A quaint old rogue, who called himself Rabaya, the Mystic, was one of
the many extraordinary characters of that odd corner of San Francisco
known as the Latin Quarter. His business was the selling of charms and
amulets, and his generally harmless practices received an impressive
aspect from his Hindu parentage, his great age, his small, wizened
frame, his deeply wrinkled face, his outlandish dress, and the barbaric
fittings of his den.
One of his most constant customers was James Freeman, the
half-piratical owner and skipper of the "Blue Crane." This queer little
barkentine, of light tonnage but wonderful sailing qualities, is
remembered in every port between Sitka and Callao. All sorts of strange
stories are told of her exploits, but these mostly were manufactured by
superstitious and highly imaginative sailors, who commonly demonstrate
the natural affinity existing between idleness and lying. It has been
said not only that she engaged in smuggling, piracy, and "blackbirding"
(which is kidnapping Gilbert Islanders and selling them to the
coffee-planters of Central America), but that she maintained special
relations with Satan, founded on the power of mysterious charms which
her skipper was supposed to have procured from some mysterious source
and was known to employ on occasion. Beyond the information which his
manifests and clearance papers divulged, nothing of his supposed shady
operations could be learned either from him or his crew; for his
sailors, like him, were a strangely silent lot--all sharp, keen-eyed
young fellows who never drank and who kept to themselves when in port.
An uncommon circumstance was that there were never any vacancies in the
crew, except one that happened as the result of Freeman's last visit to
Rabaya, and it came about in the following remarkable manner:
Freeman, like most other men who follow the sea, was superstitious, and
he ascribed his fair luck to the charms which he secretly procured from
Rabaya. It is now known that he visited the mystic whenever he came to
the port of San Francisco, and there are some to-day who believe that
Rabaya had an interest in the supposed buccaneering enterprises of the
"Blue Crane."
Among the most intelligent and active of the "Blue Crane's" crew was a
Malay known to his mates as the Flying Devil. This had come to him by
reason of his extraordinary agility. No monkey could have been more
active than he in the rigging; he could make flying leaps with
astonishing ease. He could not have been more than twenty-five years
old, but he had the shrivelled appearance of an old man, and was small
and lean. His face was smooth-shaved and wrinkled, his eyes deep-set
and intensely black and brilliant. His mouth was his most forbidding
feature. It was large, and the thin lips were drawn tightly over large
and protruding teeth, its aspect being prognathous and menacing.
Although quiet and not given to laughter, at times he would smile, and
then the expression of his face was such as to give even Freeman a
sensation of impending danger.
It was never clearly known what was the real mission of the "Blue
Crane" when she sailed the last time from San Francisco. Some supposed
that she intended to loot a sunken vessel of her treasure; others that
the enterprise was one of simple piracy, involving the killing of the
crew and the scuttling of the ship in mid-ocean; others that a certain
large consignment of opium, for which the customs authorities were on
the lookout, was likely about to be smuggled into some port of Puget
Sound. In any event, the business ahead must have been important, for
it is now known that in order to ensure its success Freeman bought an
uncommonly expensive and potent charm from Rabaya.
When Freeman went to buy this charm he failed to notice that the Flying
Devil was slyly following him; neither he nor the half-blind
charm-seller observed the Malay slip into Rabaya's den and witness the
matter that there went forward. The intruder must have heard something
that stirred every evil instinct in him. Rabaya (whom I could hardly be
persuaded to believe under oath) years afterwards told me that the
charm which he sold to Freeman was one of extraordinary virtue. For
many generations it had been in the family of one of India's proudest
rajahs, and until it was stolen the arms of England could not prevail
over that part of the far East. If borne by a person of lofty character
(as he solemnly informed me he believed Freeman to be) it would never
fail to bring the highest good fortune; for, although the amulet was
laden with evil powers as well as good, a worthy person could resist
the evil and employ only the good. Contrariwise, the amulet in the
hands of an evil person would be a most potent and dangerous engine of
harm.
