CHAPTER XXXVI
A HORSE-DEALER APPEARS ON THE SCENE
When the brig _Miranda_ was lying at anchor in the Rackbirds' cove, andMr. George Burke had silently left her in order to go on shore and pursuesome investigations in which he was interested, his departure from thebrig had not been, as he supposed, unnoticed. The big, good-naturedAfrican, known as Inkspot, had been on watch, and, being himself so veryblack that he was not generally noticeable in the dark, was standing on apart of the deck from which, without being noticed himself, he saw aperson get over the taffrail and slip into the water. He knew this personto be the second mate, and having a high respect and some fear of hissuperiors, he did not consider it his business to interfere with him. Hesaw a head above the water, moving toward the shore, but it soondisappeared 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, anddisappear 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 didMr. Burke slip away from the ship so silently, and come back in the sameway? He must have gone ashore, and why did he want no one to know that hehad gone? He must have gone to do something he ought not to do, andInkspot could think of nothing wrong that Mr. Burke would like to do,except to drink whiskey. Captain Horn was very particular about usingspirits on board, and perhaps Mr. Burke liked whiskey, and could not getit. Inkspot knew about the storehouse of the Rackbirds, but he did notknow what it had contained, or what had been left there. Maka had saidsomething about the whiskey having been poured out on the sand, but thatmight have been said just to keep people away from the place. If therewere no whiskey there, why did Mr. Burke go on shore?
Now, it so happened that Inkspot knew a good deal about whiskey. Beforehe had gone into the service of the Rackbirds, he had, at differenttimes, been drunk, and he had the liveliest and most pleasantrecollections of these experiences. It had been a long time since he hadhad enough whiskey to make him feel happy. This had probably been thecase with Mr. Burke, and he had gone on shore, and most likely had hadsome very happy hours, and had come back without any one knowing where hehad gone. The consequence of this train of thought was that Inkspotdetermined that he would go on shore, the next night, and hunt forwhiskey. He could do it quite as well as Mr. Burke had done it, perhapseven better. But the _Miranda_ did not remain in the cove the next night,and poor Inkspot looked with longing eyes upon the slowly departing spoton the sands where he knew the Rackbirds' storehouse was located.
The days and nights went on, and in the course of time the _Miranda_anchored in the harbor of Valparaiso; and, when this happened, Inkspotdetermined that now would be his chance to go on shore and get a gooddrink of whiskey--he had money enough for that. He could see the lightsof El Puerto, or the Old Town, glittering and beckoning, and they didnot appear to be very far off. It would be nothing for him to swim asfar as that.
Inkspot went off his watch at midnight, and he went into the water atfifty minutes to one. He wore nothing but a dark-gray shirt and a pair ofthin trousers, and if any one had seen his head and shoulders, it is notlikely, unless a good light had been turned on them, that they would havebeen supposed to be portions of a human form.
Inkspot was very much at home in the water, and he could swim like a dogor a deer. But it was a long, long swim to those glittering andbeckoning lights. At last, however, he reached a pier, and having restedhimself on the timbers under it, he cautiously climbed to the top. Thepier 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 wheresailors went, and he was quite sure he could find a shop where they soldwhiskey. Then he would have a glass--perhaps two--perhaps three--afterwhich he would return to the brig, as Mr. Burke had done. Of course, hewould have to do much more swimming than had been necessary for thesecond mate, but then, he believed himself to be a better swimmer thanthat gentleman, and he expected to get back a great deal easier than hecame, because the whiskey would make him strong and happy, and he couldplay with the waves.
Inkspot did find a shop, and a dirty one it was--but they sold whiskeyinside, and that was enough for him. With the exception of Maka, he wasthe most intelligent negro among the captain's crew, and he had picked upsome words of English and some of Spanish. But it was difficult for himto express an idea with these words. Among these words, however, was onewhich he pronounced better than any of the others, and which had alwaysbeen understood whenever he used it,--whether in English or Spanish, nomatter what the nationality might be of the person addressed,--and thatword was "whiskey."
Inkspot had one glass, and then another, a third, and a fourth, and thenhis money gave out--at least, the man who kept the shop insisted, inwords that any one could understand, that the silver the big negro hadfished out of his dripping pockets would pay for no more drinks. ButInkspot had had enough to make him happy. His heart was warm, and hisclothes were getting drier. He went out into the glorious night. It wasdark and windy, and the sky was cloudy, but to him all things wereglorious. He sat down on the pavement in the cosey corner of two walls,and there he slept luxuriously until a policeman came along and arrestedhim for being drunk in the street.
It was two days before Inkspot got out of the hands of the police. Thenhe was discharged because the authorities did not desire to furthertrouble themselves with a stupid fellow who could give no account ofhimself, and had probably wandered from a vessel in port. The firstthing he did was to go out to the water's edge and look out over theharbor, but although he saw many ships, his sharp eyes told him that notone of them was the brig he had left.
After an hour or two of wandering up and down the waterside, he becamesure that there was no vessel in that harbor waiting for him to swim toher. Then he became equally certain that he was very hungry. It was notlong, however, before a good, strong negro like Inkspot found employment.It was not necessary for him to speak very much Spanish, or any otherlanguage, to get a job at carrying things up a gang-plank, and, in payfor this labor, he willingly took whatever was given him.
