The Voodoo Gold Trail Part 10

And now which way to turn? How I wished for my flashlight! I tried it to the left, moving cautiously. I had taken about twenty short paces, when I noted little beams of light coming through the wall. I got my eye to a c.h.i.n.k, and made it out that here was another shrine, set in the wall of some room of the palace.

I got a view, too, of some part of that room. A cl.u.s.ter of burning candles stood on a table, which piece of furniture, I could see, was of richly-carved mahogany. And there lay my flashlight in plain view.

A figure moved into the field of my eye. It was the _papaloi_; his wounded hand was still in a bandage. He bustled about, though I could make nothing of his occupation; till finally he set a pomade jar on the table, turned in his clothing at the neck, and began to smear his face.

Here was a fastidious black. The process was long and leisurely, and there came a period of wait--to let the oil that shone on his dark skin soak in. And then he took up a cloth and began to wipe.

It was then I got a start, for his face came out from under the rag--white! And it was then I recognized Duran, alias Mordaunt! This voodoo _papaloi_, who put the knife to little innocents, was no other than Duran himself. I was now prepared to believe the stories of the horrifying cruelty, and strange fanaticism--or whatever it may be called--of some of those of mixed blood.

A black attendant came into the room with a vessel of water. Duran washed, while the black busied himself with laying out clothing, as I could see when he moved into my view. These Duran began to don, making himself into more the appearance of a gentleman, a role he had learned to a.s.sume. Only now he allowed his features to relax into an expression that was more that of a hardened criminal than of a gentleman. There was little talk, and that was in French; no word of it that I could understand.

I lingered in the hope that the room should be vacated, and I might try if his Calvary--through whose filigree c.h.i.n.ks I peeked--should not prove to be another door, and so be the means of my recovering my electric flashlight. It was a thing I wanted, to help me find my way out of that black hole.

The black man went out, finally, soon followed by Duran. I heard the door close. Now was my time! I got my hand through a crevice. I tried one kneeling figure, and then another. It came out, and I swung the gate in. In another moment I was on the floor, though I turned over a chair in the jump. I closed the portal and looked about.

The furnis.h.i.+ngs were rich, the floors marble. A single window there was, tightly shuttered; a bed, with an end to the wall.

I thrust my flashlight into a pocket of my trousers; I still held the stone peg in my hand.

The candles had been left burning; likely Duran would be back; so it was time I was scrambling out. But my presence was already known, for the door opened, and in sprang a black.

There was no time for anything but defense. The black reached for me. I dodged, and made toward the bed. As I landed on the covers, he had me by the ankle. And then I came down on his woolly pate with my stone peg, using all my force.

The black doubled up on the floor without a sound. I rushed a chair under the secret portal, and in two moments was back in the dark pa.s.sage, the door with its peg back in place.

I put my eyes to the c.h.i.n.k. In a minute Duran appeared. That he was all in a knot--dumfounded at the thing he saw, was plain.

I was curious to know whether I had committed manslaughter, but when Duran opened the door and began to call out to others, I thought it wise to move. I used my light, and went back the way I had come. There showed

nothing but bare stone walls; the pa.s.sage, between four and five feet wide, and not twice so high.

Presently it descended, in steps; at the bottom my light showed a door.

I lifted a long, rusty latch, and with repeated strong pulls, swung it open. There was a hole through, ostensibly to permit of reaching the latch with a stick from the outside.

The welcome outdoor air came through a heavy growth of vines. It was perhaps fifteen feet to the ground. I swung the door to after me, and scrambled down by the vines.

Ah, how good that bit of turf felt under my feet! Trees were all about, though just here they were new growth--small. A stream trickled over stones close by. I went down to its edge and drank my fill, and I took the brook for my guide, upward, toward the hills.

I came to a place where I must walk in the water to go round a low cliff. And then I came upon a path, new used, and seeming to come from that great building whose upper walls I could still see peeping through the tree-tops.

I heard voices, and jumped behind a bushy screen. There appeared on the path a half dozen black men, and an old black crone. Two pairs of the men were burdened with litters, and two went before as an advance guard--they were armed with guns. On the litter were bundles, some in gunny sacks, and some tied in blankets. I was sure I saw some movement in the bundle on one litter, as of some living thing there. My heart thumped with the thought that here were some little ones being transported for voodoo slaughter. And my reason told me that little Marie Cambon was of the number.

I followed for some miles, for the most part out of view--but now and then getting glimpses of the blacks ahead. The trail--much used I could see it was--held pretty much to the sh.o.r.es of the stream; at times the way was through the brush, avoiding a bend or some bad going; at times the path lay in the water itself. Grand tree ferns and a great variety of tropic growth made it a wonderfully romantic and beautiful woods path. And yet here it was given over to h.e.l.l's own purposes.

I went far enough to convince my mind that the blacks were making direct to that castle fortress on the mountain, whose high walls now and anon came into view. I turned short about then, and hurried back. I would go to the Brill cottage for news of Robert and Carlos, and send for my friends on the _Pearl_.

