“They hit you,” the short, broad, little man said in quite a matter-of-fact tone. “Hit you on the head. Good thing I happened along. Gone bad with you. But you’re safe enough now.”
Johnny looked into the man’s eyes again and wondered who he might be.
“It was the drum,” the strange man went on. “You thumped it, didn’t you?”
“Yes I—”
“Never thump a native drum here in Haiti. Gets you in trouble, right away. If the Marines or native police don’t get you, someone else will. Where’d you get the drum, anyway?”
“It was hanging on a tree.”
“Uh huh! They left it there. Notice how it was made?”
“No.”
“Cut right out of a log, pretty hard log. Plenty of work to make a native drum. Besides, the natives love their drums. I can’t say the drums are a good thing. Lot of superstition and wild practices hanging about them. But you can’t change people all at once. New ideas will come, the right sort I mean, even here in Haiti. But it takes time. Haiti’s been practically ignored by our country for a hundred years. Now we’re taking hold.
“Know what would have happened to the drum if the native police had got it?” he asked, suddenly fixing his sharp eyes on the boy. “Burst in its head,” he continued, answering his own question. “Split it up for kindling wood. That’s what they’d have done. The Marines would have done the same. You’re white like the Marines. Probably these natives thought you meant to burst their drum. That’s why they treated you rough. But you’ll be right enough now.”