Plotting in Pirate Seas

Plotting in Pirate Seas, by
Francis Rolt-Wheeler

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Title: Plotting in Pirate Seas
Author: Francis Rolt-Wheeler
Illustrator: C. A. Federer
Release Date: July 10, 2007 [EBook #22033]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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IN PIRATE SEAS ***

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Round the World with The Boy Journalists: I

PLOTTING IN PIRATE SEAS
FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER
[Illustration: "NOT THAT WAY--TWO MORE STEPS, BOY, AND
YOU ARE DEAD".]
By FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER
Round the World with The Boy Journalists PLOTTING IN PIRATE
SEAS HUNTING HIDDEN TREASURE IN THE ANDES
Romance-History of America IN THE DAYS BEFORE COLUMBUS
THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD
NEW YORK: GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

PLOTTING IN PIRATE SEAS
BY FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER
Author of "Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes," "In the Days
Before Columbus," "The Quest of the Western World," "The
Aztec-Hunters," "The Boy with the U. S. Census," etc.
Illustrated by C. A. FEDERER
NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ILLUSTRATIONS
"NOT THAT WAY--TWO MORE STEPS, BOY, AND YOU

Frontispiece ARE DEAD" PAGE FOR A HUNDRED FEET THEY
FELL AND STUART 72 CLOSED HIS EYES IN SICKENING
DIZZINESS
HIS VISION DISTORTED BY THE VENOM-VAPOR OF THE 144
POISON TREES, THE LAND-CRABS SEEMED OF ENORMOUS
SIZE AND THE NEGRO WHO CAME TO RESCUE HIM
APPEARED AS AN OGRE
ABOVE THE HOARSE SHOUTS OF RUFFIANS AND JACK-TARS,
224 ROSE TEACH'S MURDEROUS WAR CRY

PLOTTING IN PIRATE SEAS
CHAPTER I
AMERICAN ALL THROUGH
The tom-tom throbbed menacingly through the heavy dark of the
Haitian night.
Under its monotonous and maddening beat, Stuart Garfield moved
restlessly.
Why had his father not come back? What mystery lay behind?
Often though the boy had visited the island, he had never been able to
escape a sensation of fear at that summons of the devotees of Voodoo.
Tonight, with the mysterious disappearance of his father weighing
heavily on his spirits, the roll of the black goatskin drum seemed to
mock him.
Hippolyte, the giant negro who had been their guide into this
back-country jungle, rocked and grimaced in balance with the rhythm.
"Why are they beating that drum, Hippolyte?" demanded Stuart,
suddenly.

"Tonight the night of the Full Moon, Yes," was the answer. "Always
Voodoo feast that night. Often, queer things happen on night of Full
Moon, Yes!"
Stuart turned impatiently to the door, as much to get his eyes away
from the hypnotic swaying of Hippolyte as to resume his watch for his
father. The negro's reference to "queer things" had added to the boy's
uneasiness.
Little though Stuart knew about his father's affairs, he was aware that
his investigations dealt with matters of grave importance to the United
States. Ever since Mr. Garfield had resigned his position in the U. S.
Consular Service and left the post in Cuba, where he had stayed so
many years, he had kept a keen eye on international movements in the
West Indies.
Mr. Garfield was an ardent and flaming patriot. He believed the
Monroe Doctrine with a conviction that nothing could shake. He
regarded all the islands of the West Indies as properly under the
sheltering wing of the United States. He looked with unfriendly eye
upon the possession of certain of the islands by England, France and
Holland, and especially distrusted the colonies of European powers
upon South American and Central American shores.
Stuart was even more intense in his patriotism. He had not lived in the
United States since early childhood, and saw the country of the Stars
and Stripes enhaloed by romance.
Though Stuart had been brought up in Cuba, all his tastes ran to things
American. He had learned to play pelota, and was a fair player, but the
rare occasions when he could get a game of baseball suited him far
better. He cared nothing for books unless they dealt with the United
States, and then he read with avidity. Western stories fired his
imagination, the more so because the life they described was so
different from his own.
Stuart was not the type of boy always seeking a fight, but, beneath his
somewhat gentle brown eyes and dark hair, there was a square

aggressive chin, revealing that trait of character known as a "terrible
finisher." It took a good deal to start Stuart, but he was a terror, once
started. Any criticism of the