CHAPTER XVI THE CALL OF THE DRUMS
Again it was night. Once more the moon edged the crest of the ancientCitadel with a line of silver. Curlie and Johnny had returned to camp.They were welcomed by Dorn with shouts of joy. Old Pompee had utteredgrunts of satisfaction and had begun at once the beating up of sorghumseed into petit meal, which later would be formed into cakes and baked onhot coals.
The boys arrived too late for any daylight exploration of the Citadel.After an hour of rest followed by a sumptuous meal of hot cakes androasted wild pig, they went each his own way in search of adventure.
Curlie struck away up the Citadel trail that led to his laboratory.There, finding all in order, he began work on wires, switches andbatteries. From time to time a low tum--tum--tum came from one or theother of his two native drums. At other times there sounded a shrillpiping not unlike the notes of a boy's willow whistle.
Meanwhile Johnny was pursuing an investigation of his own. Recalling thestory of the ancient black emperor's visits to the Citadel and the storyof how he went to the crest of the uncompleted fortress to work all nightlong with mortar and stone, he had thought too of the slaves who, lookingup from their hard beds of trodden earth, had seen him working there.From all this he had developed a theory which he hoped might aid him indiscovering the spot, or at least the general location on the wall whereChristophe had worked at night.
"Here," he told himself as he stood upon a certain raised portion ofearth, "those slaves could not have slept. The space is too narrow andirregular. There were many hundreds of workmen. The greater part of themwere slaves condemned to toil on the wall. They must be kept together,guarded against escape at night. Must have been a broad, clear, openspace."
After wandering about, flashing his light far and near, walking here,turning to the right, then to the left he came to a definite conclusion.
"This broad square," he told himself, "must have been the sleeping groundof the workers. And from this point only a small section of the wall maybe seen, not more than a fourth of it."
Of a sudden, he started. It came to him with something of a shock thatthis very section of the wall might be seen plainly from their own camp.Dorn and Pompee had told him of the giant with fiery eyes who walked thewall at night, and the little man, the bearer of the telescope, whofollowed after, but he had quite frankly disbelieved their story. It was,he had said, but the work of their overwrought imagination. Now, as someslight confirmation of its plausibility came to him, he experienced anoverpowering desire to go once more to the crest of the Citadel.
"This time," he told himself, "I will avoid pitfalls." For all that hefound himself unable to suppress a shudder as his foot touched the firststep of the stairway.
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During all this time Curlie was experiencing unsurmountable difficultiesin his work as an inventive genius. The drums he had procured at somehazard did not fulfill his purpose. One, it was true, worked admirably.The other did not work at all.
"Of course," he grumbled to himself, "one could use whistles, but drumswould be more effective and dramatic." The thought that in this land hemight use the drums, which had played so great a part in the history ofthe country, to serve a new and strange end thrilled him to the verycenter of his being.
"Anyone knows that drums are of different tones, the same as bells andwhistles," he told himself. "And I'll find the ones I want though theycost me thirty gourdes apiece." The gourdes he spoke of were not the kindthat grow on vines but Haitian silver coins worth twenty cents inAmerican money.
Curious enough, just as he came to this conclusion there sounded on thestill night air a faint, long drawn tum--tum--tum.
"They are calling. The drums are calling," he muttered. "I must go. Ifit's the right one I'll pay forty gourdes--and be glad enough to make thebargain."
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Curlie followed the sound of the drum. Not always did he find the righttrail. At times as he skulked along beneath overhanging bushes the soundgrew fainter. Then he must turn, retrace his steps to begin the searchanew. In the main, however, his keen senses served him well.
Moment by moment, yard by yard, mile by mile the sound grew louder untilat last the throbbing, pulsating air seemed full of it.
Curlie marveled at the boldness of the drummers. "They know that all themen of Terre Plaisance are gone," he told himself. "It is well for them,else their drums would be split from end to end and they'd not get thirtygourdes for them, either."
It was just at this juncture that a curious thing happened. As he movedstealthily forward, his keen ear caught a sound not made by a drummer.
"A belated dancer," he thought. The fact that someone was so near him inthe dark disturbed him.
For all this he continued gliding silently forward over the same trail.Eerie business this, following another in the dark. Snap! went a twig upthere in the trail. Rustle, rustle sounded the swinging bushes. Now hefancied he heard a whispered conversation.
"Might drop off at the side of the trail and waylay me." His blood rancold as he seemed to feel the two-foot blade of a machete come down uponhis back.
"Beat 'em to it," he whispered to himself, drawing forth his flashlight."One glimmer of light full in the face, then I do the vanishing act."
A few gliding foot-steps, then from his lips there sounded a loud:
"Hist!"
The next instant the white gleam of his flashlight shot down the trail.It fell upon two startled faces, one white, one coal black.
But Curlie did not do the disappearing act into the brush. Instead heuttered a low exclamation that expressed profound surprise. The personsbefore him were Dot and her aged black servant Mona.
"Wha--what are you doing here?" Dot gasped, as he came forward.
"After a drum," he stated briefly. "Buy that drum. Pay forty gourdes if Imust. That's the drum I want. Just the right tone."
"Do you know what that drum may cost?" Dot's tone was impressive.
"Fifty--"
"Not fifty, not a hundred, nor a thousand gourdes, but many times that inmoney and men. That is the war drum of the revolution. It says that theyhave the black goat once more. Come on. We are glad you are here. But wemust hasten. Even now we may be too late." The French girl's dark eyesshone like fire as she turned once more to take up the trail to followthe sound of the drums.