Part 31 (1/2)

”And he sent that old fellow in the boat on his errands,” offered Robert.

Carlos, appealed to, avowed that this explanation was not unlikely, since there was a bit of a hamlet far down the bay.

When the hot tropic sun had mounted to the zenith, Norris' restlessness seemed to be approaching a climax. It was with some difficulty we dissuaded him from a notion that had taken him, to make a trip back into the hills in search of that golden creek of his. And it was then there came a wet squall out of the west that drove us under the shelter of our over-turned boat till it went by. The monotony of that wait, too, was a bit relieved by the return to the island of that boat that had gone down the bay in the morning.

Before dark came I got Jean Marat aside and communicated to him an idea that had grown in my head that afternoon.

”Captain Marat,” I began, ”it is going to be very dark nearly all of tonight, and it will be hard to see, at that distance, when Duran leaves the island--if he does.”

”Yes,” returned Marat, ”I have think of that.”

”Well,” I continued, ”even in the dark it won't be safe to row over to the island. Duran might happen to be on the sh.o.r.e and so see us.”

”Yes, jus' so,” agreed Marat.

”I want to swim over,” I said. ”It's only half a mile.”

”Ah!” said Jean Marat. ”Thad might be. Yes--yes.” (He pondered the thing.) ”Yes, I swim too, with you.”

It was the very thing I had in mind, this idea of his accompanying me, though I hesitated to include him in my suggestion.

”And then,” Marat continued, ”maybe we hear some theengs thad will help us.”

Here, too, was some of my thought, remembering that night when he and I had rowed over to the _Orion_, in the harbor, and heard Duran say things that had enlightened us very much. Though some of the things he had said had not been at all clear, else Ray and I had been spared that period of captivity.

We were not long in giving our plan to the others. Norris, eager for activity, would like to be one of the party, but he himself found objections the moment his wish was expressed.

”It won't do to have too many,” he said; ”and then I can't understand the _parley voo_ like Captain Marat.”

”Besides,” put in Ray, ”there'd be an awful hulaboloo among the fish.

They'd think it was a--” Norris had him in his grasp. ”--A mermaid,”

finished Ray.

We did not wait long after night had settled over the bay. Jean Marat and I kicked off our clothes and, entering the water, headed for the island. It was chalked out that the others should hold everything in readiness, and if they should hear a signal, they would immediately row out and pick us up, to take up the trail of Duran again.

It was no great feat to swim that half mile of smooth water. And then it was with great caution that we crawled across that island beach. I must have been a curious spectacle for Jean Marat--black of face and arms and feet, the rest of me all white. The curly wig, of course, I had left with my clothing.

We pa.s.sed in among the cocoanut palms, traversed a belt of hammock, and came to a piece of clearing. A light shone from a window of the hut.

There were some bushes near the wall; these we got amongst.

Keeping our faces in the shadow, we contrived to look in. And it was somewhat a startling spectacle presented to us there. Duran's features--though stained like myself and Robert--were not so hard to distinguish in the light of the lamp. There was but one other occupant, a negro, old and portly of body. Duran's head bore a red kerchief, wound turban-wise, and his body was clad in a red robe--much like I had seen him wearing that night in the forest. He stood by the table, and in his hands he clutched a fowl, just beheaded, for the blood was running from the raw stump of the neck into a bowl.

When the dripping had almost ceased, Duran gave the chicken into the hands of the negro, who laid it aside. And then Duran poured rum from a jug into cups, and mixed in blood from the bowl; and now the two drank.

And there showed that horrid, excited hankering of an old toper, in Duran's face when he brought the cup to his lips. Whether it was the rum he craved, or the blood, or the combination, or if he was really taken with a religious fanaticism, I have never been able to fathom. But that his emotion was real I could have no doubt.

A number of drinks round, and the black set himself to plucking the feathers from the fowl; and then it was not long till he had the bird in a kettle on the stove. Duran, after a time, inclined his head to a little box on the table, and presently it occurred to me that they must have the voodoo snake there as well. It was evidently a voodoo ceremony they were enacting, and I knew it could not be complete--if bonafide--without the snake.

Through it all, there was more or less talk between those two, and to that Marat was giving his ear. At times he moved over and put his head to the boards, the better to hear.