It was a small and very old trinket, made of copper and representing a
serpent twined grotesquely about a human heart; through the heart a
dagger was thrust, and the loop for holding the suspending string was
formed by one of the coils of the snake. The charm had a wonderful
history, which must be reserved for a future story; the sum of it being
that as it had been as often in the hands of bad men as of good, it had
wrought as many calamities as blessings. It was perfectly safe and
useful--so Rabaya soberly told me--in the hands of such a man as
Freeman.
Now, as no one knows the soundings and breadth of his own wickedness,
the Flying Devil (who, Rabaya explained, must have overheard the
conversation attending its transference to Freeman) reflected only that
if he could secure possession of the charm his fortune would be made;
as he could not procure it by other means, he must steal it. Moreover,
he must have seen the price--five thousand dollars in gold--which
Freeman paid for the trinket; and that alone was sufficient to move the
Malay's cupidity. At all events, it is known that he set himself to
steal the charm and desert from the barkentine.
From this point on to the catastrophe my information is somewhat hazy.
I cannot say, for instance, just how the theft was committed, but it is
certain that Freeman was not aware of it until a considerable time had
passed. What did concern him particularly was the absence of the Malay
when the barkentine was weighing anchor and giving a line for a tow out
to sea. The Malay was a valuable sailor; to replace him adequately was
clearly so impossible a task that Freeman decided, after a profitless
and delaying search of hours, to leave port without him or another in
his place. It was with a heavy heart, somewhat lightened by a confident
assumption that the amulet was safe in his possession, that Freeman
headed down the channel for the Golden Gate.
Meanwhile, the Flying Devil was having strange adventures. In a hastily
arranged disguise, the principal feature of which was a gentleman's
street dress, in which he might pass careless scrutiny as a thrifty
Japanese awkwardly trying to adapt himself to the customs of his
environment, he emerged from a water-front lodging-house of the poorer
sort, and ascended leisurely to the summit of Telegraph Hill, in order
to make a careful survey of the city from that prominent height; for it
was needful that he know how best to escape. From that alluring
eminence he saw not only a great part of the city, but also nearly the
whole of the bay of San Francisco and the shores, towns, and mountains
lying beyond. His first particular attention was given to the "Blue
Crane," upon which he looked nearly straight down as she rolled gently
at her moorings at the foot of Lombard Street. Two miles to the west he
saw the trees which conceal the soldiers' barracks, and the commanding
general's residence on the high promontory known as Black Point, and
these invited him to seek concealment in their shadows until the advent
of night would enable him to work his way down the peninsula of San
Francisco to the distant blue mountains of San Mateo. Surmising that
Freeman would make a search for him, and that it would be confined to
the docks and their near vicinity, he imagined that it would not be a
difficult matter to escape.
After getting his bearings the Malay was in the act of descending the
hill by its northern flank, when he observed a stranger leaning against
the parapet crowning the hill. The man seemed to be watching him. Not
reflecting that his somewhat singular appearance might have accounted
for the scrutiny, his suspicions were roused; he feared, albeit
wrongly, that he was followed, for the stranger had come up soon after
him. Assuming an air of indifference, he strolled about until he was
very near the stranger, and then with the swiftness and ferocity of a
tiger he sprang and slipped a knife-blade between the man's ribs. The
stranger sank with a groan, and the Malay fled down the hill.
It was a curious circumstance that the man fell in front of one of the
openings which neglect had permitted the rains to wash underneath the
parapet. He floundered as some dying men will, and these movements
caused him to work his body through the opening. That done, he started
rolling down the steep eastern declivity, the speed of his flight
increasing with every bound. Many cottages are perched precariously on
this precipitous slope. Mrs. Armour, a resident of one of them, was
sitting in a rear room near the window, sewing, when she was amazed to
see a man flying through the sash close beside her. He came with so
great violence that he tore through a thin partition into an adjoining
room and landed in a shapeless heap against the opposite wall. Mrs.
