He decided to appear to believe this poorly woven story.
"If you hate Leborge, and Leborge hates me," he said, "I suppose we are both his enemies. I presume," he added, shrewdly, "if I refused to take you with me to the Citadel of the Black Emperor, you would shadow me, and go any way."
A flash of assent came into the boy's eyes, which, he was not quick enough to suppress. Decidedly, Stuart was not cut out for a conspirator, and would never be a match for the Cuban in guile.
"I see you would," the Cuban continued. "Well, I would rather have you within my sight. Here is money. Tomorrow, an hour after sunrise, be at the door of the hotel with the best horses you can find. I wish to be at Millot by evening."
Stuart took the money and preceded Manuel into the town, chuckling inwardly at his cleverness in outwitting this keen conspirator. But he would have been less elated with his success if he had heard the Cuban mutter, as he turned into the porch of the hotel,
A foul, slimy ooze, compounded of fat soil, rotting vegetation and verdigris-colored scum, with a fainter green mark meandering through it--such was the road to Millot.
Stuart and the Cuban, the boy riding ahead, were picking their away across this noisome tract of land.
For a few miles out of Cap Haitien, where the finger of American influence had reached, an air of decency and even of prosperity had begun to return. Near the town, the road had been repaired. Fields, long abandoned, showed signs of cultivation, anew.
Two hours' ride out, however, it became evident that the new power had not reached so far. The road had dwindled to a trail of ruts, which staggered hither and thither in an effort to escape the quagmires--which it did not escape. Twice, already, Stuart's horse had been mired and he had to get out of the saddle and half-crawl, half-wriggle on his belly, in the smothering and sucking mud. So far, Manuel had escaped, by the simple device of not passing over any spot which the boy had not tried first.
This caution was not to serve him long, however.
At some sight or sound unnoticed by the rider, Manuel's horse shied from off the narrow path of tussocks on which it was picking its way, and swerved directly into the morass.