The Voodoo Gold Trail

CHAPTER XVIII

OUR BOAT IS SCUTTLED

When Ray and I set our feet on the deck of the Pearl again, I felt a thrill go all through me. I felt like hugging the mainmast. Captain Marat and Carlos were there, and Rufe. Rufe fairly blubbered with happiness.

"Oh, Lordy!" he said, "somebody clap foh me, I jes' got to dance."

And we clapped our hands and patted our thighs in time for him, and he began his "double-shuffle." Carlos caught the infection and jumped into the ring, and there the two black men footed it hot on the deck for five minutes. "Hoo-o-we," yelled Rufe at last, and ran for the galley.

In a little a sumptuous meal was on the table for Ray and me; and while we ate, waited on by the others, we told our story.

"Five thousand dollars!" said Norris. "Duran spending five thousand on the chance of getting us off his trail. That must be some gold mine, that of yours, Carlos."

"Yes, I think," agreed Carlos.

At last came a whole big bread pudding. "I jes' know you was a'comin', an' I saved it," said Rufe.

Ray turned over his stool, as he jumped to give the black a hug. "Oh, if I'd only known that was coming." And he put his hand on his stomach.

When we two had stuffed ourselves the limit, Ray lingered at the table, looking very sober, his chin in his hand, his eyes on the big remaining portion of the pudding. Rufe sidled up.

"What it is make you so sad?" he said.

"Say, Rufe," said Ray, "isn't it the chicken that has two stomachs?"

"I reckon dat's right," said Rufe.

"Well, I guess I'm half a chicken," said Ray.

"Why," said Rufe, "has you got two stummicks?"

"No," returned Ray, a wail in his tone, "but I've got two appetites."

And Rufe rolled on the deck.

"Well, now," said Norris at last, "that voodoo skunk can sail when he gets ready, the sooner the better."

"Yes," agreed Captain Marat. "Now we ready for heem. He ver' clever if he fool us some more, now."

Norris volunteered to take the watch till two o'clock; then Robert offered to follow him. All others turned in.

I awoke, hearing Robert in talk with Captain Marat. "It looks to me like the Orion's moving, slowly – no sails up," Robert was saying. In a little while the two climbed into a small boat. The moon had gone down, and it was quite dark. The night breeze was still blowing gently. I again dozed off, too tired to note what was going forward.

I do not know how long I slept this time, but when I opened my eyes next, it was to hear blocks creaking; and jib and mainsail were already set, and the foresail was going up. Marat and Robert had gone to the isle, and hurried over opposite the Orion's berth, to find that that schooner's crew had been warping the vessel out toward the south passage. The two waited till the Orion had made sufficient progress to set her sails and attain headway, then they had hurried back to set the Pearl in pursuit again.

The tail end of a squall came to give us a boost. The Orion got a greater portion of it.

Ray did not waken till we were well out in the open sea.

"What!" said he, looking abroad. "Has the island sunk?"

In half an hour the sun burst out of the sea, showing that island astern. The Orion was perhaps three miles away, heading a little south of west. It was not till eleven that morning that we got a wind to give us good headway.

Day after day, now again, we kept the schooner, Orion, company. She seemed to make no effort to elude us. The nights were bright moonlight, making us an easy task. Then at last we sighted the towering, ragged mountains of the great island of the voodoos. We were to the south of the island this time.

"Looks like that skunk is going the long way round," said Norris.

"Hopes to shake us off somewhere on the south coast, maybe," I suggested.

"Thad is ver' evident," said Captain Marat. "He could save ver' much time to go back by the north coast."

"He'll be up to some new 'gum-game'," said Norris.

And so it proved, as we came to know.

We weathered a number of severe squalls, and sizzled during some calm days. We followed the Orion around a point of the island, and into a harbor of that south coast.

We were somewhat disturbed by that movement of Duran's, feeling that it meant some new trouble to meet. We picked a berth for the Pearl rather close to the Orion's, for we must have a close eye on Duran.

"Perhaps he's going overland," suggested Julian.

"If he does, we'll go overland too," I offered.

"I believe he too lazy," said Carlos. "No railroad – big mountain."

"Well," said Norris, "we'll keep a sharp lookout, and see."

It was past noon when we cast anchor in that harbor. The officials of the place came and went. Duran did not go ashore, though he sent some blacks. Carlos we sent with two sailors, after some needed provisions and water.

The hot tropic sun beat down on us unmercifully; there was scarce a breath of air coming into that place. I sauntered up to Grant Norris, where he leaned, dripping sweat on his tarpaulin-covered cannon, looking over toward the Orion.

"To think," he said, "that it depends on that skunk how long we're to lie in this blazing hole. I can almost see him sneering over there."

