The Adventures of Captain Horn Part 27

The officers held a consultation as to what was to be done, and they very quickly arrived at a decision. To remain at anchor, to send a boat on sh.o.r.e to look for the missing negro, would be dangerous and useless.

Inquiries about the deserter would provoke inquiries about the brig, and if Inkspot really wished to run away from the vessel, it would take a long time to find him and bring him back. The right course was quite plain to every one. Having finished the business which brought them there, they must up anchor and sail away as soon as possible. As for the loss of the man, they must bear that as well as they could. Whether he had been drowned, eaten by a shark, or had safely reached the sh.o.r.e, he was certainly lost to them.

At the best, their crew had been small enough, but six men had sailed a brig, and six men could do it again.

So the anchor was weighed, the sails were set, and before a northeast wind the _Miranda_ went out to sea as gayly as the nature of her build permitted, which is not saying much. It was a good wind, however, and when the log had been thrown, the captain remarked that the brig was making better time than she had made since they left Acapulco.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

A HORSE-DEALER APPEARS ON THE SCENE

When the brig _Miranda_ was lying at anchor in the Rackbirds' cove, and Mr. George Burke had silently left her in order to go on sh.o.r.e and pursue some investigations in which he was interested, his departure from the brig had not been, as he supposed, unnoticed. The big, good-natured African, known as Inkspot, had been on watch, and, being himself so very black that he was not generally noticeable in the dark, was standing on a part of the deck from which, without being noticed himself, he saw a person get over the taffrail and slip into the water. He knew this person to be the second mate, and having a high respect and some fear of his superiors, he did not consider it his business to interfere with him. He saw a head above the water, moving toward the sh.o.r.e, but it soon disappeared in the darkness. Toward the end of his watch, he had seen Mr.

Burke climb up the vessel's side as silently as he had gone down it, and disappear below.

When Inkspot went to his hammock, which he did very shortly afterwards, he reflected to the best of his ability upon what he had seen. Why did Mr. Burke slip away from the s.h.i.+p so silently, and come back in the same way? He must have gone ash.o.r.e, and why did he want no one to know that he had gone? He must have gone to do something he ought not to do, and Inkspot could think of nothing wrong that Mr. Burke would like to do, except to drink whiskey. Captain Horn was very particular about using spirits on board, and perhaps Mr. Burke liked whiskey, and could not get it. Inkspot knew about the storehouse of the Rackbirds, but he did not know what it had contained, or what had been left there. Maka had said something about the whiskey having been poured out on the sand, but that might have been said just to keep people away from the place. If there were no whiskey there, why did Mr. Burke go on sh.o.r.e?

Now, it so happened that Inkspot knew a good deal about whiskey. Before he had gone into the service of the Rackbirds, he had, at different times, been drunk, and he had the liveliest and most pleasant recollections of these experiences. It had been a long time since he had had enough whiskey to make him feel happy. This had probably been the case with Mr. Burke, and he had gone on sh.o.r.e, and most likely had had some very happy hours, and had come back without any one knowing where he had gone. The consequence of this train of thought was that Inkspot determined that he would go on sh.o.r.e, the next night, and hunt for whiskey. He could do it quite as well as Mr. Burke had done it, perhaps even better. But the _Miranda_ did not remain in the cove the next night, and poor Inkspot looked with longing eyes upon the slowly departing spot on the sands where he knew the Rackbirds' storehouse was located.

The days and nights went on, and in the course of time the _Miranda_ anch.o.r.ed in the harbor of Valparaiso; and, when this happened, Inkspot determined that now would be his chance to go on sh.o.r.e and get a good drink of whiskey--he had money enough for that. He could see the lights of El Puerto, or the Old Town, glittering and beckoning, and they did not appear to be very far off. It would be nothing for him to swim as far as that.

Inkspot went off his watch at midnight, and he went into the water at fifty minutes to one. He wore nothing but a dark-gray s.h.i.+rt and a pair of thin trousers, and if any one had seen his head and shoulders, it is not likely, unless a good light had been turned on them, that they would have been supposed to be portions of a human form.