That night, with very little money in his pocket, Inkspot entered atavern, a low place, but not so low as the one he had patronized on hisarrival in Valparaiso. He had had a meagre supper, and now possessedbut money enough to pay for one glass of whiskey, and having procuredthis, he seated himself on a stool in a corner, determined to protracthis enjoyment as long as possible. Where he would sleep that night heknew not, but it was not yet bedtime, and he did not concern himselfwith the question.
Near by, at a table, were seated four men, drinking, smoking, andtalking. Two of these were sailors. Another, a tall, dark man with alarge nose, thin at the bridge and somewhat crooked below, was dressed invery decent shore clothes, but had a maritime air about him,notwithstanding. The fourth man, as would have been evident to any onewho understood Spanish, was a horse-dealer, and the conversation, whenInkspot entered the place, was entirely about horses. But Inkspot didnot know this, as he understood so few of the words that he heard, and hewould not have been interested if he had understood them. Thehorse-dealer was the principal spokesman, but he would have been a poorrepresentative of the shrewdness of his class, had he been trying to sellhorses to sailors. He was endeavoring to do nothing of the kind. Thesemen were his friends, and he was speaking to them, not of the goodqualities of his animals, but of the credulous natures of his customers.To illustrate this, he drew from his pocket a small object which he hadreceived a few days before for some horses which might possibly be worththeir keep, although he would not be willing to guarantee this to any oneat the table. The little object which he placed on the table was a pieceof 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 hadrecently come down from Lima. The man had bought it from a jeweller, whohad others, and who said he understood they had come from California. Thejeweller had owed the m
an money, and the latter had taken this, not as acuriosity, for it was not much of a curiosity, as they could all see, butbecause the jeweller told him exactly how much it was worth, and becauseit was safer than money to carry, and could be changed into current coinin 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 fromLima for very much more than they were worth, but he had made him believethat this lump of gold was not worth as much as he had been led tosuppose, that the jeweller bad cheated him, and that Californian goldwas not easily disposed of in Chili or Peru, for it was of a veryinferior 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 payhe received. He had had the little lump weighed and tested, and knewexactly how much it was worth.
When the horse-dealer had finished this pleasant tale, he laughedloudly, and the three other men laughed also because they had keen witsand appreciated a good story of real life. But their laughter waschanged to astonishment--almost fright--when a big black negro boundedout of a dark corner and stood by the table, one outstretched ebonyfinger pointing to the piece of gold. Instantly the horse dealersnatched his treasure and thrust it into his pocket, and almost at thesame moment each man sprung to his feet and put his hand on his favoriteweapon. But the negro made no attempt to snatch the gold, nor did thereseem to be any reason to apprehend an attack from him. He stood slappinghis thighs with his hands, his mouth in a wide grin, and his eyessparkling in apparent delight.
"What is the matter with you?" shouted the horse-dealer. "What doyou want?"
Inkspot did not understand what had been said to him, nor could he havetold 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 landwould feel should he hear some words in his native tongue. The sight ofthat piece of gold had given to Inkspot, by one quick flash, a view ofhis 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, infact, that he now cared for on earth.
He had seen pieces of gold like that. Before all the treasure had beencarried from the caves to the _Miranda_, the supply of coffee-bags hadgiven out, and during the last days of the loading it had been necessaryto tie up the gold in pieces of sail-cloth, after the fashion of awayfarer's bundle. Before these had been put on board, their fasteninghad 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 bagscontained gold, there was no need of concealing from them the shape andsize of the contents.
So, when, sitting in his gloomy corner, his spirits slowly rising underthe influence of his refreshment, which he had just finished, he sawbefore him an object which recalled to him the life and friends of whichhe 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 notinclined to violence, they were not afraid of him, but they wondered athim. The horse-dealer took the piece of gold out of his pocket and heldit in his hand.
"Did you ever see anything like that before?" he asked. He was a shrewdman, the horse-dealer, and really wanted to know what was the matter withthe negro.
Inkspot did not answer, but jabbered in African.
"Try him in English," suggested the thin-nosed man, and this thehorse-dealer did.
Many of the English words Inkspot understood. He had seen things likethat. Yes, yes! Great heaps! Heaps! Bags! Bags! He carried them! Throwingan imaginary package over his shoulder, he staggered under it across thefloor. Heaps! Piles! Bags! Days and days and days he carried many bags!Then, in a state of exalted mental action, produced by his recollectionsand his whiskey, he suddenly conceived a scorn for a man who prized sohighly just one of these lumps, and who was nearly frightened out of hiswits if a person merely pointed to it. He shrugged his shoulders, hespread out the palms of his hands toward the piece of gold, he turnedaway his head and walked off sniffing. Then he came back and pointed toit, and, saying "One!" he laughed, and then he said "One!" and laughedagain. Suddenly he became possessed with a new idea. His contemptuousmanner dropped from him, and in eager excitement he leaned forward andexclaimed:
"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. Thisapparent question, now repeated over and over again in turn to each ofthem, they did not understand at all. But they could comprehend that thenegro had carried bags of lumps like that. This was very interesting.