The Rope of Gold

by Roy J. Snell

  CHAPTER XVII THE WHITE SHADOW

  The trail this time was short. To Curlie's heightened imagination itseemed but a moment before he stood shoulder to shoulder with thedark-eyed French girl, staring at a scene such as no white person everbefore witnessed.

  "We are too late." It seemed to Curlie that the girl said this, not withlips, but with heart beats.

  That the words were true he did not doubt, for at that very moment thewhite blade of a long knife flashed. It entered the heart of the blackgoat. The creature quivered, then lay still, quite dead, while the redblood flowed free.

  The scene they witnessed that night will remain with them long as lifeshall last. It was the blood covenant of the blacks and was for war.

  It was over before their hearts had ceased their wild beating. Then, indead silence, with not a drum beat, not a whisper, the natives filed awayinto the forest.

  "We must follow," said Dot. "For Haiti, and her kindly, innocent people,we must follow. The sacrifice has been made. But the torch of war mustnot be lit."

  "We must not follow." The tone of Mona, the black woman, was firm. "If wefollow we will be surprised and killed. There is another way. They go toDeception Bay where the ship is and where are many rifles and muchammunition. There is another trail. We will take it. It goes to the topof a very steep cliff. There we may look down upon them. After that wewill think of a way."

  "She is right," Curlie said to the girl. To the native woman he said,"Lead on. We will follow."

  After that, for a half hour they followed the black woman through such anintricate maze of rocks, cliffs, vines and bushes as neither of them hadever known before. Through it all the old black woman never faltered. Inthe end, after a final breathless climb of a hundred feet, they foundthemselves looking down upon a scene of matchless beauty. Riding high themoon painted on a glassy sea a path of gold. Rock-ribbed, a narrow baylay before them. And close in, almost beneath them, lay a large,full-rigged schooner.

  For a time they lay there side by side, the boy, the girl, and the agedblack woman. Straining their eyes, listening with all their ears, theystrove to learn all that they might of this little revolution that mightgrow into an affair of grave consequence.

  To their waiting ears there came at last a series of low bumping sounds,as of someone moving heavy objects across a floor.

  "They are shifting the cargo. Getting ready to unload, perhaps to-night,"Mona's words came short and quick.

  "But look!" said Dot a moment later. "A boat."

  "Rifles in cases," said Mona.

  "On such a moonlight night, would they dare?"

  "It is a deserted spot. The goat has been sacrificed. The terrible workmust be begun."

  "Then," said Curlie, "we are too late."

  As the full meaning of all this came to Dot she felt herself stifled withemotion. Rifles and ammunition would be unloaded. Somewhere there wouldbe an attack. Peaceful, happy people would be driven from their homes.

  "Perhaps," she told herself, "it will be our village. Perhaps our home,our most beautiful home where the pink roses bloom in the garden and thenightingale sings in the cool of the evening."

  The thing seemed impossible. The air about her was so still, the bay soplacid. Haiti had been so peaceful. And yet the history of Haiti is astory of many revolutions.

  "This little beginning may be part of a terrible affair," she toldherself. She recalled the stories she had read of those remote days whenNapoleon tried with 20,000 picked soldiers to subdue these people and hadfailed.

  "There are seven hundred Marines on the island," she told herself. "Butwhat are they against so many? This--this terrible schooner will beeverywhere, in all the little bays, lurking about with rifles andammunition to sell for gain and at the cost of many human lives."

  Suddenly a desperate measure suggested itself to her. She recalled theincident of a few nights before when, by shooting an arrow made into apitch-pine torch, Curlie had burned a cord and loosed the black goat.

  Curlie's bow and arrows were at this moment close by his side. Near athand was a dwarf pine. It would furnish the pitch. In the center of thatboat lying down there in the bay stacked round the mast was a pile ofsleeping mats. Inch thick affairs of palm fiber they were and dry astinder.

  The schooner lay almost directly beneath them, an easy shot.

  "One flaming arrow in that pile of sleeping mats and the boat will be inflames." She said these words aloud without really willing it.

  "And the ship carries much powder," said Mona gripping Dot's arm until ithurt. "It is the way. He, the young man, must shoot the arrow. He mustshoot at once. See! I will gather the rosin."

  She endeavored to spring to her feet but Dot pulled her back.

  "I--I--Wait. Wait one moment," Dot implored. "Those are bad men. Perhapsthey do not deserve to live, but--"

  "They do not deserve it." The native woman's tone was bitter. "That whiteman who owns that ship sold the rifle that killed my father in a needlessrevolution before the Americans came. He does not deserve to live."

  "Wait," said Curlie touching the girl's arm lightly. "There is no needfor haste. They are unloading rifles. Those long boxes could containnothing else. The ammunition remains on board. Without it they can donothing. I will be back," he took a long breath, "very soon."

  The next instant he was lost in the shadows. He did not for a momentdoubt the wisdom and justice of the aged black woman's plan. His onlythought was for the safety of the daring girl who was willing to risk somuch for a country that was not her own.

