The Rope of Gold

by Roy J. Snell

  CHAPTER IX THE JEWELED MONKEY

  Johnny Thompson did not in the least mind being lost. Truth was he gotmuch joy from it. The sky was so blue, the morning air, as he left theabandoned native home, so crisp and balmy, he felt like singing a song.

  True, he disliked worrying his friends, but the island of Haiti is notthe world. He would find his way back in time. He had breakfasted well oncold guinea meat, parched corn and bananas. His bow and quiver of arrowswere slung across his back. The trail was before him.

  "With wild fruit and game I could live a half year through," he toldhimself.

  For some time he made his way through rough uplands, where trees andbrush obstructed his travel and only wild trails helped him on his way.

  At last, however, he came upon an ancient man-made trail that led over aridge and down upon the other side.

  "Now I shall find my way to somewhere," he told himself. But this trailran through rough uncultivated land. Mid-afternoon found him apparentlysome distance still from human habitation.

  "Oh well," he sighed dropping down beside a cool spring, "the afternoonis hot. Guess I'll rest a while. The evening will be cool."

  Had he persevered for another quarter of a mile he most surely would havemet with a surprise; for there browsing close to the trail was a donkey,and on his back were two empty hampers. A few yards up the bank in thedeep shade, he might have discovered two unusual patches of color, oneorange, the other red. The orange spot was a white girl's jacket, the reda native girl's dress. Had he explored still further he would have foundthat the two girls were resting from the heat of the day. And thesegirls, as you may have guessed, were Doris and Nieta. They had chosen toreturn home from the ancient fort by a new and little used trail. Midashad not liked the plan. He had shown his displeasure by using asnail-like pace and by offering to eat every tree and bush that grewbeside the trail.

  At last, quite worn out by her constant flogging of the obstinate donkeyDoris had given in to his whims and had allowed him to wander as hewilled while she and Nieta rested.

  "You can't lose a donkey," she had said to Nieta. "Not completely. He'llalways find his way home. And he has nothing on his back but emptyhampers."

  They had been sitting there for some time dreamily gazing at the waveringpatterns of sunlight and shadows woven on the mossy earth or looking upinto the treetops when Doris gave a sudden start. Her eye had caught apeculiar gleam of white light.

  "What can it be?" she asked herself. "There is nothing about a palm treeto reflect light that way."

  She puzzled about this for some time. Then, since her keen eyes did notsucceed in detecting the cause, she fell to wondering about Midas who haddisappeared down the trail. "If he's gone home by himself it will be ablessing," she told herself.

  "There are no lions and tigers to fear here. There are some very terriblesnakes and lizards five feet long and wild hogs with tusks like razorblades, but they're not likely to trouble us. We--" She broke short offto stare. Once more in the midst of dense foliage she had caught thatwhite flash of light. So white! So intense! Like the flash that comesfrom a mirror, only sharper and brighter. She caught her breath. There itwas again. Here it was, there. Now, like a glimmering ghost, it was gone.

  "Quick as lightning." She glanced through the leafy branches to the sky.Pale blue the sky was, not a cloud. She had suspected lightning. "Butno," she told herself, "it's four hours before shower-time." Showers comewith a convenient regularity in Haiti.

  She studied the scanty leaves and many dry pods that hung directly aboveher. They had seated themselves beneath a "chattering woman," or so thisodd tree is called. It was loaded with dry pods. These pods rattle andchatter in the wind. At this moment there was no wind.

  Slowly her eyes roved over the dangling pods. Then, of a sudden, her gazebecame fixed, her lips parted in a scream that died in forming.

  Directly above her, peering down at her, was the smallest, strangestlittle face she had ever seen. The eyes were so wide in question, thebrow so wrinkled, the whole expression so broadly intelligent that forthe briefest part of a moment she was tempted to believe the creaturehuman. He was, she realized at once, a marmoset, one of those smallest ofmonkeys who are so popular as pets among South American ladies ofquality.

  "Oh you monk! You cute little monkey! Where did you come from?" shecried.

  The monkey blinked his eyes three times, then, as if to hide himself fromher, put both hands over his eyes.

  It was this movement that brought a low exclamation to the girl's lipsfor, once again, at the very instant his slim arms moved, there came thatbrilliant flash of light.

  "He did it!" she told herself. "A monkey! But how could he?"

