The Voodoo Gold Trail Part 27

We all of us caught afire with the prospect, Carlos not the least, for the sailing away of Duran had set a melancholy on his face.

"Hurray!" cried Norris, "we'll beat that skunk yet."

Preparations went immediately forward. Norris, Julian, and Carlos hurried over to the town, to secure horses and a guide. Robert and I set to work on our packs, for it was we two that were to make the overland journey, accompanied by Carlos.

It wanted an hour of noon when the three came back, having been eminently successful. They had found horses in plenty, and no lack of guides.

"Now looky heah," began Rufe, when Robert, Carlos, and I had taken our seats in the small boat. "Don' you-all let dat white voodoo debbil git his han's on you no moh. Keep yo' eyes peeled foh him; he's jes' dat sneaking."

The tide was ebbing when we left the _Pearl_, though it would be some time before the leak in her hull would be uncovered. The horses and guide were waiting at the edge of town. The saddles were on, and the black fellow--our guide--was looking to the cinches. To make fast our packs to the saddles was the work of but a few minutes. The guide had already distributed the needed provisions to the various ponies. Captain Marat, Norris, Ray, and Julian stood in a row when we had mounted.

"Now remember," we told them. "We'll leave a note in the cleft end of a stake--on the top of the first hill, or at the bottom. And we'll blaze trees or bushes, or whatever there is to show the way to it."

"Trust us," said Norris. "We'll find it."

"And say!" broke in Ray. "If there should be any battles on the docket, just hold up operations till Norris gets there with his bra.s.s barker and Rufe's red hot poker."

The trees of the forest, into which our road plunged, soon cut off our view of our friends. I felt a little sinking of the heart at this new separation, for there was still much room for mishap before our coming together again. Our guide (Jan was his name) and Carlos rode before; Robert and I carried our little rifles slung at our backs. The ponies were evidently trained to the saddle, and moved at a gait that was something between a walk and a trot, so that our progress was agreeably rapid.

We traversed first the bamboo; then palms, oaks, and mahogany sheltered our way for long stretches. When we came to the foothills, occasionally an open vista gave us view of waving golden-yellow cane fields. The streams were overhung with the wonderful feathery tree-ferns. Oranges, bananas, limes, mangoes, grew in abundance, though only berries were ripe at this season. Our road took us at times into the twilight of the heavier forests, among lofty trunks, from which hung, in festoons and tangles, the rope-like lianas. It was as if innumerable s.h.i.+ps had been crammed together in some great storm, their rigging intertwined, and in time all overgrown with green parasites and slimy mosses.

All this display of nature that showed to us on our way, and much more than I have mentioned, I noted; and had my mind been untroubled by serious business, I would have found much delight in this journey into a tropic interior. But we were under the necessity of pressing forward, always with the fear that Duran might come before us to that certain spot of the northern coast, and so elude us and arrive at the hidden mine secure from discovery.

By night we had mounted high among the hills. It was when we saw the azure of the sea and the coast lines begin to darken, and the hills below us fall into shadow, that we dismounted and removed the saddles from our ponies. A quick meal, and soon we were under our mosquito-bars, sleeping.

We were again on the move before the sun had thrown his rays on the

highest peaks. And this day it was up and down, and a winding about among the mountains. The day following was but a repet.i.tion, except that before night our guide told us that we had pa.s.sed the greatest of the mountains and were on the downward slope toward the northern coast of the island. But we got no view of the sea till the third day, and then the road rounded a spur of mountain, and there opened to our vision that great blue expanse of sea and the irregular coast line below us.

"We're sure to make it in time now," observed Robert.

"Yes," I said. "The _Orion_ cannot get there before us now."

And then, as our ponies continued to plod onward behind those of our guide and Carlos, we made some discussion of our plan of action. It was

decided to discharge our guide some way short of our destination, and start him back before he should find opportunity to tell anyone there of having led a pair of white boys across the island and into the region of the voodoos. News of our exploits in those hills had doubtless been spread among all of the voodoo faith; and so if the fact of our return were noised about, we would doubtless have the pack at our heels, and all our plans gone topsy-turvy again.

By noon we were come to a place in the hills fifteen miles from Carlos'

old home. It was a region well known to Carlos, as he professed.

"Here very good place to stop," said Carlos. "I go for the provision while you rest here."

We pulled the saddles from the ponies, and Carlos set off alone through the forest. And when he came back, after less than half an hour, he had food to replenish the stock of the guide, who after an hour's rest expressed himself as happy to be on the way back to his home on the south coast of the island. When the guide was gone, Robert and I set to work to stain our faces and hands, and don again those curly wigs. White faces were too rare and unpopular in this region to escape comment and more or less unpleasant attention.

