Read Ebook: Plotting in Pirate Seas by Rolt Wheeler Francis Federer C A Charles A Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1290 lines and 56028 words, and 26 pages

f he doesn't break his neck!" commented Stuart, as he saw him go, "it'll be a wonder!"

There were yet a couple of hours before dawn, and Stuart plodded along the trail, which could lead to no other place than Cap Haitien. He walked as fast as he could, hoping to reach the city before daylight, but the first streaks of dawn found him still nearly two miles from the town. He did not want to enter the town afoot by daylight. That would be too conspicuous, and there were plans germinating in the boy's head which needed secrecy. He must hide all day, and get into Cap Haitien the next night.

Stuart slipped off the road and wriggled his way through the dense thicket, seeking a place where there was light enough to read, and yet where the foliage was dense enough to prevent him being seen by anyone passing that way.

A few moments' search only were required before he found the ideal spot, and he threw himself down on a pile of leaves with great zest. That mule had been hard riding.

"First of all," he said to himself, half aloud, "I've got to find out where I'm at. Then I'll maybe be able to figure out what I ought to do."

Stuart's mind was not so quick as it was strong. He was a straight up-and-down honest type of fellow, and thoroughly disliked the crafty and intriguing boy or man. He began cautiously, but got warmed up as he went on, and made a whirlwind finish.

It was characteristic of him, thus, not to plunge into any wild and desperate attempt to rescue his father, until he had time to puzzle out the situation and work out a plan of action. He began by reading all the papers and documents he had taken from his father's knapsack. This was a long job, for the papers were full of allusions to subjects he did not understand. It was nearly noon before he had digested them.

Then he lay on his back and looked up through the tracery of leaves overhead, talking aloud so that the sound of his own voice might make his discoveries clearer.

"The way I get it," he mused, "Father's on the trail of some plot against the United States. This plot is breaking loose, here, in Haiti. This Manuel Polliovo's in it, and so is a negro General, Cesar Leborge. There's a third, but the papers don't say who he is.

"Now," he went on, "I've two things to do. I've got to find Father and I've got to find out this plot. Which comes first?"

He rolled over and consulted one or two of the papers.

"Looks like something big," he muttered, kicking his heels meditatively. "I wonder what Father would say I ought to do?"

At the thought, he whirled over and up into a sitting posture.

"If it's dangerous to the U. S.," he said, "that's got to come first. And I don't worry about Father. He can get out of any fix without me."

The glow of his deep-hearted patriotism began to burn in the boy's eyes. He sat rigid, his whole body concentrated in thought.

"If Manuel Polliovo has captured Father," he said aloud, at last, "it must have been because Father was shadowing him. That means that Manuel doesn't want to be shadowed. That means I've got to shadow him. But how?"

Stuart thumped on the ground in his excitement.

Why could he not stain his skin coffee-color, like a Haitian boy? If sufficiently ragged, he might be able to pass without suspicion. It might be only for a day or two, for Stuart was sure that his father would appear again on the scene very soon.

This much, at least, he had decided. No one was going to plot against his country if he could help it. There was not much that he could do, but at least he could shadow one of the conspirators, and what he found out might be useful to his father.

This determination reached, the boy hunted for some wild fruit to stay his appetite--he had nothing to eat since the night before--and settled down for the rest of the afternoon to try and dig out the meaning of his father's papers, some of which seemed so clear, while to others he had no clew. It was characteristic of the boy that, once this idea of menace to the United States had got into his head, the thought of personal danger never crossed his mind. The slightly built boy, small even for his age, the first sight of whom would have suggested a serious high-school student rather than a sleuth, possessed the cool ferocity of a ferret when that one love--his love of country--was aroused.

His first step was clear. As soon as it was dark enough to cover his movements, he would go to the house of one of his father's friends, a little place built among the ruins of Cap Haitien, where they had stayed two or three times before. From references in some of the letters, Stuart gathered that his father had confidence in this man, though he was a Haitian negro.

As soon as the shadows grew deep enough, Stuart made his way through the half-grown jungle foliage--the place had been a prosperous plantation during French occupation--and, a couple of hours later, using by-paths and avoiding the town, he came to this negro's house. He tapped at the same window on which his father had tapped, when they had come to Cap Haitien a week or so before, and Leon, the negro, opened the door.

"But, it is you, Yes!" he cried, using the Haitian idiom with its perpetual recurrence of "Yes" and "No," and went on, "and where is Monsieur your father?"

"I don't know," answered Stuart, speaking in English, which he knew Leon understood, though he did not speak it. "I have missed him."

"But where, and but how?" queried Leon, suddenly greatly excited. "Was he already going up to the Citadel?"

Stuart's face flushed with reflected excitement, but his eyes held the negro's steadily. Leon knew more than the boy had expected he would know.

"No," he replied, "I don't think so. I shall have to go."

A graphic shrug completed the sentence.

Stuart felt a sinking at the pit of his stomach, for he was no braver than most boys. But the twist of his determination held him up.

"Leon," he said, trying to keep his voice steady, though he felt it sounded a little choked, "isn't there the juice of some root which will turn the skin brown, nearly black?"

"But, Yes, the plavac root."

The Haitian peered at the boy.

"You would make yourself a black man?" he continued.

Stuart ignored argument.

"Can you get some? Tonight? Right away?"

"Ah, well; you know--" Leon began.

The boy interrupted him sharply.

"If my father told you to get some, you would get it," he declared peremptorily.

This was a shrewd guess, for, as a matter of fact, there were a number of reasons why Leon should do what Mr. Garfield told him. The negro, who had no means of finding how much or how little the boy knew, shrugged his shoulders hugely, and, with a word of comment, left the house, carrying a lantern. He was back in half an hour with a handful of small plants, having long fibrous roots. These he cut off, placed in a pot, covering them with water, and set the pot on the stove over a slow fire.

"It will not come off the skin as easily as it goes on, No!" he warned.

"Time enough to think about that when I want to take it off," came the boy's reply.

The decoction ready, Leon rubbed it in thoroughly into Stuart's skin. It prickled and smarted a good deal at first, but this feeling of discomfort soon passed away.

"It won't rub off?" queried Stuart.

Leon permitted himself a grim pleasantry.

"Not against a grindstone!"

This positive assertion was as reassuring in one way as it was disquieting in another. Stuart did not want to remain colored for an indefinite period of time. In his heart of hearts he began to wonder if he had not acted a little more hastily, and that if he had asked for Leon's advice instead of ordering him around, he might have found some milder stain. But it was too late to repent or retract now. His skin was a rich coffee brown from head to foot, and his dark eyes and black hair did not give his disguise the lie.

"I'm going to bed," he next announced, "and I want some ragged boy's clothes by morning, Leon. Very ragged. Also an old pair of boots."

"That is not good," protested the Haitian, "every boy here goes barefoot, Yes!"

Stuart was taken aback. This difficulty had not occurred to him. It was true. Not only the boys, but practically nine men out of ten in Haiti go barefoot. This Stuart could not do. Accustomed to wearing shoes, he would cut his feet on the stones at every step he took on the roads, or run thorns into them every step he took in the open country.

"I must have boots," he declared, "but old ones. Those I've been wearing," he nodded to where they lay on the floor--for this conversation was carried on with the boy wearing nothing but his new brown skin--"would give me away at once."

"I will try and get them," answered Leon. His good-humored mouth opened in a wide smile. "Name of a Serpent!" he ejaculated, "but you are the image of the son of my half-sister!"

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet