Chapter VII: The Voodoo Drum

But we must not forget Curlie Carson. Lost from his friends, far away among the hills, confronted by what seemed the scene of a grim tragedy, he found himself at first all but overcome by fear and dread. The brilliant illumination caused by burning palm leaves, however, quickly drove from his mind the suggestion that something sinister and quite horrible had happened round the half burned out camp fire. A little back from the fire, beneath a mango tree, he discovered a broad, sharp-toed hoof.

"Hog," he mumbled to himself.

The next moment he picked up a broad circle of yellow ivory with edge as keen as a knife blade.

"Hog," he repeated. A suggestion of awe had crept into his tone. "Tusk of a wild hog. And what a monster! Wonder who had the hardihood to face that fellow and kill him. Whoever it was, he found friends enough to help him pick the bones. Wish--"

He turned to search about among the palm leaves and the bushes. To his great joy, he found, high and dry and quite clean upon a broad leaf where it had apparently been forgotten, a liberal slice taken from the great beast's ham.

"Thanks, kind Providence. Don't mind if I do." He watched the palm leaf fire burn low. Then raking out a good bed of live coals, placed his gift from the gods upon it.

At once the evening air was fragrant with broiling pork steak. A half hour later when Curlie rose to go it was with a feeling that nature was good to all mankind.

"But where am I and where is Johnny Thompson?"

These questions he could not answer. He did believe that with good fortune he could find his own way back to camp. This plan, since there seemed to be no likelihood of his coming upon his missing friend, he proceeded to put into execution.

His small flashlight was still with him. By its light he was able to follow winding trails, avoid brambles and save himself from many a fall over hidden rocks and narrow stream beds.

He had been traveling so for some two hours, when of a sudden, appearing to come from nowhere, a sound smote his ear. A single boom of a native drum. It shattered the silence of the night and set small wild creatures scurrying.

"Now what?" He came to a sudden halt.

A moment of silence and there it was again. This time three strokes: Tum! Tum! Tum!

"Over to the right," he told himself. "Natives. They may have Johnny. At worst it's to be one of those forbidden native dances, and that's something. Something that few enough white folks see these days."

He waited until the drum sounded again. Tum--Tum--Tum--Tum. Then he struck straight away in the direction from which the sound appeared to come. Nor did he pause until the drummer was so near at hand that the drum seemed to be his own ears pulsating in wild rhythm.

Parting the bushes, he peered into the open space beyond. Before him was a spot quite clear of trees and bushes. The grass had been cropped short by wild goats. And there in the center, squatting low, drum between knees, thumping the drum with naked hands, was not some swarthy native drummer but a slim white girl dressed in a bright blouse and plaid knickers.

"Of all places!" he thought. "Miles from human habitation. A girl and a drum at night."

Still the girl drummed on. Like one in a trance she sat with eyes raised to the stars and sent out such rolls and thunder with such vibrations as the boy had not heard before.

But even as he listened in awed surprise there sounded a stealthy movement off to his right, another to his left. A twig snapped. A branch made a swishing sound.

He was becoming frightened. Was this some plot? Was the girl a plant, a lure to lead him on? He could not believe this. There was about her face, not a perfectly molded face, but well cut and strong, something of a look he had seen on the face of angels in an ancient painting.

No, the girl is not a part of a plot, for now in a second of silence, she too has caught a sound. Instantly her drum beats cease. She grips the drum by a strap and drags it noiselessly into the brush. Here she backs far into the shadows, straight toward the spot where Curlie stands. A step forward, a hand outstretched and he might touch her.

"Think she'd hear my heart beating," he said to himself, but in the shadows he could not see her.

"Well," he thought again, "the show is over. But I wonder?"

* * * * * * * *

During all this time, where was Johnny Thompson? Curlie had followed his trail over many a weary mile in vain. He had come upon a burned out camp fire and the remains of a feast of wild pig. This pig, as you have guessed, was that killed by Johnny. It was this very beast which had worked his liberation from the mysterious natives. He had not returned to camp, for Doris had journeyed to the Citadel, filled with high hopes of finding him there, only to have her hopes dashed to the ground. He was not there.

After retrieving his quiver of arrows and slaying the wild boar, Johnny had found himself free to go where he chose. Not one of the natives who had witnessed his marvelous archery and the deadly power of his bow dared resist him.

But where did he wish to go? For a moment he found himself engaged in a mental struggle. Strange as it may seem, he felt an almost overwhelming desire to stay and see this unusual affair through. There was something to be said for this course of action. The natives had, more than likely, saved his life by dragging him from the pit in the ancient fort. Not one of them all had laid violent hands upon him. They had shown him every respect. They had forced him to come with them; that was all.