Inkspot was very much at home in the water, and he could swim like a dog or a deer. But it was a long, long swim to those glittering and beckoning lights. At last, however, he reached a pier, and having rested himself on the timbers under it, he cautiously climbed to the top. The pier was deserted, and he walked to the end of it, and entered the town.

He knew nothing of Valparaiso, except that it was a large city where sailors went, and he was quite sure he could find a shop where they sold whiskey. Then he would have a gla.s.s--perhaps two--perhaps three--after which he would return to the brig, as Mr. Burke had done. Of course, he would have to do much more swimming than had been necessary for the second mate, but then, he believed himself to be a better swimmer than that gentleman, and he expected to get back a great deal easier than he came, because the whiskey would make him strong and happy, and he could play with the waves.

Inkspot did find a shop, and a dirty one it was--but they sold whiskey inside, and that was enough for him. With the exception of Maka, he was the most intelligent negro among the captain's crew, and he had picked up some words of English and some of Spanish. But it was difficult for him to express an idea with these words. Among these words, however, was one which he p.r.o.nounced better than any of the others, and which had always been understood whenever he used it,--whether in English or Spanish, no matter what the nationality might be of the person addressed,--and that word was "whiskey."

Inkspot had one gla.s.s, and then another, a third, and a fourth, and then his money gave out--at least, the man who kept the shop insisted, in words that any one could understand, that the silver the big negro had fished out of his dripping pockets would pay for no more drinks. But Inkspot had had enough to make him happy. His heart was warm, and his clothes were getting drier. He went out into the glorious night. It was dark and windy, and the sky was cloudy, but to him all things were glorious. He sat down on the pavement in the cosey corner of two walls, and there he slept luxuriously until a policeman came along and arrested him for being drunk in the street.

It was two days before Inkspot got out of the hands of the police. Then he was discharged because the authorities did not desire to further trouble themselves with a stupid fellow who could give no account of himself, and had probably wandered from a vessel in port. The first thing he did was to go out to the water's edge and look out over the harbor, but although he saw many s.h.i.+ps, his sharp eyes told him that not one of them was the brig he had left.

After an hour or two of wandering up and down the waterside, he became sure that there was no vessel in that harbor waiting for him to swim to her. Then he became equally certain that he was very hungry. It was not long, however, before a good, strong negro like Inkspot found employment.

It was not necessary for him to speak very much Spanish, or any other language, to get a job at carrying things up a gang-plank, and, in pay for this labor, he willingly took whatever was given him.

That night, with very little money in his pocket, Inkspot entered a tavern, a low place, but not so low as the one he had patronized on his arrival in Valparaiso. He had had a meagre supper, and now possessed but money enough to pay for one gla.s.s of whiskey, and having procured this, he seated himself on a stool in a corner, determined to protract his enjoyment as long as possible. Where he would sleep that night he knew not, but it was not yet bedtime, and he did not concern himself with the question.

Near by, at a table, were seated four men, drinking, smoking, and talking. Two of these were sailors. Another, a tall, dark man with a large nose, thin at the bridge and somewhat crooked below, was dressed in very decent sh.o.r.e clothes, but had a maritime air about him, notwithstanding. The fourth man, as would have been evident to any one who understood Spanish, was a horse-dealer, and the conversation, when Inkspot entered the place, was entirely about horses. But Inkspot did not know this, as he understood so few of the words that he heard, and he would not have been interested if he had understood them. The horse-dealer was the princ.i.p.al spokesman, but he would have been a poor representative of the shrewdness of his cla.s.s, had he been trying to sell horses to sailors. He was endeavoring to do nothing of the kind. These men were his friends, and he was speaking to them, not of the good qualities of his animals, but of the credulous natures of his customers.

