guise
as a Haitian lad were only held up by a piece of string; he had no belt
which he could throw. There was no sapling growing near enough to make a
stick.

Then there came into the boy's mind an incident in a Western story he
had read.

Darting back to his horse, he unfastened the saddle girth, and, hurrying
back to where Manuel was floundering in the mud, he threw the saddle
outwards, holding the end of the girth. It was just long enough to
reach. With the help of the flat surface given by the saddle and a
gradual pulling of the girth by Stuart, the Cuban was at last able to
crawl out.

The gallant little horse, freed from its rider's weight, had reached a
point where it could be helped, and the two aided the beast to get its
forefeet on solid land.

This rescue broke down much of the distance and some of the hostility
between Manuel and Stuart, and, as soon as the road began to rise from
the quagmire country, and was wide enough to permit it, the Cuban
ordered the boy to ride beside him. Naturally, the conversation dealt
with the trail and its dangers.

"You would hardly think," said the Cuban, "that, a hundred years ago, a
stone-built road, as straight as an arrow, ran from Cap Haitien to
Millot, and that over it, Toussaint l'Ouverture, 'the Black Napoleon,'
was wont to ride at breakneck speed, and Christophe, 'the black
Emperor,' drove his gaudy carriage with much pomp and display."

To those who take the road from Cap Haitien to Millot today, the
existence of that ancient highway seems incredible. Yet, though only a
century old, it is almost as hopelessly lost as the road in the Sahara
Desert over which, once, toiling slaves in Egypt dragged the huge stones
of which the Pyramids of Ghizeh were built.

Stuart and the Cuban had made a late start. In spite of the powerful
political influence which the Cuban seemed to wield, his departure had
been fraught with suspicion. The Military Governor, a gigantic
coal-black negro, had at first refused to grant permission for Polliovo
to visit the Citadel; the Commandant of Marines had given him a warning
which was almost an ultimatum.

Manuel, with great suavity, had overset the former and defied the
latter. His story was of the smoothest. He was a military strategist, he
declared, and General Leborge had asked him to investigate the citadel,
in order to determine its value as the site for a modern fort.

Stuart's part in the adventure was outwardly simple. No on