ill. Five years of American occupation had bred a sense
of law and order in the coast towns, at least, which had not been known
in Haiti for a century and more. Any violence would lead to inquiry, and
Manuel's record was not one which would bear investigation.

How came this ragged Haitian urchin to know? Manuel's swift glance at
Stuart had shown him nothing but a Creole lad in clothes too big for him
and a pair of boots fastened with string. The messenger meant nothing,
it was the message which held menace.

To the Cuban this apparently chance street encounter was ominous of
black threat. It revealed treachery and might mean a trap. But from
whence? Swiftly Manuel's keen brain, the brain of an arch-plotter,
scanned the manifold aspects of this sudden threat.

How much labor, how many wild adventures, what a series of dangers would
Stuart have escaped, had he but been able to read the thoughts of that
crafty brain!

Did his fellow-conspirators want to get rid of him? So Manuel's doubts
ran. Did they count on his shooting the boy, in a panic, and being
lynched for it, there and then, on the street of Cap Haitien? Or of his
being imprisoned, tried and executed for murder? Such a plot was not
unlikely.

But, if so, who had sent the boy?

Was Cesar Leborge playing him false? True, from that bull-necked,
ferocious negro general, Manuel knew he could expect nothing but
brutality, envy and hate; but such a design as this boy's intervention
seemed too subtle for the giant Creole's brain. Manuel accounted himself
master of the negro when it came to treachery and cunning. Moreover, he
knew Leborge to be a sullen and suspicious character, little likely to
talk or to trust anyone.

What did the boy know? Manuel flashed a look at him. But Stuart was idly
fiddling in the dust with the toe of his ragged boot, and the Cuban's
suspicions flashed to another quarter.

Could the Englishman, Guy Cecil, be to blame? That did not seem any more
likely. Manuel was afraid of Cecil, though he would not admit it, even
to himself. The Englishman's chill restraint, even in moments of the
most tense excitement, cowed the Cuban. Never had he been able to
penetrate into his fellow-conspirator's thoughts. But that Cecil should
have talked loosely of so vital, so terrible a secret? No. The grave
itself was not more secretive than that quiet schemer, of whom nothing
ever seemed to be known. And to a negro boy! No, a thousand times, no!

Stay--w