Part 33 (1/2)
”I don't know anything better to do with him,” said he to shi+rley and Burke, ”than to put him ashore at the Falkland Islands We don't want to take him to France, for ould not knohat to do with hiot him there, and, as likely as not, he would swear a lot of lies against us as soon as he got on shore We can run within a league of Stanley harbor, and then, if the weather is good enough, we can put hi to eat and drink, and let hih to support himself until he can procure work”
”But suppose there is a s that would send her after us He ot our treasure, but he could say we had stolen a Chilian vessel”
”I had thought of that,” said the captain, ”but nothing such a vagrant as he is could say ought to give any cruiser the right to interfere with us e are sailing under the Ao to France, nobody shall say that I stole a vessel, for, if the owners of the _Arato_ can be found, they shall be well paid for what use we have made of their schooner I'll send her back to Valparaiso and let her be claimed”
”It is a ticklish business,” said Burke, ”but I don't knohat else can be done It is a great pity I didn't knoas going to surrender e had that fight”
They had been in the Straits less than a hen Inkspot drea and vivid that they awakened hi the cause which had produced thehted and quiet forecastle was per his eyes froht to left, in his endeavors to understand this unusual odor of luxury, Inkspot perceived theon the other side of the forecastle, with a bottle in one hand and a cork in the other, and, as he looked, Garta raised the bottle to his reatly disliked this man He had been one of the felloho had ill-treated hireed with his fellow-blacks that the scoundrel should have been shot
But now his feelings began to undergo a change A el ofof beneficence, and if he would share with a craving fellow-being his rare good fortune, why should not all feelings of disapprobation be set aside? Inkspot could see no reason why they should not be, and softly slipping from his hammock, he approached Garta
”Give me Give me, just little,” he whispered
Garta turned with a half-suppressed oath, and seeing who the suppliant was, he seized the bottle in his left hand, and with his right struck poor Inkspot a blow in the face Without a word the negro stepped back, and then Garta put the bottle into a high, narrow opening in the side of the forecastle, and closed a little door upon it, which fastened with a snap This little locker, just large enough to hold one bottle, had been made by one of the for spirits, and was very ingeniously contrived Its door was a portion of the side of the forecastle, and a keyhole was concealed behind a removable knot Garta had not opened the locker before, for the reason that he had been unable to find the key He knew it had been concealed in the forecastle, but it had taken hi tied Going over to the haain ensconced hiro and whispered:
”If you ever say a word of that bottle to anybody, I'll put a knife into you! No matter what they do to me, I'll settle with you”
Inkspot did not understand all this, but he kneas a threat, and he well understood the language of a blow in the face After a while he went to sleep, but, if he sain the odor of the contents of the bottle, he had no more heavenly dreams
The next day Captain Horn found hi to the Chilian government This was the first port he had approached since he had taken command of the _Arato_, but he felt no desire nor need to touch at it In fact, the vicinity of Punta Arenas seemed of no importance whatever, until shi+rley came to him and reported that the man Garta was nowhere to be found Captain Horn immediately ordered a search and inquiry to be made, but no traces of the prisoner could be discovered, nor could anybody tell anything about him
Burke and Inkspot had been on watch with hiive no infor him No splash nor cries for help had been heard, so that he could not have fallen overboard, and it was generally believed that, when he knew himself to be in the vicinity of a settlement, he had quietly slipped into the water and had swuested that most likely he had formerly been a resident of the place, and liked it better than being taken off to unknown regions in the schooner And shi+rley considered this very probable, for he said the man had always looked like a convict to hione, and there was no one to say how long he had been gone So, under full sail, the _Arato_ went on her way It was a relief to get rid of the prisoner, and the only harht report that his shi+p had been stolen by the ht be sent in pursuit of the _Arato_, and, if this should be the case, the situation would be aard But days passed on, the schooner sailed out of the Straits, and no vessel was seen pursuing her
To the northeast Captain Horn set his course He would not stop at Rio Janeiro, for the _Arato_ had no papers for that port He would not lie to off Stanley harbor, for he had now nobody to send ashore But he would sail boldly for France, where he would o was merely ballast He was known at Marseilles He had business relations with bankers in Paris He was a Californian and an A to France a vessel freighted with gold, which, by the aid of his financial advisers, would be legitiht, before the _Arato_ reached the Falkland Islands, Maka, as on watch, heard a queer sound in the forecastle, and looking down the co lantern, ato force the blade of it into the side of the vessel Maka quickly perceived that the , he quietly watched him Inkspot worked with as little noise as possible, but he was evidently bent upon forcing off one of the boards on the side of the forecastle At first Maka thought that his fellow-African was trying to sink the shi+p by opening a seam, but he soon realized that this notion was absurd, and so he let Inkspot go on, being very curious to knohat he was doing In a few h to waken a sound sleeper, a little door flew open, and almost immediately Inkspot held a bottle in his hand
Maka slipped swiftly and softly to the side of the big negro, but he was not quick enough Inkspot had the neck of the bottle in his h in the air But, before Maka could seize him by the arm, the bottle had come down from its elevated position, and a doleful expression crept over the face of Inkspot There had been scarcely a teaspoonful of liquor left in the bottle Inkspot looked at Maka, and Maka looked at him In an African whisper, the forro to put the bottle back, to shut up the locker, and then to get into his hao to sleep as quickly as he could, for if Mr shi+rley, as on watch on deck, found out what he had been doing, Inkspot would wish he had never been born
The next day, when they had an opportunity for an African conversation, Inkspot assured his country the whiskey through the boards, and that, having no key, he had determined to force it open with a hatchet Maka could not help thinking that Inkspot had a wonderful nose for an empty bottle, and could scarcely restrain froht have happened had the bottle been full But he did not report the occurrence Inkspot was a fellow-African, and he had barely escaped punishment for his former misdeed It would be better to keep his ainst the north winds, before the south winds, and on the winds froh foul, the _Arato_ sailed up the South Atlantic It was a long, long voyage, but the schooner was skilfully navigated and sailed well So between Europe and South A away froreen hull could scarcely be distinguished from the color of the waves And why should not the captain of this humble little vessel so three-master or a steamer:
”What would they think if they knew that, if I chose to do it, I could buy every shi+p, and its cargo, that I shall meet between here and Gibraltar!”
”Captain,” said shi+rley, one day, ”what do you think about the right and wrong of this?”
”What do you mean?” asked Captain Horn
”I old we have on board We've had pretty easy ti, and soht to clap all this treasure into bags and sail aith it”
”So you have stopped thinking the bags are all filled with anthracite coal,” said the captain
”Yes,” said the other ”We are getting on toward the end of this voyage, and it is about tiine, when I ao ashore, and if I have any real right to so very different frooing on a spree,” said Burke, as standing near ”That would be soht,” said the captain, ”that you both understood this business, but I don't ain There is no doubt in ed to the Incas, who then owned Peru, and they put it into that mound to keep it from the Spaniards, whose descendants non Peru, and who rule it without ard to the descendants of the ancient Peruvians Nohen I discovered the gold, and began to have an idea of how valuable the find was, I knew that the first thing to do was to get it out of that place and away from the country Whatever is to be done in the way of fair play and fair division must be done soovernone directly into the hands of the descendants of the people froinal owners did their very best to keep it, and nobody else would have had a dollar's worth of it
If we had stood up for our rights to a reward for finding it, ten to one ould all have been clapped into prison”