This square chin was aggressively thrust forward now, as the boy looked into the night. There was trouble in the air. He felt it. Deeper down than the disturbed feelings produced by the tom-tom, he sensed a prescience of evil on its way. When, therefore, a figure emerged from the forest into the clearing, and Stuart saw that this figure was not his father, but that of a negro, the boy stiffened himself. "You--Stuart?" the newcomer queried. "Yes," replied the boy, "that's my name." The negro hardly hesitated. He walked on, though Stuart was full in the doorway, jostled him aside roughly, and entered. This attitude toward the white man, unheard of anywhere else, is common in up-country Haiti, where, for a century, the black man has ruled, and where the white man is hated and despised. A hard stone-like gleam came into Stuart's eyes, but even his mounting rage did not blind him to the fact that the negro was twice his size and three times as muscular. Nor did he forget that Hippolyte was in the hut, and, in any case of trouble, the two blacks would combine against him. The negro who had pushed him aside paid no further attention to the boy, but entered into a rapid-fire conversation with Hippolyte. Stuart could follow the Haitian French dialect quite well, but there were so many half-hidden allusions in the speech of the two men that it was easy for him to see that they were both members of some secret band. The intruder was evidently in some authority over Hippolyte, for he concluded: "Everything is well, Yes. Do with the boy, as was arranged." So saying, he cast a look at Stuart, grinned evilly, and left the hut. The boy watched him until his powerful figure was lost to view in the forest. Then he turned to Hippolyte. "What does all this mean!" he demanded, as authoritatively as he could. For a moment Hippolyte did not answer. He looked at the boy with a reflection of the same evil grin with which the other had favored the white boy. A quick choke came into the boy's throat at the change in the negro's manner. He was in Hippolyte's power, and he knew it. But he showed never a quiver of fear as he faced the negro. "What does it all mean?" he repeated. "It is that you know Manuel Polliovo?" Stuart knew the name well. His father had mentioned it as that of a conspirator who was in some way active in a West Indian plot. "I have heard of him," the boy answered. "Manuel--he send a message, Yes. He say--Tell Stuart he must go away from Haiti, at once. His father gone already." "What does that mean!" exclaimed Stuart. The first words of the warning had frightened him, but, with the knowledge that his father was in danger, the fighting self of him rose to the surface, and his fear passed. "How?" returned the negro, not understanding. "That my father has gone already?" Hippolyte shrugged his shoulders with that exaggeration of the French shrug common in the islands.