CHAPTER VIII THE YELLOW SNAKE'S TEETH
Dorn looked at the Citadel and all connected with it through the big,round eyes of a young boy. Nothing would do but his fair-haired Americancousin, Doris, must climb all those stone steps leading up to the top ofthe Citadel, there to peer down into the dark hole that had been Johnny'sprison and from which he had mysteriously vanished.
Doris exclaimed and shrank back from the darkness of the place. Thenseized with a true girl's impulse, she took a fishing line and hook fromher knicker pocket and angled until she drew Johnny's handkerchief upfrom those forbidding depths.
"What's to be learned from that?" Dorn asked.
"Probably nothing," replied Doris. "Anyway I have his handkerchief toremember him by if he is never seen again, haven't I?"
"Remember him? You've never seen him."
"But I can remember him all the same."
This point Dorn did not care to discuss. So they moved onward over themoss grown roof of the ancient fortress until they stood upon the exactspot at which the shadowy giant of the night before had appeared.
"He stood right here," said Dorn in an awed tone. "He moved right alongthere. And the little fellow, the bearer of the brass telescope, followedafter."
Doris had heard the story of the mysterious walking giant twice before,but to be standing at the very spot where the vision had appeared gaveher an added thrill.
The sun was setting. Already half the world was in shadows. As she stoodthere she found her knees trembling.
"Let's get away from here." She moved forward unsteadily.
Behind her sounded the chattering of teeth mingled with mumbledwhisperings.
"Nieta," she said, "what in the world are you doing?"
"She is talking to her teeth," whispered Dorn.
"Her teeth!" The girl's tone showed unfeigned amazement.
"Sure. Her snake's teeth."
"Snake--"
"You don't understand," said her cousin. "Nieta believes in the power ofvoodoo charms. Her uncle, who is now dead, left her a very ancient charm.She wears it round her neck in a leather sack. It is the teeth of ayellow snake killed at the back of a cave at high tide when the moon wasdark. It has great power, so they say. She is afraid now, so she isasking the spirit of the yellow snake for protection."
"Oh!" Doris shuddered. "I'd rather trust the ghost of that oldemperor--if there truly is a ghost."
"We saw him--Pompee and I." Dorn's voice carried conviction.
"But look!" said Doris, pointing to a spot where a patch of green mosshad been torn up. "There's a donkey's track."
"Can't be," said Dorn. "No donkey has been here. Think of his coming upthose steps!"
"But he has," said Doris. "Look! There's another footprint. And overthere's another."
"A fresh mystery," said Dorn, acknowledging the proof.
"But we must be getting down. Don't want to be caught up here in thedark."
"No--o," said Doris. "We do not."
But we must not forget Curlie Carson and the strange girl who drummed somysteriously in the night upon a native drum.
The show which Curlie had thought ended when the strange dark-haired girlstepped from the greensward stage to his corner of hiding was continuedand that almost at once. Curlie found time to note only one further fact.Crouching close beside the girl was an unusually large dog.
"Hate to mix with him," he thought.
The next instant his attention was drawn back to the narrow stretch ofgreen. Figures were darting back and forth across the narrow clearing.
"Those can't be wild creatures," Curlie told himself. "There are none inthe island like that. They're natives. And the girl has called them withthe drum. What can they be doing at such an hour in such a place?"
He dared not move. He studied the girl. She seemed frightened, about toflee; yet she remained there motionless. As they crouched there a fourth,a fifth, sixth, eighth, tenth, twelfth figure passed across the star-litclearing.
In time he lost much of his fear. The natives were some distance away.There was the girl and her dog. The girl might need protection. Hedoubted this, and curiosity came to take the place of fear. So helingered.
The thing he was about to witness might seem to belong to those long lostdays on the Hudson that Washington Irving is so fond of writing about. Bethat as it may the strange panorama of that hour will never pass from hismemory.
Somewhere in the dark, a drum was struck. At the same instant a duskyfigure darted to the center of the spot of ground before him and as if bymagic flames leaped up. After that came the steady red glow of a slowfire.
Again the drum, again and yet again. Figures appeared. They began leapingabout the fire. Like black ghosts they were now within the circle oflight and now lost within the shadows.
"Why did they come to this spot?" he asked himself. "There are a thousandgrass grown clearings in the hills."
There could be but one answer to this. The girl had drummed. Had shemeant them to come? If so, then why had she hidden? Why did she seem somuch afraid?
At once his mind was filled with pictures of the past. All the sad andtragic history of the island of Haiti, all the bright days, too, passedbefore his mind's eye.
The brief, bright, glorious days of the French Colony, bright for a few,dark for many slaves, came and went.
The drum was beating now. Rolling, throbbing, singing, if a drum may besaid to sing, it was telling out the story of the uprising of the nativesand the slaves; telling how just such a goat's head drum had sent out thesignals, how another, another and yet a hundred others had taken up thenotes until all the island heard. Down through all the bright and bitteryears, of rebellion, war, slavery and freedom, the drums had played theirpart.
"But now?" he thought as the drumming rose louder and the dancers leapedin wilder circles, "now what can they want? It is their land. This is arepublic. They are free. True, there are the Marines. But they are theservants of this nation as well as our own. They are here to help thepeople find their way out." There came a pause in his thoughts. There hadbeen rumors of intrigue against the present government. In every landthere are the dissatisfied ones, especially in a small republic.
