For some time they talked in low tones, the man and the boy, and the girl listened. Little wonder that they talked earnestly. Much was at stake.
“It might work,” said Johnny at last. “Anyway, we’ll try it. You can talk to them in Spanish.”
That was the end of conversation. After that they sat there looking and listening. From somewhere forward there came the rattle of a banjo, the tom-tom-tom of a snake-head drum. Aft, the chant of a weird song rose and fell with the boat.
“They don’t realize they are going to war,” said Johnny.
“That’s the pity. They never do,” said the girl, shading her eyes to gaze away at the perfect blue of the lovely Caribbean Sea.
All too soon the thrum of the banjo ceased, the tom-tom of the drum became muffled and low. Land, the point of Porte Zelaya, had been sighted.
Rising, the girl and the old man made their way along the deck. As they moved along they spoke in low tones to the men and the men, as if moved by some magic spell, rose slowly to go shuffling forward or aft, and to disappear down the hatchways, leaving the decks almost deserted.
When the North Star came within hailing distance of the dock, which was swarming with half-castes drawn up in battle array, a little group of some fifty black Caribs were gathered on the forward deck of the North Star. That was all. Not a pike pole nor machete was in sight. They seemed only a small group of laborers prepared for a day’s work of gathering and loading bananas.
A breathless expectancy hung over all the ship as it came in close, reversed her engines, dropped anchor and stood off the wharf for further orders.
The great man of the jungle, Donald Kennedy, tall, stately of bearing, yet humble, stepped forward to the rail and began to speak in quiet tones to the throng on the deck.