Armour screamed for help. A great commotion ensued, but it was some
time before the flight of the body was connected with a murder on the
parapet. Nevertheless, the police were active, and presently a dozen of
them were upon the broad trail which the murderer had left in his
flight down the hill.
In a short time the Malay found himself in the lumber-piles of the
northern water-front. Thence, after gathering himself together, he
walked leisurely westward in the rear of the wire-works, and traversed
a little sand-beach where mothers and nurses had children out for an
airing. The desperate spirit of perversity which possessed the man (and
which Rabaya afterwards explained by the possession of the amulet),
made reckless by a belief that the charm which he carried would
preserve him from all menaces, led him to steal a small hand-satchel
that lay on the beach near a well-dressed woman. He walked away with
it, and then opened it and was rejoiced to find that it contained some
money and fine jewelry. At this juncture one of the children, who had
observed the Malay's theft, called the woman's attention to him. She
started in pursuit, raising a loud outcry, which emptied the adjacent
drinking-saloons of a pursuing crowd.
The Malay leaped forward with ample ability to outstrip all his
pursuers, but just as he arrived in front of a large swimming
establishment a bullet from a policeman's pistol brought him to his
knees. The crowd quickly pressed around him. The criminal staggered to
his feet, made a fierce dash at a man who stood in his way, and sank a
good knife into his body. Then he bounded away, fled swiftly past a
narrow beach where swimming-clubs have their houses, and disappeared in
the ruins of a large old building that lay at the foot of a sandy bluff
on the water's edge. He was trailed a short distance within the ruins
by a thin stream of blood which he left, and there he was lost. It was
supposed that he had escaped to the old woollen-mill on Black Point.
As in all other cases where a mob pursues a fleeing criminal, the
search was wild and disorderly, so that if the Malay had left any trail
beyond the ruins it would have been obliterated by trampling feet. Only
one policeman was in the crowd, but others, summoned by telephone, were
rapidly approaching from all directions. Unintelligent and
contradictory rumors bewildered the police for a time, but they formed
a long picket line covering an arc which stretched from North Beach to
the new gas-works far beyond Black Point.
It was about this time that Captain Freeman cast off and started out to
sea.
The summit of Black Point is crowned with the tall eucalyptus-trees
which the Flying Devil had seen from Telegraph Hill. A high fence,
which encloses the general's house, extends along the bluff of Black
Point, near the edge. A sentry paced in front of the gate to the
grounds, keeping out all who had not provided themselves with a pass.
The sentry had seen the crowd gathering towards the east, and in the
distance he noticed the brass buttons of the police glistening in the
western sunlight. He wondered what could be afoot.
While he was thus engaged he observed a small, dark, wiry man emerging
upon the bluff from the direction of the woollen-mill at its eastern
base. The stranger made straight for the gate.
"You can't go in there," said the soldier, "unless you have a pass."
"Da w'at?" asked the stranger.
"A pass," repeated the sentry; and then, seeing that the man was a
foreigner and imperfectly acquainted with English, he made signs to
explain his remark, still carrying his bayonet-tipped rifle at
shoulder-arms. The stranger, whose sharp gleam of eye gave the soldier
an odd sensation, nodded and smiled.
"Oh!" said he; "I have."
He thrust his hand into his side-pocket, advancing meanwhile, and
sending a swift glance about. In the next moment the soldier found
himself sinking to the ground with an open jugular.
The Malay slipped within the grounds and disappeared in the shrubbery.
It was nearly an hour afterwards that the soldier's body was
discovered, and, the crowd of police and citizens arriving, it became
known to the garrison that the desperate criminal was immediately at
hand. The bugle sounded and the soldiers came tumbling out of barracks.
Then began a search of every corner of the post.
