. Probably they did not think it through at all, but yielded to the call of slumber. However that may be, time found them all breathing softly and steadily in sleep. And still the rain pattered on their canvas roof.

Just how long they slept no one will ever know. It was Johnny who first awoke. He emerged from unreality to reality, from dream life to real life with something of a start.

In his dream he had once more followed the strange monkey with the band of gold and a diamond on his arm. The monkey climbed a great cocoanut palm. With quite as much ability, he followed after. Up--up--up, ten, twenty, thirty, forty feet he climbed until at last he was among the fronds, sitting on a clump of half-ripe cocoanuts.

But where was the monkey? He looked wildly about him and even as he looked a sudden burst of wind seized the great palm and set it swaying like an inverted pendulum, back and forth.

Still in the dream he threw out his hands--but found nothing to which he might cling. He tried to cry out but words stuck in his throat.

It was at this instant that he awoke. Awoke to what? A very dark little chamber at the prow of a sail-boat and silence.

No not quite silence. There was a strange rushing sound all about him, and in the distance an indistinct murmur of voices.

Instantly he recalled his position. But the sounds, the rushing, the subdued voices, these were startling.

"There were no voices," he told himself. "No people at all except--"

Perhaps it was Doris and Nieta. They might have awakened and gone out on deck.

But no, as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light he made out their forms close beside him. They were still asleep.

Then, of a sudden, he realized that a part of his dream was true. The boat was pitching about.

"We are on the sea," he told himself as his heart leaped painfully. "They have launched the boat, whoever they are. We are on our way out to sea.

"Oh well," he endeavored to reassure himself, "they will be going to Cape Haitian. When we get there, we will give them a grand surprise. We'll crawl out and thank them for the ride. What sport to be stowaways.

"But were they going to Cape Haitian?" This question troubled him more and more as time went on. The size of the waves they rode, the break of spray over the canvas, the creaking of masts seemed to tell him that they were not hugging the shore but striking boldly out to sea.

"And if we are?" Once more he caught his breath. Where would they be going? What was to be done when they got there? He had never been on a tropical island save Haiti. What the people were like on other islands he had not the faintest notions. He had heard that some were cannibals.

He thought of going on deck, of trying to hire the skipper to carry them back to land. He dared not. Perhaps these very people were cannibals or pirates. Who could tell? All he could do was to sit tight and see what happened. He feared more for his recently found friends than for himself.

As the boat sailed quietly on and nothing happened, his mind became more at ease. He wondered whether he should awaken his companions. After a moment's thought he decided this would be unwise. To awaken them would be to add to their period of anxiety. Nothing could be done until they came to some land.

"Besides," he told himself, "wakened suddenly from sleep, they may speak aloud and betray our presence. That might bring disaster. If these are bad men our chances of escape on land will be much greater."

So he sat there in silent meditation, sensing the lift and fall of the boat, catching the toss and creak of the masts and wondering whither they were bound.

Oddly enough, he thought again of the monkey and his diamond set band of gold.

"Now surely," he told himself, "we will never see him again."

Passing strange it was to be riding thus, alone save for two sleeping companions; and those friends for but an hour; sailing over waters he had never before sailed to some land he had never seen. The rain had ceased. The moon was out. It shone upon a tossing sea.

More than four hundred years before another small craft had sailed these waters in the light of that moon. It was upon the shores of Haiti that Columbus established his first colony. For a time Johnny amused himself by imagining that he was Columbus sitting in his berth, waiting for the sound of a dropping anchor.

"It must have been wonderful," he told himself. "The first white man to see these shores."

Of a sudden, as he sat there thinking, there came a sharp command from the stern, then another and yet another.

"Surely that must awaken them." He looked at his companions as he stiffened in preparation for an emergency.

Doris stirred but did not awaken. Nieta slumbered on.

The boat gave a lurch, appeared to veer in its course, then swept on. Ten minutes later the tossing ceased.

"Entered a bay. Come to land soon. What land?" He thrilled afresh.

"It's like the adventures of Robinson Crusoe."

A half hour later the boat ground gently on a sandy shore. The mast came down. There was the sound of men going ashore. The boat was drawn farther up on the beach. After that all was darkness and silence.

"Now is our chance," he thought. His knees trembled slightly as he rose to part the canvas curtain and peer out.

He saw no living thing. Stepping boldly out he looked shoreward. A grove of tall palms painted a dark fringe against the night.

"Now is our chance," he repeated as he stepped back.

"Doris." He spoke the name in a low tone as he touched the girl's shoulder. "Wake up!"

"Wha--where are we?" She sat up sleepily.

"I don't know where. I only know we have arrived," said Johnny. "Hurry. Waken that native girl. We must get out of this boat."