To ill.u.s.trate this, he drew from his pocket a small object which he had received a few days before for some horses which might possibly be worth their keep, although he would not be willing to guarantee this to any one at the table. The little object which he placed on the table was a piece of gold about two inches long, and shaped like an irregular prism.

This, he said, he had received in trade from a man in Santiago, who had recently come down from Lima. The man had bought it from a jeweller, who had others, and who said he understood they had come from California. The jeweller had owed the man money, and the latter had taken this, not as a curiosity, for it was not much of a curiosity, as they could all see, but because the jeweller told him exactly how much it was worth, and because it was safer than money to carry, and could be changed into current coin in any part of the world. The point of the horse-dealer's remarks was, however, the fact that not only had he sold his horses to the man from Lima for very much more than they were worth, but he had made him believe that this lump of gold was not worth as much as he had been led to suppose, that the jeweller bad cheated him, and that Californian gold was not easily disposed of in Chili or Peru, for it was of a very inferior quality to the gold of South America. So he had made his trade, and also a profit, not only on the animals he delivered, but on the pay he received. He had had the little lump weighed and tested, and knew exactly how much it was worth.

When the horse-dealer had finished this pleasant tale, he laughed loudly, and the three other men laughed also because they had keen wits and appreciated a good story of real life. But their laughter was changed to astonishment--almost fright--when a big black negro bounded out of a dark corner and stood by the table, one outstretched ebony finger pointing to the piece of gold. Instantly the horse dealer s.n.a.t.c.hed his treasure and thrust it into his pocket, and almost at the same moment each man sprung to his feet and put his hand on his favorite weapon. But the negro made no attempt to s.n.a.t.c.h the gold, nor did there seem to be any reason to apprehend an attack from him. He stood slapping his thighs with his hands, his mouth in a wide grin, and his eyes sparkling in apparent delight.

"What is the matter with you?" shouted the horse-dealer. "What do you want?"

Inkspot did not understand what had been said to him, nor could he have told what he wanted, for he did not know. At that moment he knew nothing, he comprehended nothing, but he felt as a stranger in a foreign land would feel should he hear some words in his native tongue. The sight of that piece of gold had given to Inkspot, by one quick flash, a view of his negro friends and companions, of Captain Horn and his two white men, of the brig he had left, of the hammock in which he had slept--of all, in fact, that he now cared for on earth.

He had seen pieces of gold like that. Before all the treasure had been carried from the caves to the _Miranda_, the supply of coffee-bags had given out, and during the last days of the loading it had been necessary to tie up the gold in pieces of sail-cloth, after the fas.h.i.+on of a wayfarer's bundle. Before these had been put on board, their fastening had been carefully examined, and some of them had been opened and retied.

Thus all the negroes had seen the little bars, for, as they knew the bags contained gold, there was no need of concealing from them the shape and size of the contents.

So, when, sitting in his gloomy corner, his spirits slowly rising under the influence of his refreshment, which he had just finished, he saw before him an object which recalled to him the life and friends of which he had bereft himself, Inkspot's nature took entire possession of him, and he bounded to the table in ecstatic recognition of the bit of metal.

The men now swore at Inkspot, but as they saw he was unarmed, and not inclined to violence, they were not afraid of him, but they wondered at him. The horse-dealer took the piece of gold out of his pocket and held it in his hand.

"Did you ever see anything like that before?" he asked. He was a shrewd man, the horse-dealer, and really wanted to know what was the matter with the negro.

Inkspot did not answer, but jabbered in African.

"Try him in English," suggested the thin-nosed man, and this the horse-dealer did.

Many of the English words Inkspot understood. He had seen things like that. Yes, yes! Great heaps! Heaps! Bags! Bags! He carried them! Throwing an imaginary package over his shoulder, he staggered under it across the floor. Heaps! Piles! Bags! Days and days and days he carried many bags!

