The Rope of Gold

Night was settling down over the mountain side. Already the valleys farbelow were lost in darkness. The massive fortress which the dwellers onthe island of Haiti have always called the Citadel hung like a mountaincliff above a boy who, hot from climbing, had thrown himself on a bed ofmoss at the foot of a gnarled mahogany tree."Whew!" he exclaimed softly to himself. "Even three thousand feet abovethe sea here in Haiti it's hot. Hot and dry. Fellow'd think--"He broke short off to stare. A curious thing was happening. Out from asmall dark opening some forty feet up the perpendicular wall of themassive abandoned fortification, something quite indistinct in thetwilight had moved and was creeping slowly down the moss-grown wall."Like a snake," he told himself, "only, here in Haiti, there are nosnakes to speak of and certainly not one as long as that. Only look! It'sdown to the window below; a full twenty feet."That window--" He caught his breath, then began to count. "One, two,three, four,--"That's the window of Curlie's 'laburatory' as he calls it. It--why, it'sa plot! I should warn him. It--"