"And this girl, this American girl," he thought, "has called themtogether for this." The thing seemed unbelievable, yet had he not seenher drumming the signal call?
His thoughts broke short off. From before him there had sounded a shrillwhisper.
"If only we could get their goat."
He heard the words plainly but could not believe his ears. The words hadcome from the girl's lips. She had discovered him and had not cried outin fright. What a truly remarkable girl!
"If only we could get their goat," she repeated, for all the world as ifshe had known him always, and as if he should understand what she meant.
Once more Curlie's heart leaped. Who was this strange girl? What couldshe mean?
For the answer to this second question, he had not long to wait.
"They've got a goat, a very black goat." The girl's whisper was low butdistinct. "They're going to sacrifice it. It's a voodoo custom, you know.There are always the witch doctors to lead them on. And besides, just nowthere is Pluto. Pluto is a big, bad man, a sort of leader, who wantsmoney and power. He thinks he can drive the Marines away and overturn thegovernment. He will make these people mad with wild dances. Then _PapaLou_ will sacrifice the black goat which they think will bring themsuccess."
"We can't get their goat." Curlie whispered.
"There may be a rebellion," the girl urged. "Lives may be lost. If onlywe could somehow break up the meeting; the meeting I must have calledwithout meaning to. If only we could!"
"There's the dog," suggested Curlie.
"Yes," said the girl. "He is my protector. He's very good. He won't hurtyou. But I wouldn't think of sicking him on. He'd be killed."
For a moment, save for the mad tum-tum of the drum, there was silence.Then Curlie
, leaning close, asked in a low tone:
"Will he howl?"
"Who?"
"Your dog. Can you make him howl?"
"Why yes, I think so."
"Make him howl then."
"Why?"
"Make him howl. There's no time for explaining."
"Be ready to fly," Curlie added. "Follow me. I know a secret way down themountain."
With trembling fingers the girl drew a small harmonica from her pocket.Then she touched the dog who had all this time stood tense at her side.
"Now, Leo, old boy," she whispered hoarsely as the throb of the drum roselouder and a chanted song rose and fell like the wild waves of the sea."Now Leo, do your bit."
She put the tiny musical instrument to her lips and sent forth a piercingdiscordant screech.
The next instant Leo stood on his haunches and pointing his nose to thestars let out such a mournful wail as only a tropical dog knows.
The effect was electrical. With a loud _bam_, the drum beats ceased. Thesong broke off short. For ten seconds silence, deep and ominous, hungover the jungle. Then again came that unearthly screech and the dog'sanswering wail.
This last was too much. Came the sound of rushing through the brush, thebleating of a black goat being dragged over the rough trail by hismasters. All this grew indistinct in the night. Then again silence.
"There won't be any rebellion now," said Curlie. "At least not rightaway. They thought it was the _Loupe Garoe_. That is a bad sign."
"The _Loupe Garoe_?" said the girl.
"Yes," said Curlie. "But we'd better be getting down. Some of them mightsuspect. It wouldn't be nice to be found here."
"These natives," Curlie said as they crept along down a steep trail, "asyou know of course, are very superstitious. It's a pity. One who isafraid of many things is never happy. Voodooism is really a sort of Devilworship.
"They are afraid to offend the _Mama Lou_ and the _Papa Lou_, who arewitch doctors. But most of all they are afraid of the _Loupe Garoe_, whodoesn't exist at all, except in their imaginations. When your dog howledthey thought him the _Loupe Garoe_ who, so they believe, is half wolf andhalf man. He carries off little children and when he is about it is avery bad sign."
"I have heard all that," said the girl, "but I didn't think of it in theway you did. You are a wise one. I thank you.
"If only we could get their goat," she said after a time. "Goats that areall black are hard to find and according to their superstitious notions,only an all black goat will suffice for a sacrifice before some desperateundertaking."
In a moment of stress and great danger, perfect strangers become comradesfor the hour. Once the danger is passed they more often than not becomestrangers once more. It was so with Curlie and the girl, or so it seemedto Curlie. He had hoped she would tell him who she was and where shelived. She did not. She told him nothing.
One thing he did not need to be told. They had not been scouting down thetrail for a half hour before he realized that she needed no directingfrom him. She was far better acquainted with the jungle than he. Oncewhen he hesitated at a forking of the way, she forged straight on. Atanother time she gripped his arm just in time to save him from adangerous fall. At this time he learned one more fact; slender girl thatshe was, there was power in her good right arm. Hers was the grip of aman.
"I go this way," she said quite suddenly when, after an hour of almostunbroken silence, they came to a fork in the trail.
Curlie found himself sorely tempted to say, "So do I." But this he knewwould be an untruth.
Since he valued truth and above all prized this girl's opinion, he said,"I go up."
"All right. Good night, and thank you." He found his hand caught for asecond in a firm clasp. The next instant she was gone; swallowed up bythe night.
"That's a queer girl; but a real one," he told himself as he toiled upthe trail. "Wonder why she beat out those signals on the drum if shedidn't want those natives to meet? Who is she? Where's her home? Will wemeet again?" He hoped so. Yet in this strange old world one never couldtell.
The night was well spent. His eyes were heavy with sleep. At thiselevation there were no flying pests. The trail was still long. It wouldbe there in the morning.
Selecting a gently sloping bank beneath a tropical oak, he gathered mossfrom low hanging branches to form a pillow. He then threw himself uponthe earth, closed his eyes and fell asleep.