So when we again took up the march we all went afoot; and in three hours we had arrived at the little cove where we had seen Duran's schooner, _Orion_, just before her sailing away with the _Pearl_ in chase. We were now ten miles from the city, toward which we turned our steps, keeping under shelter of the palms that skirted the beach.

When we were come within four miles of the city we halted. It was near to the huts where we had made that landing--to go to the interior, trailing Duran to the old palace ruin. It was our plan to send Carlos into the city for articles of food and a rowboat of some kind. When we had come so far, the sun was less than two hours high; so Carlos had but an hour's rest before setting off on his mission.

When at last Carlos had gone, Robert and I settled down amongst the cocoanut palms just above the beach. We watched land crabs and turtles crawling up on the sand; anon we would look into one another's black faces.

"When do you think the _Orion_ will get here?" said Robert.

"Tomorrow, if the winds are favorable," I answered; "or a day or two after, if they're not. Duran will come as fast as he can, of course."

"Of course," agreed Robert. "But I can't make my mind give in to the idea that he will land at that place on the beach that you and Captain Marat marked. There can't be any gold mine about that place. Except those two hills, the map shows nothing but sand and palms, and marshes, and bushes."

I brought out of my pocket a folded paper on which I had copied from Marat's chart this portion of the coast. I put my fingers on the Twin Hills, near the foot of which we expected Duran would land; for it will be remembered Marat had heard him say as much, that night when Marat and I, in our own boat, had crept up to the _Orion_ in the dark. To the west of the hills was a shallow bay of which the little cove mentioned was a part. To the east and south of the hills lay a greater bay, (not to mention its proper name, we will call it Crow Bay, for it is much the shape of a crow's foot). The neck of land between the two bays was all low, marshy and impenetrable thickets.

"Now," I said, "I agree with you that this seems not a proper place--at these hills--to make a start for anything like a gold mine. But is not

that the very reason that Duran makes his landing here? Isn't it, for some reason or other, the most favorable for covering up his trail? And then, too, landing out there on the open beach, he can easily see whether anyone is following him."

"Yes," said Robert, "that must be it. He's just that shrewd. And then, when he sees his crew row back to the _Orion_ and sail away, he knows none of his blacks are following him."

Darkness had soon spread over everything. And it must have been ten o'clock, when we heard Carlos' whistle. And then at our answer a boat's prow touched the sand of the beach. We had our packs and guns aboard in a minute, and Robert and I, each pulling an oar, we moved, paralleling the beach, to the east. The boat was as light as a canoe, almost, and our progress was rapid.

"I find my friend," said Carlos, telling of his visit to the city. "An'

he wonder where I been so long. He say Duran have not come back. But he hear much talk among voodoo about devil-guns--shoot, make no noise. My friend help me find this boat. He buy it for me--eight dollar. The man glad to sell for much money."

In an hour the moon--now in the last quarter--came out of the sea in front of us. We rowed round the point, into the bay. We pa.s.sed the narrow entrance to the little cove, and made for the east side of the bay, where a bight of the bay pushed in to within a mile and a half of the back of the Twin Hills, as our bit of chart showed us.

We carried our boat above the beach into the bushes, and so made our camp, at midnight.

When the sun rose we were abroad, and soon we had picked our way over to the Twin Hills. They lay some way apart, towered perhaps a hundred feet, and were grown over with brush. We climbed to the top of that nearest the beach. That vantage point gave us a splendid view of the beach and sea.

All that day some of us remained there on the lookout. The _Orion_ did not come. We all three made our beds there that night. Before morning a squall sent us scampering back to our boat, and we escaped a drenching by turning the little vessel bottom up and creeping under.

Another day pa.s.sed on the hill-top, and no _Orion_ came.

"I wonder if he's fooled us again," said Robert.

"I don't think it," I answered.

"I think he come," encouraged Carlos.

I was sleeping soundly when an insistent hand on my shoulder brought me suddenly awake. It was Robert, whose watch was eleven to one.

"They're here," he said. "I heard a block rattle."

Carlos was now up. We could barely make out a dark ma.s.s well out from the beach; the night was very dark in spite of the brilliancy of the stars. We scrambled down the hill, and in a few minutes were in the bushes that fringed the beach.

Not many minutes more pa.s.sed till we heard oars knocking in the tholes.

And then a small boat touched the sand, and a figure stepped out.