196

CHAPTER XII
A CORSAIR'S DEATH 217

CHAPTER XIII
THE HUNGRY SHARK 231

CHAPTER XIV
TRAPPED! 242

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 sh