Millot, in the faint moonlight, revealed itself as a small village, nestling under high mountains. Signs of former greatness were visible in the old gates which flanked the opening into its main street, but the greater part of the houses were thatched huts. When at the very entrance of the village, there came a ringing challenge, "Halt! Who goes there?" "A visitor to the General," was Manuel's answer. The barefoot sentry, whose uniform consisted of a forage cap, a coat with one sleeve torn off and a pair of frayed trousers, but whose rifle was of the most up-to-date pattern, was at once joined by several others, not more splendidly arrayed than himself. As with one voice, they declared that the general could not be disturbed, but the Cuban carried matters with a high hand. Dismounting, he ordered one of the sentries to precede him and announce his coming, and bade Stuart see that the horses were well looked after and ready for travel in the morning, "or his back should have a taste of the whip." This phrase, while it only increased the enmity the soldiers felt toward the "white," had the effect of removing all suspicion from Stuart, which, as the lad guessed, was the reason for Manuel's threat. Feeling sure that the boy would have the same animosity to his master that they felt, the soldiers seized the opportunity to while away the monotonous hours of their duty in talk. "What does he want, this 'white'?" they asked, suspiciously. "Like all whites," answered Stuart, striving to talk in the character of the negro horse-boy, "he wants something he has no right to have." "And what is that?" "Information. He says he is a military strategist, and is going to make La Ferriere, up there, a modern fort." "He will never get there," said one of the soldiers. "You think not?" "It is sure that he will not get there. Permission is refused always, Yes. The General is afraid lest a 'white' should find the buried money." "Christophe's treasure?" queried the boy, innocently. He had never heard of this treasure before, but rightly guessed that if it were supposed to be hidden in the Citadel of the Black Emperor, it must have been placed there by no one but the grim old tyrant himself. "But surely. Yes. You, in the south"--Stuart had volunteered the information that he came from the southern part of the island--"have you not heard the story of Dimanche (Sunday) Esnan?" "I never heard it, No," Stuart answered.