Plotting in Pirate Seas

The tom-tom throbbed menacingly through the heavy dark of the Haitian night. Under its monotonous and maddening beat, Stuart Garfield moved restlessly. Why had his father not come back? What mystery lay behind? Often though the boy had visited the island, he had never been able to escape a sensation of fear at that summons of the devotees of Voodoo. Tonight, with the mysterious disappearance of his father weighing heavily on his spirits, the roll of the black goatskin drum seemed to mock him.