2
TIONS
"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
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 move