"Never mind, Mr. Norris," I told him. "Maybe when our turn comes we can pay him back."

"And, oh! Let me at him!" said Norris, "when that time comes."

Then the end of the day came; darkness fell. It turned almost chill, and we turned in below. The moon was due to rise some time after nine, so that there would be but a short time of darkness; and then would come moonlight, making the watch on Duran's movements easy. It was Julian took the first watch, eight to ten. When he called Norris, at four bells – or ten o'clock – the land breeze had already risen. I awoke at the change of watch, for I had come to be a light sleeper, and I heard the little waves rippling along the schooner's hull. I saw, too, that it was bright moonlight; the moon was just past the full.

It was not yet midnight, when I was aroused by a clamor in the cabin. Norris had come in.

"Out with you! Every mother's son of you," he said. "We're sinking."

There was much consternation as we all turned out, jerking on bits of clothing.

We followed Captain Marat into the hold. As we neared the bows, we heard the splash of the water. Marat sent two sailors to the pumps. The rest of us set to work to shift the stores to places out of reach of the incoming water. To find the leak would require considerable time. Marat soon determined that the water was not coming in so fast but that the pump would be able to hold its own against it.

"We must put thee schooner on the beach," said Captain Marat.

Both boats were manned, and tow-lines put aboard them. The tide was ebbing, so we had great labor to move the schooner toward the mouth of the little river, where Captain Marat looked for a favorable place to lay the bow of the Pearl. When we were in the boats and beginning to bend our backs to the labor, we heard the voice of Duran on the Orion in a loud, hearty laugh.

"Laugh, you filthy skunk," said Norris, who sat next to me, "I'll never rest till you're paid for all your foul doings."

It was not many minutes till we saw the sails of the Orion go up, and the land breeze and ebbing tide, together, carried that schooner off into the open sea, at last beyond our vigilance. I felt a sinking within me at the realization. But I had already had thoughts of what should be done in case we were by some chance to lose sight of Duran.

We had been tugging at our oars for little above half an hour, making very poor progress, when the tide came to the turn. And then we had it with us, and it was not long till we were moving in at a rate almost to make us cheerful again.

It was a black sailor who had discovered the fact of the leak in the Pearl. He had heard an unusual sound. It was the trickling water more or less confused with the rippling of the waves against the hull. He had gone to Norris with the news. And Norris had given his ear to the thing only for a moment, before sounding the alarm.

At last we came to the piece of beach aimed for. We took the anchor in a small boat well in to shore, so that as the tide rose the bow of the schooner was pulled more and more on the sand. It would be well toward noon of the new day, before the tide will have reached its height, and so begin to recede, and leave the Pearl showing gradually more and more of her hull above water.

We found time to discuss the situation and the probable means employed for our undoing; for no one of us was in any doubt that it was Duran who had done this thing.

"He send one black weeth the augur, or brace and bit, an' drill holes in thee hull," said Captain Marat. And he pointed to a loop of rope still hanging on a starboard bowsprit stay. It was by that rope that the worker had swung himself, while he bored holes into the hull below water-line.

"And to think he sneaked up on me in broad moonlight and did that thing!" said Grant Norris.

"Well, you see," I offered, "the swimmer approached on the opposite side from the Orion; and the waves helped hide his head. We none of us dreamed of his trying anything like that."

"We should have done even more than ever dream it," wailed Norris. "And now he'll have at least twenty-four hours the start of us, the best we can do."

CHAPTER XIX

WE STEAL A MARCH ON THE ENEMY

"What I'd like to know," said Robert, "are we going to let that – that – "

"Kidnapper-voodoo priest – cannibal – son-of-a-polecat," prompted Ray.

"What I'd like to know," continued Robert, "are we going to let him beat us after all?"

"Not if I have to go after him single-handed," declared Grant Norris.

"But he's making direct for that gold mine," said Robert.

"There's only one thing to do," Julian offered. "Some of us will have to go overland."

"Yes, that ees it," said Carlos. "We beat him there!"

"What!" said Ray. "Jump over those mountains!" He looked up to those peaks towering many thousands of feet; the morning sun had just set his glow on them.

"Yes," I said. "There are roads over the passes, and the distance can't be over two hundred miles."

"Id is thee only chance," said Captain Marat, "I get thee chart."

The chart was spread on the table.

"Id take anyway five day for the Orion to sail round to thee places," said Captain Marat, making measurements, "if she have most favorable wind."

"It won't take over four days to make it overland," I offered, "if we make only thirty miles a day with horses."

"Just so," agreed Captain Marat, verifying my measurements.

"What is more," Robert added, "we know pretty accurately where Duran will land to go to the gold mine."

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 brass 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 ships 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 repetition, except that before night our guide told us that we had passed 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 passed 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 passed 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 mass 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.