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 shore 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 shore, 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 ship so silently, and come back in the same
way? He must have gone ashore, 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 shore?
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 shore, 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 shore, 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_
anchored in the harbor of Valparaiso; and, when this happened, Inkspot
determined that now would be his chance to go on shore 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 shirt 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 glass--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 pronounced 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 glass, 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 ships, 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 glass 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 shore 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 principal spokesman, but he would have been a poor
representative of the shrewdness of his class, 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 illustrate 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 had 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
snatched 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 snatch 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 fashion 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.