Chapter XI: The Drums

During the very hour in which Johnny Thompson discovered that he and the two girls, Doris and Nieta, were stowaways in a strange schooner sailing straight out to sea, Curlie Carson sat beside a mahogany table beneath the stars in a beautiful tropical garden.

The air was heavy with the perfume of flowers. The night was cool and damp. Now and then a breeze from the distant sea set the palm fronds rustling and brought forth a hoarse croak from a sleeping buzzard.

Back of him was a home. And such a home as it was! All white and glistening in the moonlight, with its little spires and minarets, with its broad, deep, mysterious windows, standing tall against the dark green of palms it seemed some castle in Spain--a thing of dreams.

But the home, a sort of French Chateau, was real. Haiti has thousands of beautiful homes. Some of them hark back to the days when fine French ladies rode out with their maids in the cool of the evening, and a hundred thousand slaves toiled in the sugar cane and the cotton.

The girl who sat opposite Curlie sipping limeade was real too. To Curlie at first she had been rather startling as well. She was Dot Montcalm, Dorn's sister. To Curlie she was a great deal more than that. She was the mysterious dark-haired girl who had shared his adventure of the night before. She it had been who had beaten the strange native drum and had called together that band of half wild natives to dance and to plot revolution beneath the stars. She too had raced away with him down the trail after the weird howling of her dog had put the natives to flight. All this she smilingly admitted on meeting Curlie two hours before. He had not asked her why she had concealed her identity. There was no reason for asking. A girl with good sense, and Dot Montcalm seemed well endowed with that by nature, does not reveal her identity to a stranger during a chance meeting.

"But she has told me nothing else," Curlie was thinking to himself, as they sat there in the garden before the girl's home. "Why did she beat out the drum signals that called that wild band together to plot revolution. Surely she and her father would be the last to desire a revolution. In truth she seemed eager to scatter them before plotting was begun. It's all very strange."

Curlie had arrived at camp a little before noon of that day. He had, as you well know, found Johnny still missing. After visiting his laboratory and finding all in order, he had heavily bolted the door and then had announced his intention of going to Dorn's village in search of some clue of Johnny's whereabouts.

"Some natives may have seen him. He may have arrived at the village over a strange trail," he had said to Dorn.

"Yes," said Dorn. "That is true. You may find him there. But as for Pompee and me, we will remain. He may come here tired and hungry. Besides," his eyes had gone dreamy, "I like this old Citadel. It is scary and most spooky at night, but by day it is so old, so massive, so grand. And then, at any moment I may come upon one end of the 'Rope of Gold' sticking out from the masonry. Then how rich we all shall be." A low laugh followed this last remark.

So Curlie had gone away down the trail toward the village of Terre Plaisance. And here he was sitting across from Dot drinking limeade, talking now and then of matters of no great consequence, and dreaming long dreams in between.

"A revolution," he thought now. "How wildly thrilling that would be. And yet it would be tragic. These natives can't fight against our airplanes, our gas, our machine guns. And yet--"

He thought of the long and bitter struggle that had been going on in Nicaragua and of the war between the invincible Napoleon and the Blacks of Haiti and how the Blacks of Haiti had won. After that he was not so sure.

"We must put an end to it," he said, speaking aloud.

"To what?" said the girl.

"To the revolution."

"Oh, yes. We must. If we can."

"You do not want the revolution?"

"Oh no! No!" She shuddered.

"But you beat the drum. You called those natives together."

"Oh that--why that was--I'll--I--I'll tell you about that sometime."

For a time they sat there in silence. Then, like the first flush of morning, her face lighted with a smile. "She will tell me," Curlie assured himself.

But she did not, for at that precise moment there came, faint, indistinct, like the low roll of thunder, yet unmistakable a call from the distance and the dark.

"The drums," a shudder ran through the girl's slender form. "Far away, the drums. And now perhaps there will be a revolution. How--how useless, how terrible! Someone must prevent it. It can only end with the death of many honest but deluded people; the poor, honest ones."

"It is true," said Mona the black servant who had come to serve cocoa. "It should not be."

"The men all are gone; the native police too," Dot said turning to Curlie.

"But we--we might do something," she added after a moment.

"Yes," said Curlie. "We did something last night. Plenty."

"Let's try."

"Yes, let's."

"Will you go with us?" Dot turned to Mona.

"If I might help."

"You might help a great deal. You know all the secret mountain passes and the people."

"I will go," said the aged native woman. "The Blanc does much for my people. He is honest. He will not do wrong. Rebellion is for bad men."

The "Blanc" is the Haitian's name for the white man from America. In the few short years of the American occupation the greater part of the hill people of Haiti have come to trust their American friends. Yet in every land there is some discontent. There are some too who are willing enough to stir up discontent that they may advance their own selfish ends.

Even now, as they prepared to lose themselves in the forest trails at night, Dot felt herself overtaken with fear.

"Father has always said the hills are safe," she said to Curlie. "Yet there are many wild rumors.

"We'll take Leo," she continued.

"I've a bow and arrows with me," said Curlie.

"Bow and arrows?" exclaimed the girl in great surprise.

"It's really a very strong one," said the boy. "A regular six foot yew bow. It will drive a steel pointed arrow a full inch into a mahogany tree. Johnny Thompson has been teaching me to use it. I--I'm getting pretty good."

"Oh," said Dot.

"Of course," said Curlie, "we won't use it to--"

"Of course not," said Dot, not allowing him to finish. "But bring it. I only wish I could shoot it. Just think of the lost arts there are in the world! When Columbus was Governor of this island every native knew how to shoot with bows and strong ones, too. That was the way they hunted and how they fought their battles."

"Of course," said Curlie, "we use them only for sport now. But I'll take it along."