as this boy a negro boy? Suspicion changed its seat in the wily
Cuban's brain. That point, at least, he would find out, and swiftly. He
looked at his ragged questioner, still fiddling with his toe in the
dust, and answered.

"Well," he said, "you can show me what there is to be seen in this
place. But first I will go to the Cafe. No," he continued, as the boy
turned towards the new part of the town, built under American oversight,
"not there. To the Cafe de l'Opera. Go down the street and keep a few
steps in front."

Stuart obeyed. He had seen the first swift motion of the Cuban's hand,
when he had been accosted, and had guessed that it was pistolwards. It
was uncomfortable walking in front of a man who was probably aching to
blow one's brains out. Nasty little cold shivers ran up and down
Stuart's back. But the tents of the U. S. Marines, in camp a little
distance down the beach, gave him courage. With his sublime faith in the
United States, Stuart could not believe that he could come to any harm
within sight of the Stars and Stripes floating from the flagstaff in
front of the encampment.

While Stuart was thus getting backbone from his flag, Manuel was
concentrating his wits and experience on this problem which threatened
him so closely.

Was this boy a negro?

A life spent in international trickery on a large scale had made the
Cuban a good judge of men. He knew native races. He knew--what the white
man generally ignores or forgets--that between the various black races
are mental differences as wide as between races of other color. He knew
that the Ewe negro is no more like the Riff in character, than the
phlegmatic Dutchman resembles the passionate Italian. If a black, to
what race did this boy belong? Was he a black, at all?

The bright sun threw no reflected lights on the boy's skin, the texture
of which was darker than that of a mulatto, and had a dead, opaque look,
lacking the golden glow of mulatto skin. The lad's hair showed little
hint of Bantu ancestry and his feet were small. True, all this might
betoken any of the Creole combinations common in Haiti, but the Cuban
was not satisfied. If the skin had been stained, now----

"Boy!" he called.

Stuart looked around.

"Here are some coppers for you."

The boy slouched toward him, extended his hand negligently and the Cuban
dropped some three-centime pieces into it.

Stuart mumbled some words of thanks, imitating, as far as he could, the
Haitian di