Plotting in Pirate Seas Part 8

The cliff-side is as sheer as Gibraltar, affording not even a foothold for the most venturesome climber. The walls are built upon its very verge and are as solid as the rock itself. Its gray ma.s.s conveys a sense of enormous power. "It towers upon the last and highest precipice," says Hesketh Prichard, "like some sinister monster of the elder world, ready to launch itself forth upon the spreading lands below."

The Citadel commands the whole of the Plain of the North clear to the distant sea. At its south-eastern end it faces toward the frontier of St. Domingo, the sister republic, fifty miles away. Christophe built it as a central base, controlling the only roads and pa.s.ses which command the range from Dondon to Valliere, and rendering attack impossible, from the southern side, through Marmalade. (Many names in Haiti give an irresistible appearance of being comic, such as the Duke of Lemonade, Duke of Marmalade, Baron the Prophet Daniel, and Colonel the Baron Roast Beef, but they are intended seriously.)

Manuel had gazed over the landscape but a few moments when the sun was veiled in one of the cold, raw cloud-fogs which continually sweep the summit. Billowing, dank ma.s.ses hurtled about him, blotting out even the outlines of the ruin. For several minutes the grey mists enwreathed him, then, as they lightened, the Cuban saw before him, shadow-like and strange, the figure of the Black Emperor himself.

The warders' terror of the ghost of Christophe cramped Manuel's heart for a moment and he fell back. His hand flashed to his pocket, none the less.

The figure laughed, a harsh coa.r.s.e laugh which Manuel knew and recognized at once.

"General Leborge," he exclaimed, surprise and self-annoyance struggling in his voice. "It is you!"

"But Yes, my friend, it is I. You see, I am not so daring as you. I came secretly. I have been here three days, waiting for you."

"But the meeting was set for today!"

"It is true. But it was more difficult for me to get here than for you.

See you, as a stranger you had not the suspicion of intrusion to combat.

No, if it were known that I were here, there would be political difficulties--ah, many! Yes!"

The Cuban nodded. He was not especially interested in the political embroilments of his co-conspirator. As a matter of fact, the plot accomplished, it was Manuel's purpose to let enough of the truth leak out to make it seem that Leborge had been a traitor to the Haitian Republic.

"Have you seen Cecil?" he asked.

"Not yet, No!" answered the negro general. "Me, I had thought he would come with you."

"He didn't. And he wasn't on the road from Cap Haitien, either. Queer, too. First time I ever knew him to fail."

"So! But I have a feeling he will not fail. He will be here today. Come down to the place of meeting. I have some food and we can have a mouthful while waiting for him."

The big negro cast a look at himself.

"I do not think we shall be interrupted, No!" he commented.

The Cuban showed his teeth in the gleam of a quick smile.

"The guards are too much afraid of the ghost of Christophe to dare enter the place," he said. "That was a good idea of yours."

The two men turned away from the battlements to the steps which led down toward the dwelling rooms, and Manuel laid finger on lip.

"It is well to be a ghost," he said, "but if the guards should chance to hear me talking to the ghost, they might begin to think. And thinking, my dear Leborge, is sometimes dangerous."

The huge negro nodded a.s.sent and hung back while Manuel descended the stair.

At the entrance into the high room, ringed with windows, in a small ruined opening of which Stuart crouched watching, Manuel waited for Leborge. Together they entered.

At the door of the room the negro started back with an exclamation of astonishment, and even Manuel paused.

On a square block of stone in the center of the room, which Manuel could have sworn was not there when he looked into the chamber a short half-hour before, sat Guy Cecil, complacently puffing at a briar pipe.

His tweeds were as immaculate as though he had just stepped from the hands of his valet, and his tan shoes showed mark neither of mud nor rough trails. Manuel's quick glance caught these details and they set him wondering.

"By the Ten Finger-Bones!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Leborge. "How did you get in here?"

"Why?" asked Cecil, in mild surprise.

"Polliovo didn't see you come. I didn't see you come."

"No?"

The negation was insolent in its carelessness.

"But how did you get in?"

The Englishman took his pipe from his mouth, and, with the stem, pointed negligently to a window.

"That way," he said.

The negro bl.u.s.tered out an oath, but was evidently impressed, and looked at his fellow-conspirator with superst.i.tious fear.

The Cuban, more curious and more skeptical, went straight to the window and looked out. The crumbling mortar-dust on the sill had evidently been disturbed, seeming to make good the Englishman's story, but, from the window, was a clear drop of four hundred feet of naked rock, without even a crack to afford a finger-hold, while the precipitous descent fell another fifteen hundred feet. To climb was a feat manifestly impossible.

"Permit me to congratulate you on your discovery of wings, Senor Cecil,"

remarked Manuel, with irony.

The Englishman bowed, as at a matter-of-course compliment, and, by tacit agreement, the subject dropped.

Yet Manuel's irritation was hard to hide. Not the least of the reasons for his animosity to Cecil was the Englishman's undoubted ability to cover his movements. In the famous case when the two conspirators had negotiated an indigo concession in San Domingo and the profits had suddenly slipped through Manuel's fingers, the Cuban was sure that the Englishman had made a winning, but he had no proof. Likewise, with this plot in hand, Manuel feared lest he should be outmanoeuvred at the last.

Following Cecil's example, Leborge and Manuel rolled out to the center of the room some blocks that had fallen from the walls, and sat down.

Stuart noticed that the Cuban so placed himself that he was well out of a possible line of fire between the negro general and the embrasure where the boy was hidden. This carefulness, despite its air of negligence, reminded Stuart of the role he was expected to play, and he concentrated his attention on the three conspirators.

Although the Cuban was apparently the only one who had reason to suspect being overheard, the three men talked in low tones. The language used was French, as Stuart gleaned from a word or two which reached his ears, but the subject of the conversation escaped him. One phrase, however, attracted his attention because it was so often repeated, and Stuart surmised that this phrase must bear an important relation to the main subject of the meeting. The boy did not fail to realize that a conference so important that it could only be held in so secret a place must be of extraordinary gravity. This phrase was----

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOR A HUNDRED FEET THEY FELL AND STUART CLOSED HIS EYES IN SICKENING DIZZINESS]

"Mole St. Nicholas."

The words held no meaning for Stuart, though he had seen reference to them in his father's papers. He suspected that the phrase might be some catch-word referring to a subject too dangerous for mention, possibly the Presidency of Haiti. Following out this theme, the boy guessed that he was a witness to the hatching of one of the political revolutions, which, from time to time, have convulsed the Republic of Haiti. If so, the matter was serious, for, as the boy knew, ever since the treaty of 1915, the United States was actively interested in forcing the self-determination of Haiti, meanwhile holding the country under a virtual protectorate. Such a revolution, therefore, would be a deliberate attack upon the United States.

This impression was heightened by his catching the words "naval base,"

which could only deal with possible developments in a state of war.

Stuart strained his ears to the utmost, but isolated words were all that he could glean.

Later, Stuart was to learn that his guess was at fault in general, but that the conclusion he had reached--namely, that injury to the United States was intended--was not far wide of the mark.

As the conference proceeded, it became evident to the hidden observer that the relations between the conspirators were growing strained. The Cuban seemed to be in taunting mood. The veins on the negro general's bull neck began to swell, and he turned and called Manuel,

"Pale Toad!"