I was still a mile or more from the old ruin where I'd been a prisoner, when I heard shots. I soon cut away from the path, and stumbled through the jungle, in the direction of the sounds of battle. My mind was full with conjecture.

"It must be Jean Marat, and Norris, and the others from the _Pearl_," I said to myself at last. Robert must have signalled them last night, and now they were attacking.

When the sounds of firing told me I was near, I whistled a call. And then I came up with them. And there were Robert, and Ray with my rifle; and Ray had a story of his performance with the gun. "I peppered him at the south end, going northwards," he said, "and it's a hot tack he'll be sitting on every time he 'plunks' down on a stool."

For some reason those at the palace had ceased their firing. Maybe the unscathed blacks had taken their lesson of the things those two crack shots, Marat and Norris, had proven themselves able to do to every black head that showed round the edge of portal or stone wall. And perhaps those mysterious--silent--little missiles sent by Robert and Ray had also had a thing to do with it. Anyway, the old palace opposite, had become as silent as from its appearance it ought to be.

"Now, how did you get away?" demanded Robert.

"Yes, you might have stayed a while longer and let us have the credit of rescuing you," exclaimed Ray.

And so I told my tale. And next I had a word for Carlos. I'd been spoiling for this word from the moment of our reunion.

"Who was Amos?" I asked bluntly.

Carlos jerked himself erect at the word. He was caught with surprise.

"Amos, he is my brother," he said, still staring his wonder.

"I don't know why I never thought to mention it to you," I said, "but Amos was with us from New Orleans to Kingston, Jamaica."

And we gave Carlos the whole story. And when we came to the mention of Amos' death, the poor fellow went all of a heap for a minute. Then he got a grip of himself, and his frame became rigid; and I could see his lips move as he made some silent vow.

Carlos told us how he had been awaiting the coming of his brother, whom he had sent forth to seek help for the recovery of a hidden gold mine, belonging, by right of inheritance, to the Brills.

"My father, he discover that mine somewhar in the hills," said Carlos.

"It was when Amos, and I, and Melie ver' small. He tell us how sometime he goin' to show us the place--when we little bigger. He go 'way five--six day, and come back with plenty gold, some piece big as my thumb--Melie got one home. Father go to the city, and bring home plenty fine things, and much to eat. And one day that man Duran come with him.

They talk big things--we little, and don't understand. Then they go 'way together in the hills. We wait six day--seven day--more, two week. No use, our father he never come back.

"That Duran then, we find out, have plenty money: he buy fine schooner, wear fine clothes--diamon's, go to France, study, and everything fine he want to have. We--Amos, I, Melie--we say, 'Duran, he kill our father--he steal the gold mine.' And we know what we have to do. We try to watch Duran. We see him with the voodoo. He a _sang mele_.[1] We see him go to the old king's palace. He send warning we to keep away. One time Amos is shot in leg. But we can never find the mine. Duran never go from the palace to the mine. We think he go in the schooner when he go to the mine, so no one can follow. And then, at las' we decide we mus' have help, if we can find some that are honest. And so Amos he go."

[Footnote 1: _Sang mele--said to be 127 parts white and one part black._]

And thus we of the _Pearl_ came to know that Amos, even despite his untimely death, had led us--or at the least he had set us on the way--to the very place he had meant to pilot us.

Norris suggested that perhaps the mine was worked out long ago. But

Carlos declared that a friend he had in the city had seen Duran convert a fresh supply of gold dust and nuggets but a few months ago.

"Well," said Norris, "then we're going to have a try for that gold mine, after all."

"Yes," said Jean Marat, "when we have find little Marie Cambon."

I had renewed my courage with food my friends carried; and now, with Carlos' help I conducted our party to the trail, going to the fortress on the mountain. Carlos had been many times on that trail, he said, and he led us over a number of short-cuts. Robert and I were still in our black paint; and Ray abused us shamefully--in play--at every turn, for presuming to hobn.o.b so freely with our superiors.

Half the hot afternoon was gone when we had climbed to the end of that path. It was at the bottom of a hundred-foot wall. Carlos pointed to where there was to be found a door, sheltered from view by the brush. We did not venture too close, for it was certain the door would be fast, and we planned to try for an entry by a ruse. Carlos knew a call that was much used by these blacks of Duran's, and he was confident he could make it serve our purpose.

So we laid our trap. Norris and Robert crawled cautiously into the bushes up to either side of the door, Robert armed with a strong cord, that Carlos plaited of long gra.s.ses. Carlos then sent out his call. It sounded much like the screech of a sea-gull. He repeated it three or four times, and waited. Then again he gave the call. In a minute, now, came an answer from high overhead. Another little s.p.a.ce, and that door opened, and a black came forth.

Norris pounced on him, bearing him down, one hand on the black's mouth, to prevent an outcry. Robert soon had the bonds on the fellow's wrists, and the others of us moved forward.

Captain Marat spoke to the black in French. He told him he must answer us truthfully, on pain of torture; and he had Norris give him a twist of the arm for a sample. And so we got it out of the man that Duran was not in the fortress, and that there were three children there, brought this day; one, he admitted was white. There were seven men there, two of them armed.