Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/268

  "The day after our arrival in New York we sailed for Hayti by the Dutch mail. By this time I had grown to know them quite well. A very decent fellow, Fouchère; different from the average educated Haytian—but, then, he was of quite a higher type. On parting at Port-au-Prince he made me promise to visit them before I left the island."

Leyden paused and shifted his position, leaning back against an awning stanchion and hooking the fingers of one hand over the bolt-rope above his head. The night had darkened, for a heavy cloud-bank had drifted across to shroud that part of the sky where the late moon would rise. It welded to itself the dim, broken outline of the mountain-tops and gave to the sable contour of the land the sinister aspect of looming almost to the zenith—and all the while from somewhere just beneath the surface came the hollow, rhythmic beat of the bamboula.

"Enough to drive one loi," muttered Leyden. [ 252 ]