  The answer came at once and with such sudden surprise as fairly sent hersenses reeling. On the monkey's left forearm, like a lady's bejeweledbracelet, there gleamed a ring, set with a white stone.

  "It's a diamond," she told herself, "a very large diamond! No bit ofglass could flash like that. But where did he get it?"

  In her mind was formed what she believed to be the answer. This was a petmonkey. There could be no question about that, for there are no wildmonkeys in Haiti. This monkey had stolen his mistress' diamond ring andmade away with it.

  "It should be worth hundreds of dollars," she told herself. "It'sprobably a wedding ring, a priceless possession. Somehow we must catchthe monkey and take the ring from him. He may tire of it and hide it orthrow it away."

  "How old it seems," she told herself after a moment's study. "Allcorroded. Can't have been worn for years. But how the diamond sparkles!"

  Again the white stone flashed, as the monkey uncovered his eyes to resumehis worried study of these strangers who had invaded his domain.

  Doris touched the drowsy Nieta on the arm. Then, after placing a fingerto lips for silence, pointed up at the tree.

  "Sh'sh! Don't speak," she whispered. "Look up, up there among the pods onthat thick branch."

  Nieta did look up. She started suddenly and found herself staring andfully awake.

  "See!" Doris whispered. "See that on his arm? It's a diamond ring; mustbe. And we must get it. Think of the reward! Think--if we never found theowner at all! Think--

  "Oh--Oh!" she fairly cried. "He's gone! Hurry! Hurry!" she whisperedexcitedly. "Look! Look everywhere! We mustn't lose him! Think Nieta,think of the reward. Think if we find no owner at all!"

  The native girl's eyes were bulging.

  At that precise moment, Johnny Thompson came swinging down the trail.

  At sight of the two excited girls he stopped short to stare inastonishment.

  "Babes in the woods," he said at last. "Now where is the wicked old queenor the dragon, or--Oh, now I know," he said changing his tone. "You areDoris, Dorn's cousin. He's told me all about you. He--"

  "Forget about it and be quiet." Doris took a step toward him. "There's amonkey in this tree and he has a diamond ring on his arm."

  "A--a monkey!" The boy stared as if he thought her out of her senses. "Adiamond ring on a monkey's arm!"

  "Be quiet, I tell you." Doris put a finger over his lips. "It's true.I--we--we saw him! There! There he goes now!" she exclaimed as a brownstreak surging from a branch set the dry pods rattling, then vaulted intothe top of a cocoanut palm.

  "And there he leaps again," said Johnny, losing himself in wildexcitement. "Come on. We'll get him."

  They all went tumbling down the hill.

  They were quite out of sight of the "chattering woman" and stillfollowing the monkey when Doris stopped short. "I--I think I saw him."

  "Where? Where is he?" demanded Nieta. Her eyes were wide with excitement.

  "There! There!" The white girl's words came in a shrill whisper. "He's upin that small mahogany tree looking down at us."

  "He's come to rest," said Johnny. "All we have to do now is to coax himdown."

  "Ye-e-s," said Doris, doubtfully. "That's all." They sat down side byside on a big
flat stone to stare up at the grinning monkey and to catchnow and then a fleeting glance of that gleaming stone.

  "It's a diamond all right," said Johnny. "And my! what a whopper!"

  "Wait," he said a moment later. "Monkeys like bananas. I saw a clump ofwild ones back there. Perhaps I can find some ripe ones."

  While he was gone Doris kept her eyes on the monkey, but once when sheglanced down at Nieta she found to her surprise that she was paying noattention to the monkey. Instead, she had taken some curious whiteobjects from a small leather sack carried by a string round her neck andwas whispering to them.

  "Nieta!" she whispered. "What in the world are you doing?"

  "These," said Nieta quite soberly, "are the teeth of a yellow snakekilled in the back of a cave in the dark of the moon. They are a powerfulvoodoo charm. They were given me by a very wise _Papa Lou_. A _Papa Lou_is a voodoo priest."

  At once Doris recalled what Dorn had told her of the strange voodoocharm.

  "The snake, you know," Nieta went on quite solemnly, "is able when aliveto charm a monkey. When the snake is dead his spirit remains near histeeth. I am telling him to charm the monkey and bring him down to us."

  "Nieta," said Doris, shocked beyond belief, "you must not think suchthings. They are not true. It is truly wicked to believe them. There isbut one living spirit outside ourselves and that is the spirit of thegreat Father."

