“Yes,” said Curlie, “we could almost do it, but not quite. Only one thing keeps us from it.”
“What’s that?”
“The existence of a mystery yet unsolved.”
“Yes—many mysteries.”
“And so,” Curlie yawned, “we’d better turn in, for to-morrow is another day.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE CALL OF THE DRUMS
Again it was night. Once more the moon edged the crest of the ancient Citadel with a line of silver. Curlie and Johnny had returned to camp. They were welcomed by Dorn with shouts of joy. Old Pompee had uttered grunts of satisfaction and had begun at once the beating up of sorghum seed into petit meal, which later would be formed into cakes and baked on hot coals.
The boys arrived too late for any daylight exploration of the Citadel. After an hour of rest followed by a sumptuous meal of hot cakes and roasted wild pig, they went each his own way in search of adventure.
Curlie struck away up the Citadel trail that led to his laboratory. There, finding all in order, he began work on wires, switches and batteries. From time to time a low tum—tum—tum came from one or the other of his two native drums. At other times there sounded a shrill piping not unlike the notes of a boy’s willow whistle.
Meanwhile Johnny was pursuing an investigation of his own. Recalling the story of the ancient black emperor’s visits to the Citadel and the story of how he went to the crest of the uncompleted fortress to work all night long with mortar and stone, he had thought too of the slaves who, looking up from their hard beds of trodden earth, had seen him working there. From all this he had developed a theory which he hoped might aid him in discovering the spot, or at least the general location on the wall where Christophe had worked at night.