Stuart was even more intense in his patriotism. He had not lived in the United States since early childhood, and saw the country of the Stars and Stripes enhaloed by romance.
Though Stuart had been brought up in Cuba, all his tastes ran to things American. He had learned to play pelota, and was a fair player, but the rare occasions when he could get a game of baseball suited him far better. He cared nothing for books unless they dealt with the United States, and then he read with avidity. Western stories fired his imagination, the more so because the life they described was so different from his own.
Stuart was not the type of boy always seeking a fight, but, beneath his somewhat gentle brown eyes and dark hair, there was a square aggressive chin, revealing that trait of character known as a "terrible finisher." It took a good deal to start Stuart, but he was a terror, once started. Any criticism of the United States was enough to get him going. His Cuban schoolmates had found that out, and, whenever Stuart was around, the letters "U. S." were treated with respect.
This square chin was aggressively thrust forward now, as the boy looked into the night. There was trouble in the air. He felt it. Deeper down than the disturbed feelings produced by the tom-tom, he sensed a prescience of evil on its way.
When, therefore, a figure emerged from the forest into the clearing, and Stuart saw that this figure was not his father, but that of a negro, the boy stiffened himself.
"You—Stuart?" the newcomer queried.
"Yes," replied the boy, "that's my name."
The negro hardly hesitated. He walked on, though Stuart was full in the doorway, jostled him aside roughly, and entered. This attitude toward the white man, unheard of anywhere else, is common in up-country Haiti, where, for a century, the black man has ruled, and where the white man is hated and despised.
A hard stone-like gleam came into Stuart's eyes, but even his mounting rage did not blind him to the fact that the negro was twice his size and three times as muscular. Nor did he forget that Hippolyte was in the hut, and, in any case of trouble, the two blacks would combine against him.
The negro who had pushed him aside paid no further attention to the boy, but entered into a rapid-fire conversation with Hippolyte. Stuart could follow the Haitian French dialect quite well, but there were so many half-hidden allusions in the speech of the two men that it was easy for him to see that they were both members of some secret band.