  "But do you not pray to that spirit?" The native girl's brow wrinkled."Do you not--"

  "Look!" Doris gripped her arm. "He leaped away over there. He--he'sgone!"

  By the time Johnny caught up with them, the monkey, by a succession oftree races and wild flying leaps, had led the girls down a precipitousslope to a spot where a rocky ledge hanging over a drop of some fiftyfeet brought their race and the monkey's to an end.

  The monkey climbed out on a branch that appeared to hang over aprecipice. He seemed at first to contemplate a flying leap to the top ofa tall tree that grew on the lower slope. This would have proven athrilling spectacle. Doris caught her breath as he hung there by onefoot, looking down. The distance was thirty feet or more, a straight dropdown. Would he do it? Dared he?

  "Oh!" she said gripping at her breast. "If he dares we will never see himagain."

  Apparently Mr. Monk did not dare, for in time he drew himself up to aposition of safety, then began polishing the glistening stone mounting ofthe ring with the furry back of his right hand.

  From time to time he would pause to give the girls a knowing look andwink as if to say:

  "See! Doesn't it shine? Don't you wish you had it?"

  In good time Johnny caught up with them. They were delighted to see thathis arms were filled with small ripe bananas.

  "They are really good," he said, slipping the last bite of one in hismouth. "Ripened in the shade."

  There followed the age old drama of a boy with something in hispossession and a monkey who wants it. The monkey had been someone's pet.For this reason he did not have the fear of humans that possesses a wildmonkey. Yet these children were strangers. More than that, two werewhite. His master had beyond doubt been a dusky native. He was in nohurry to come down. He came one branch at a time with many a backwardlook. More than once he paused to polish his diamond and wink.

  "We'll get him," said Johnny half beside himself with suppressedexcitement. "You'll see! He'll come."

  He was coming. Little by little, branch by branch, he came. Now he washalf way down, now three quarters. Now he was five yards away, now four,three, two. He stared wistfully at the banana held high.

  Then, of a sudden, with a speed that was astonishing, he leaped.

  Not upon another branch did he land, nor upon the ground, but squarely onthe top of Johnny's head.

  So surprised was Johnny that he jumped and yelled.

  Came a snatching at his hand, then monkey and banana were gone--gone notup but down.

  Leaping to the top of the ledge the monkey paused for a second to placethe banana between his teeth, then without so much as a backward look,lowered himself over the precipice and was gone.

  Throwing herself flat on the ground, then crawling slowly forward untilthe steep surface of the cliff was within her view, Doris watched himthrow himself from fissure to fissure and from one narrow ledge to thenext.

  "He'll be killed," she said breathlessly.

  But he was not. Almost before she could realize it, he had reached a spotnear the bottom, where by a daring leap, he reached the top of a tree.

  "We--we've lost him," she half sobbed. "We'll never see him again."

  "Listen," said Nieta with a sudden start.

  They did listen and to their waiting ears came the dull roll of distantthunder. In their wild chase they had completely forgotten that the timefor the day's thunderstorm was at hand.

  "Where are we?" Johnny asked.

  Where indeed? The trail was far above them. Should they attempt to findit they must surely be half drowned before they reached it. A Haitianthunderstorm in the jungle is a fearful thing to contemplate.

  "We'd better skirt the top of this cliff and make our way down to thesea," said Doris. "There must be some thatched huts down there that willfurnish shelter."

  Acting upon this plan, they dashed away.

  The race after the monkey was nothing to this mad race with the storm.Now creeping along a rocky ledge, now clinging to a stout vine anddropping down, down, down, now racing over a wild hog's trail, nowleaping a fallen tree to tear through a clump of brambles with the rumbleand roar of the storm ever increasing they made their way forward, until,with a sudden breathless whoop, Johnny stopped at the edge of a wildcocoanut jungle to stare at the silent, blue-black sea.

  "Not a hut," Doris moaned as her eyes swept the narrow coral beach.

  "What's that yonder?" Johnny asked.

  "A boat! A boat on the beach!" Doris exclaimed. "Hurray! We will tip itover and make a shelter of it."

  "I wonder if we will ever see him again," she said to herself as, onreaching the beach, she paused for breath. She was thinking of the monkeywith the jeweled arm.

  The next instant a blinding flash of lightning and a crash of thundersent her flying toward the boat, that seen from the level now seemed muchlarger and very far away.

  "We'll never make it," she panted sobbingly. "We'll be half drowned."