  "If the plan fails, if they see the descending arrow and trace itscourse," he told himself, "if they come storming up the cliff and blockour one way of escape, we are lost. I must find a second way down."

  He was gone but ten minutes. To the waiting girl it seemed an hour.

  "There is another way; very steep and dangerous," he said, "but a way ofescape I believe. Shall I shoot the arrow?"

  "Shoot the arrow." Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight.

  "They may discover us, may surround the rock. I am not afraid for myself,but for you--"

  "Shoot the arrow." He felt the warm pressure of her hand on his arm.

  "Shoot the arrow," she repeated.

  "They may guess the source of the arrow. Your home may be destroyed."

  "Shoot the arrow." Her lips were close to his ear, her tone low andtense.

  "Here is the rosin." The black woman's hand trembled as she pressed asticky ball into his own.

  Seizing an arrow he rolled it over and over in the sticky mass. Then,with a sudden intake of breath he lighted a match. A moment later henocked his arrow to send it circling straight and true, down, down, downto at last bury itself in the pile of dry mats.

  All unseen by the workers on the schooner, a wisp of white smoke beganmounting to the sky. Then, with a suddenness that was startling, thewhole mass of mats burst out in red flame. Even then they did not see.For a space of thirty seconds they worked on. When at last the smell ofsmoke reached their nostrils and they turned to find themselves staringinto the flames, they acted according to their own natures.

  A native seized a bucket of drinking water to dash it into the flames. Itmight have been oil for all the good it did. The mats, baked as they hadbeen in the dry Haitian sunlight, were tinder. So too was the deck, themast and the rails of the schooner.

  The schooner carried two dories. The one at her side was more than halffilled with heavy boxes of rifles. Two natives, in an attempt to lightenthis dory, over-balanced it. It filled and sank. All thought now was ofescape. Men poured from the cabin where they had been sleeping. Brownmen, red men, black men, men of every hue, they stormed madly about thedeck.

  Two men, cooler than the rest, began launching the remaining dory.

  One man, wilder than the rest and possessing no patience at all, leapedinto the sea.

  "The White Shadow!" Mona screamed. "That man will perish!"

  As if hear
ing her call, the man turned his face upward as he swam.

  "It is the villain, the bad white man." Mona put her hands to her eyes."It is he, yet I cannot see him perish."

  Without knowing why she did it, Dot followed her example. For a fullmoment she remained with covered eyes. Then, suddenly realizing the perilof their position, she uncovered her eyes and scrambled to her feet toexclaim:

  "Curlie! Mona! The ship will explode. We are in great danger! Back! Back!We must get far back into the forest!"

  Even with this warning Mona paused for a last look. The ship was all inflames. The dory, with its human freight, was moving rapidly away. Butthe swimming white man, where was he? Gone. Only where he had last beenseen, far below the surface, was a movement as of a white sheet.

  "The White Shadow of the sea," said Mona as she turned to go racing awayafter her friends.

  They had beaten their way back into the brush for a distance of a hundredrods when of a sudden, the very earth beneath them seemed torn in pieces.So great was the explosion that they were thrown to the earth and fineparticles of debris were sprinkled over them.

  "That," said Mona, "is the end of the revolution. And perhaps of allrevolutions. That heartless seller of arms will visit us no more."

  Ten minutes later they were lying once more upon the rock, looking down.All the overhanging bushes and palms had been blown away. The bay, asilent, beautiful blue, lay beneath them. Only drifting fragmentsremained to tell the story. A dory swamped near the farther shore toldthat the crew had escaped.

  "But what is that white thing over there?" Dot asked, pointing away tothe left.

  "That," said Curlie after one good look, "is the White Shadow of thesea."

  "A shark!" Dot said in great surprise. "He must have been killed by theexplosion. But see! Was there ever one as large as he?"

  The shark was indeed a monster; fully sixteen feet long, with all hiscruel teeth grinning he lay there a terrible thing.

  "So you see, Mona," Dot said quietly, "it is as I have told you. YourWhite Shadow was but one of God's living creatures, created beyond doubtto do His will."

  "What was that?" said Curlie suddenly springing to his feet. A twig hadsnapped in the brush behind them. In an instant Curlie's flashlightrevealed an ugly, distorted black face. Quite as suddenly the facevanished into the night.

  "That," said Mona, "was Pluto, the bad black man, the bad white man'sfriend."

  "This affair," said Curlie, as they made their way down the rugged cliffin the dark, "is not at an end. We have been seen. Who can tell what willfollow?"

  "Very bad," said Mona.

  That night, at a late hour, Curlie sat once more by the window thatlooked out upon the garden at the chateau. He was alone. Dot, he hoped,was fast asleep. Johnny was far away. For all that he was dreaming oncemore of a life of peace in a garden of roses.

  "Peace," he said at last, flinging his arms wide. "What chance is therefor peace with such a girl about? 'Shoot the arrow' she said, 'Shoot thearrow!' and once more 'Shoot the arrow!'"

  All the same in the end he found himself admiring the brown-eyed girl forher rare courage.