What was there back of their actions? Had they been sent? If so who had sent them and why? All down the centuries since Columbus set the ensign of Spain upon these newly discovered shores, such procedures as this had come about. A queen of some distant tribe takes a fancy to some gallant young Spaniard. She sends a band of men for him. He is brought, whether he wills it or not, to the court. There, in time he is showered with riches and made a king.

A native chief learns that gold and odd bits of jewelry can be traded for steel knives, hawk's bells and bright silk scarfs. His kingdom is far away. He sends a band to waylay a trader and bring him from afar, only to at last return him unharmed and laden with rich treasure.

"But that," the boy told himself, "was very long ago. There's no use romancing. Dorn and Pompee will be worried about me. Curlie will risk his neck to find me. I must return to camp."

Some persons are natural scouts. To them an overturned pebble, a bent twig, moss on trees, a thousand simple things, are a sign. Johnny was not of this brotherhood.

Just as night began to fall he found himself descending a gently sloping hillside where the ground was red as a native clay pipe when, upon rounding a curve, he came within sight of a small, square house that gleamed white in the light of the setting sun.

"Good!" he exclaimed. "Now I shall not spend the night alone."

In this he was mistaken. As he neared the place, no dog came out to bark a warning, no naked native children scurried through the doorway to their mother. The place was silent, deserted, lonely. Yet in the fact that this had once been a home; that children had once played with young goats before the door; that a mother had beaten corn for bread and a father had returned from a day of toil, Johnny found comfort. For this boy Johnny was an exceptional character. Himself a wanderer, he was ever dreaming of home, ever thinking of that time when, with loved ones about him, he would sit before his own hearth fire in a home he called his own.

Having explored the half ruined house and found its roof sound, he brought in dry banana leaves to make a bed on the shelf beneath the rafters.

He found ripe bananas in a little run below the house. Half content with this sparse supply of food, he sat down to listen. Nor did he listen long. From above him, on the sloping hillside which had once been a badly cleared cornfield, there came a sound much like a shrill scream.

Stringing his bow and nocking an arrow, he began scouting away up the hill. Now he peered out from behind a clump of young banana plants. And now a great boulder hid him. Now he crept rapidly over a patch of barren red soil. But ever he moved upward. Now and then to his listening ears came welcome sounds, cries, calls, duckings that told him that the quarry was not far away.

And now, as he lifted his head above a low-growing bush, he caught his breath as he murmured:

"Now! Now's the time."

Bending his bow for a quick aim, he let fly. Then such a screaming and whirring of wings! A whole covey of wild guinea fowl went wheeling and screaming away into the sunset. A whole covey? Not quite. A fat young cock lay still upon a flat rock. He had been shot through and through by one of Johnny's arrows.

"Supper!" the boy exulted as he lifted the bird from the rock and retrieved his arrow.

There were dry branches to be had from the trees in the nearest run. These were rapidly converted into a heap of glowing coals. Lacking a kettle for boiling his fowl, Johnny first plucked off the feathers then rolled it in a two inch coat of red clay. After that he buried it, clay and all, beneath a great mound of glowing coals and sat down to await results.

"Life," he told himself as he sat there with the abandoned home at his back, "is strange. Here was this chap who made this place a home. To him five dollars a year was a fortune. Wild guineas shot or snared, bananas and mangoes growing in the runs, corn from the hills, goat's meat and goat's milk, all to be had for the asking. These were his. And clothes," he chuckled, "down here a long shirt and a broad smile makes a wonderful suit, better than the best dress suit a tailor ever made.

"But back where I came from," he mused on, "a dress suit, a business suit, golf suit, top coat, winter coat, rain coat, high shoes, oxfords, golf shoes, tennis shoes, scarfs, shirts, collars, socks by the dozen. Men work days, nights and sometimes Sundays for a living wage. And how much is a living wage? Two thousand, three thousand, five thousand dollars. Poor souls! They grow gray and go to hospitals, sanitariums, and early graves. And here a man lives well enough on five dollars a year."

Seizing a stout stick he scattered the coals to right and left. An oval mound of hard, baked clay lay before him. This he cracked with a rock and behold! Before him lay a feast fit for a king, a guinea fowl baked in clay among the coals.

As he lay down to sleep on that narrow shelf beneath the rafters, he tried to imagine the natures of those who had slept there before him. Their images did not linger long for he was soon lost in slumber.