Plotting in Pirate Seas | Page 6

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 record was not one which would bear
investigation.
How came this ragged Haitian urchin to know? Manuel's swift glance
at Stuart had shown him nothing but a Creole lad in clothes too big for
him and a pair of boots fastened with string. The messenger meant
nothing, it was the message which held menace.
To the Cuban this apparently chance street encounter was ominous of
black threat. It revealed treachery and might mean a trap. But from
whence? Swiftly Manuel's keen brain, the brain of an arch-plotter,
scanned the manifold aspects of this sudden threat.
How much labor, how many wild adventures, what a series of dangers
would Stuart have escaped, had he but been able to read the thoughts of
that crafty brain!
Did his fellow-conspirators want to get rid of him? So Manuel's doubts
ran. Did they count on his shooting the boy, in a panic, and being

lynched for it, there and then, on the street of Cap Haitien? Or of his
being imprisoned, tried and executed for murder? Such a plot was not
unlikely.
But, if so, who had sent the boy?
Was Cesar Leborge playing him false? True, from that bull-necked,
ferocious negro general, Manuel knew he could expect nothing but
brutality, envy and hate; but such a design as this boy's intervention
seemed too subtle for the giant Creole's brain. Manuel accounted
himself master of the negro when it came to treachery and cunning.
Moreover, he knew Leborge to be a sullen and suspicious character,
little likely to talk or to trust anyone.
What did the boy know? Manuel flashed a look at him. But Stuart was
idly fiddling in the dust with the toe of his ragged boot, and the Cuban's
suspicions flashed to another quarter.
Could the Englishman, Guy Cecil, be to blame? That did not seem any
more likely. Manuel was afraid of Cecil, though he would not admit it,
even to himself. The Englishman's chill restraint, even in moments of
the most tense excitement, cowed the Cuban. Never had he been able to
penetrate into his fellow-conspirator's thoughts. But that Cecil should
have talked loosely of so vital, so terrible a secret? No. The grave itself
was not more secretive than that quiet schemer, of whom nothing ever
seemed to be known. And to a negro boy! No, a thousand times, no!
Stay--was this boy a negro boy? Suspicion changed its seat in the wily
Cuban's brain. That point, at least, he would find out, and swiftly. He
looked at his ragged questioner, still fiddling with his toe in the dust,
and answered.
"Well," he said, "you can show me what there is to be seen in this place.
But first I will go to the Café. No," he continued, as the boy turned
towards the new part of the town, built under American oversight, "not
there. To the Café de l'Opéra. Go down the street and keep a few steps
in front."

Stuart obeyed. He had seen the first swift motion of the Cuban's hand,
when he had been accosted, and had guessed that it was pistolwards. It
was uncomfortable walking in front of a man who was probably aching
to blow one's brains out. Nasty little cold shivers ran up and down
Stuart's back. But the tents of the U. S. Marines, in camp a little
distance down the beach, gave him courage. With his sublime faith in
the United States, Stuart could not believe that he could come to any
harm within sight of the Stars and Stripes floating from the flagstaff in
front of the encampment.
While Stuart was thus getting backbone from his flag, Manuel was
concentrating his wits and experience on this problem which threatened
him so closely.
Was this boy a negro?
A life spent in international trickery on a large scale had made the