“Now I shall find my way to somewhere,” he told himself. But this trail ran through rough uncultivated land. Mid-afternoon found him apparently some distance still from human habitation.
“Oh well,” he sighed dropping down beside a cool spring, “the afternoon is hot. Guess I’ll rest a while. The evening will be cool.”
Had he persevered for another quarter of a mile he most surely would have met with a surprise; for there browsing close to the trail was a donkey, and on his back were two empty hampers. A few yards up the bank in the deep shade, he might have discovered two unusual patches of color, one orange, the other red. The orange spot was a white girl’s jacket, the red a native girl’s dress. Had he explored still further he would have found that the two girls were resting from the heat of the day. And these girls, as you may have guessed, were Doris and Nieta. They had chosen to return home from the ancient fort by a new and little used trail. Midas had not liked the plan. He had shown his displeasure by using a snail-like pace and by offering to eat every tree and bush that grew beside the trail.
At last, quite worn out by her constant flogging of the obstinate donkey Doris had given in to his whims and had allowed him to wander as he willed while she and Nieta rested.
“You can’t lose a donkey,” she had said to Nieta. “Not completely. He’ll always find his way home. And he has nothing on his back but empty hampers.”
They had been sitting there for some time dreamily gazing at the wavering patterns of sunlight and shadows woven on the mossy earth or looking up into the treetops when Doris gave a sudden start. Her eye had caught a peculiar gleam of white light.
“What can it be?” she asked herself. “There is nothing about a palm tree to reflect light that way.”
She puzzled about this for some time. Then, since her keen eyes did not succeed in detecting the cause, she fell to wondering about Midas who had disappeared down the trail. “If he’s gone home by himself it will be a blessing,” she told herself.
“There are no lions and tigers to fear here. There are some very terrible snakes and lizards five feet long and wild hogs with tusks like razor blades, but they’re not likely to trouble us. We—” She broke short off to stare. Once more in the midst of dense foliage she had caught that white flash of light. So white! So intense! Like the flash that comes from a mirror, only sharper and brighter. She caught her breath. There it was again. Here it was, there. Now, like a glimmering ghost, it was gone.
“Quick as lightning.” She glanced through the leafy branches to the sky. Pale blue the sky was, not a cloud. She had suspected lightning. “But no,” she told herself, “it’s four hours before shower-time.” Showers come with a convenient regularity in Haiti.