Then, in a state of exalted mental action, produced by his recollections and his whiskey, he suddenly conceived a scorn for a man who prized so highly just one of these lumps, and who was nearly frightened out of his wits if a person merely pointed to it. He shrugged his shoulders, he spread out the palms of his hands toward the piece of gold, he turned away his head and walked off sniffing. Then he came back and pointed to it, and, saying "One!" he laughed, and then he said "One!" and laughed again. Suddenly he became possessed with a new idea. His contemptuous manner dropped from him, and in eager excitement he leaned forward and exclaimed:

"Cap' 'Or?"

The four men looked at each other and at him in wonder, and asked what, in the name of his satanic majesty, the fellow was driving at. This apparent question, now repeated over and over again in turn to each of them, they did not understand at all. But they could comprehend that the negro had carried bags of lumps like that. This was very interesting.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE "ARATO"

The subject of the labors of an African Hercules, mythical as these labors might be, was so interesting to the four men who had been drinking and smoking in the tavern, that they determined to pursue it as far as their ignorance of the African's language, and his ignorance of English and Spanish, would permit. In the first place, they made him sit down with them, and offered him something to drink. It was not whiskey, but Inkspot liked it very much, and felt all sorts of good effects from it.

In fact, it gave him a power of expressing himself by gestures and single words in a manner wonderful. After a time, the men gave him something to eat, for they imagined he might be hungry, and this also helped him very much, and his heart went out to these new friends. Then he had a little more to drink, but only a little, for the horse-dealer and the thin-nosed man, who superintended the entertainment, were very sagacious, and did not want him to drink too much.

In the course of an hour, these four men, listening and watching keenly and earnestly, had become convinced that this black man had been on a s.h.i.+p which carried bags of gold similar to the rude prism possessed by the horse-dealer, that he had left that vessel for the purpose of obtaining refreshments on sh.o.r.e and had not been able to get back to it, thereby indicating that the vessel had not stopped long at the place where he had left it, and which place must have been, of course, Valparaiso. Moreover, they found out to their full satisfaction where that vessel was going to; for Maka had talked a great deal about Paris, which he p.r.o.nounced in English fas.h.i.+on, where Cheditafa and Mok were, and the negroes had looked forward to this unknown spot as a heavenly port, and Inkspot could p.r.o.nounce the word "Paris" almost as plainly as if it were a drink to which he was accustomed.

But where the vessel was loaded with the gold, they could not find out.

No grimace that Inkspot could make, nor word that he could say, gave them an idea worth dwelling upon. He said some words which made them believe that the vessel had cleared from Acapulco, but it was foolish to suppose that any vessel had been loaded there with bags of gold carried on men's shoulders. The s.h.i.+p most probably came from California, and had touched at the Mexican port. And she was now bound for Paris. That was natural enough. Paris was a very good place to which to take gold. Moreover, she had probably touched at some South American port, Callao perhaps, and this was the way the little pieces of gold had been brought into the country, the Californians probably having changed them for stores.

The words "Cap' 'Or," often repeated by the negro, and always in a questioning tone, puzzled them very much. They gave up its solution, and went to work to try to make out the name of the vessel upon which the bags had been loaded. But here Inkspot could not help them. They could not make him understand what it was they wanted him to say. At last, the horse-dealer proposed to the others, who, he said, knew more about such things than he did, that they should repeat the name of every sailing-vessel on that coast of which they had ever heard--for Inkspot had made them understand that his s.h.i.+p had sails, and no steam. This they did, and presently one of the sailors mentioned the name _Miranda_, which belonged to a brig he knew of which plied on the coast. At this, Inkspot sprang to his feet and clapped his hands.

_"Miran'a! Miran'a.'"_ he cried. And then followed the words, "Cap' 'Or!

Cap' 'Or!" in eagerly excited tones.

Suddenly the thin-nosed man, whom the others called Cardatas, leaned forward.

"Cap'n Horn?" said he.

Inkspot clapped his hands again, and exclaimed:

"Ay, ay! Cap' 'Or! Cap' 'Or!"

He shouted the words so loudly that the barkeeper, at the other end of the room, called out gruffly that they'd better keep quiet, or they would have somebody coming in.