Chapter XVIII: The Magic Telescope

There was in Curlie Carson something of the primitive man. Like the American Indian or the Eskimo, if he hunted or prowled half the night, he slept half the next day. The tropical sun was high when he awoke. The particular sound that disturbed his slumbers was the barking of a dog--Dorn's dog. The dog barked for joy. His young master had returned. With Dorn was Pompee.

They had returned, Curlie heard them tell Dot, because there was no use keeping camp at the Citadel. Nothing ever happened there. Nothing of importance was discovered and the two young adventurers who had induced them to take up camp there were forever getting themselves lost. Just at the present moment they were both lost.

"Curlie Carson is here," said Dot. "He came upon us in the dark last night. And how glad I am that he did! We--we destroyed the supply ship of the revolutionists. The revolution is over. The bad white man is dead.

"But Dorn," Curlie heard her catch a long hard breath, "Pluto, the bad black man, is still alive. He saw us last night after it was all over and he understood. I know he did. And now what will happen? Who can tell?"

Curlie had heard enough. His good friend Johnny was lost once more. In the light of the previous night's events that seemed serious.

"They may have known of our camp," he told himself. "Going there to waylay me they may have come upon Johnny and taken him instead. That settles it." There was an air of finality in his tone. "The whistles must do. The drums would have been more dramatic, but there is no time to lose."

After a hasty toilet and a more hasty meal, he bade good-bye to Dot and Doris, Dorn and Pompee, then went hurrying away over the trail to the Citadel.

Arriving at the grim old fortress just at nightfall, he went at once to his laboratory. From this place, after a half hour of banging and bumping, he emerged laden with packages. Having caught up with his burros he began loading them. After six trips to the laboratory he at last left it with the door ajar which told plainer than words that whatever of value had been there was now safely packed in hampers on the burros' backs.

Being a good trail hunter he was not long in picking up a fresh scent that, to his great surprise, he found led in the same direction as that taken by the natives who had before spirited Johnny away.

Had he known the full truth, he must have been much more surprised for it was not alone the same trail that Johnny had been taken over but the same group of natives had taken him, and, at the very moment when Curlie found the trail, the same natives were breaking camp on the identical spot at which Johnny, with the aid of a ferocious wild boar, had made good his escape only a few days previous.

It is said that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. Something very like lightning had struck Johnny twice. A second time as he walked on the Citadel wall a group of bronze natives had silently formed about him and had spirited him away.

"This time," he had told himself, as he recalled the strange words of the short, broad man, "I will see the thing through."

And well he might say this for now he was caught quite helpless and unarmed. And no wild boar had as yet come to his aid.

As before, the group of bronze natives taking Johnny with them from the Citadel had traveled all night without the aid of a light. As morning dawned, they had sought out a secluded spot and had breakfasted, without building a fire, on fruits, nuts and cold cooked meats. With one member of the band detailed to watch, they had sprawled out among the ferns and had fallen asleep. Not one of them slept better than Johnny, for having once committed himself to a course of action, he never allowed the strangeness of the course nor the wildness of the land about him to rob him of his rest.

As night fell they resumed their journey. The general direction of their course was not changed. Once more they plodded steadily onward over the narrow trail that now rose at an abrupt angle, now ran on the level and now dipped a trifle downward, as a mountain trail will, but in the main bore steadily upward.

"It's the strangest thing I ever heard of," Johnny told himself. "I am not treated as a prisoner. Yet they take me with them, nor do they as much as say, 'By your leave.'"

Once more the old resolve surged through his being; he would see the thing through, come what might.

What he saw and heard after three hours of steady plodding caused him to start and wonder. Having rounded a dark clump of southern pines, they came quite suddenly upon a low burning camp fire. And seated crosslegged before the fire, smiling like some elfin king, was the short, broad man who had already played so considerable a part in the boy's life.

"So you came?" he exclaimed in quite a genial tone.

"Yes," said Johnny rather slowly, "I--I came."

"I hoped you would. Knew you too were trying to help the natives of Haiti. Thought I might help you. Sit down by the fire."

As Johnny's eyes became accustomed to the dim firelight, he noted that a large brass tube lay across the mysterious man's knee.

"That," said the stranger as he saw Johnny's eyes resting upon it, "is the Magic Telescope of the old Emperor Christophe."

"That! It--it can't be!"

"There's not the least doubt about it."

"But it must be more than a hundred years old."

"Quite a little more. Look closely and you will see the date's still there."

He held up a blazing ember. Johnny, looking close, read there: "Paris, France, 1797."

"It is." His tone was filled with awe.

At once, as he settled back in his place his mind was filled with strange stories that had been told of Christophe and this telescope and its magic properties.

"But, of course," he said to the little man, "the magic part was all myth?"

"Nevertheless," said the other without answering his question, "it's a strangely powerful instrument. I'll demonstrate. Come with me."

He led the way to a cleared spot above a rocky ledge that was like an observation post.

"If you will follow the direction the telescope points," said the stranger, "you will be able to locate the Citadel. The rising moon brings it out in rather strong relief."

"Ah," Johnny was astonished at its apparent nearness.

"You followed an irregular trail in coming here," the other offered. "For all that it's some distance away. Now try this." He placed the priceless relic of other days in Johnny's hands.

For a time as he lifted the telescope to his eyes, his trembling hands defeated his purpose, but at last the parapets of the ancient fortress stood out in startling clearness.

"It--why, it's marvelous!" he said in a low whisper as if afraid the ghosts of other days might overhear. "It is as if--"

"As if one were right there," put in the short broad man. "Exactly so. And it might interest you to know," he said as he dropped to a seat on a fallen tree trunk well back from the edge of the precipice, "that the Citadel has been watched from this point, through this very glass, every day for more than a hundred years--since the death of Christophe, in fact. You have heard the story of the telescope?" He asked quite suddenly.

"Yes," said Johnny. "But after the Emperor's death, how did it come here?"

"The brown boy, carrier of the telescope during Christophe's reign, was a native of this very mountain," said the little man. "He and his tribe were loyal to the Emperor. After his death they remained loyal still. They took an oath to watch the Citadel and to defend it from vandals. That is why the watch has been kept."

"And that explains--"

"It explains many things. There is a rumor that the bearer of the telescope knew the secret of the Emperor's treasure and that is why they guard the Citadel so very carefully."

"If they know that," said Johnny, suddenly springing to his feet, "then they know the hiding place of the 'Rope of Gold'."

"The rumor has never been confirmed," said the little man, rising and turning away from the ledge. "It is probably one of those myths that spring up from time to time.

"But as to the 'Rope of Gold'," he added as an apparent after-thought, "whether the rumor were true or not will not make the least difference. The 'Rope of Gold' is not in the Citadel and never was. Come, let's go." He struck back over the trail at a stride quite astonishing for one so short of stature.

"He knows where the 'Rope of Gold' has been." The boy's heart throbbed. "Perhaps he knows where it is to-day."

For some time they tramped along in silence. They were, Johnny discovered, not going to the camp spot they had left.

"These people," said the short, broad man after a time, "are not black men. They are Indians, almost pure stock, the kind of men Columbus found when first he landed here. They do not build houses as the blacks do. They live in groves and caves. We will soon come to one of their caves. Whatever you see or hear, have no fear. They have known me for more than twenty years. So long as I am with you, you are safe."