Plotting in Pirate Seas | Page 5

"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!"
At which saying, perhaps Stuart ought to have been flattered, since it evidenced the success of his disguise. But, being American, it ruffled him to be told he resembled a negro.
He went to bed, far from pleased with himself and rather convinced that he had been hasty. Yet his last waking thought, if it had been put into words, would have been:
"It's the right thing to do, and I'm going through with it!"
CHAPTER II
WHERE BLACK MEN RULE
Stuart was not the only person on the streets of Cap Haitien the next morning who was conscious of personal danger. Manuel Polliovo was ill at ease. Bearing the secret that he bore, the Cuban knew that a hint of it would bring him instant death, or, if the authorities had time to intervene, incarceration in a Haitian prison, a fate sometimes worse than death. Even the dreaded presence of U. S. Marines would not hold the negro barbarians back, if they knew.
Manuel was by no means blind to his peril. He was relieved in the thought that the American, Garfield, was where he could not do him any harm, but there were other dangers. Hence he was startled and jumped nervously, on hearing a voice by his elbow.
"Do you want a guide, Senor?"
"A guide, Boy! Where to?"
The answer came clear and meaningly:
"To the Citadel of the Black Emperor!"
The Cuban grew cold, under the burning sun, and, professional conspirator though he was, his face blenched. His hand instinctively sought the pocket wherein lay his revolver.
Yet he dare not kill. Five years of American occupation had bred a sense of law and order in the coast towns, at least, which had not been known in Haiti for a century and more. Any violence would lead to inquiry, and Manuel's