It is likely that a feeling of relief came to many a stout heart when
it was announced that the man had escaped by water, and was now being
swiftly carried down the channel towards the Golden Gate by the ebb
tide. He was clearly seen in a small boat, keeping such a course as was
possible by means of a rude board in place of oars. His escape had
occurred thus: Upon entering the grounds he ran along the eastern
fence, behind the shrubbery, to a transverse fence separating the
garden from the rear premises. He leaped the fence, and then found
himself face to face with a large and formidable mastiff. He killed the
brute in a strange and bold manner--by choking. There was evidence of a
long and fearful struggle between man and brute. The apparent reason
for the man's failure to use the knife was the first necessity of
choking the dog into silence and the subsequent need of employing both
hands to maintain that advantage.
After disposing of the dog the Flying Devil, wounded though he was,
performed a feat worthy of his _sobriquet_; he leaped the rear fence.
At the foot of the bluff he found a boat chained to a post sunk into
the sand. There was no way to release the boat except by digging up the
post. This the Malay did with his hands for tools, and then threw the
post into the boat, and pushed off with a board that he found on the
beach. Then he swung out into the tide, and it was some minutes
afterwards that he was discovered from the fort; and then he was so far
away, and there was so much doubt of his identity, that the gunners
hesitated for a time to fire upon him. Then two dramatic things
occurred.
Meeting the drifting boat was a heavy bank of fog which was rolling in
through the Golden Gate. The murderer was heading straight for it,
paddling vigorously with the tide. If once the fog should enfold him he
would be lost in the Pacific or killed on the rocks almost beyond a
peradventure, and yet he was heading for such a fate with all the
strength that he possessed. This was what first convinced his pursuers
that he was the man whom they sought--none other would have pursued so
desperate a course. At the same time a marine glass brought conviction,
and the order was given to open fire.
A six-pound brass cannon roared, and splinters flew from the boat; but
its occupant, with tantalizing bravado, rose and waved his hand
defiantly. The six-pounder then sent out a percussion shell, and just
as the frail boat was entering the fog it was blown into a thousand
fragments. Some of the observers swore positively that they saw the
Malay floundering in the water a moment after the boat was destroyed
and before he was engulfed by the fog, but this was deemed incredible.
In a short time the order of the post had been restored and the police
had taken themselves away.
The other dramatic occurrence must remain largely a matter of surmise,
but only because the evidence is so strange.
The great steel gun employed at the fort to announce the setting of the
sun thrust its black muzzle into the fog. Had it been fired with shot
or shell its missile would have struck the hills on the opposite side
of the channel. But the gun was never so loaded; blank cartridges were
sufficient for its function. The bore of the piece was of so generous a
diameter that a child or small man might have crept into it had such a
feat ever been thought of or dared.
There are three circumstances indicating that the fleeing man escaped
alive from the wreck of his boat, and that he made a safe landing in
the fog on the treacherous rocks at the foot of the bluff crowned by
the guns. The first of these was suggested by the gunner who fired the
piece that day, two or three hours after the destruction of the fleeing
man's boat; and even that would have received no attention under
ordinary circumstances, and, in fact, did receive none at all until
long afterwards, when Rabaya reported that he had been visited by
Freeman, who told him of the two other strange circumstances. The
gunner related that when he fired the cannon that day he discovered
that it recoiled in a most unaccountable manner, as though it had been
loaded with something in addition to a blank cartridge. But he had
loaded the gun himself, and was positive that he had placed no shot in
the barrel. At that time he was utterly unable to account for the
recoil.
The second strange occurrence came to my knowledge through Rabaya.
Freeman told him that as he was towing out to sea that afternoon he
encountered a heavy fog immediately after turning from the bay into the
channel. The tow-boat had to proceed very slowly. When his vessel had
arrived at a point opposite Black Point he heard the sunset gun, and
immediately afterwards strange particles began to fall upon the
barkentine, which was exactly in the vertical plane of the gun's range.
He had sailed many waters and had seen many kinds of showers, but this
was different from all others. Fragments of a sticky substance fell all
over the deck, and clung to the sails and spars where they touched
them. They seemed to be finely shredded flesh, mixed with particles of
shattered bone, with a strip of cloth here and there; and the particles
that looked like flesh were of a blackish red and smelled of powder.
The visitation gave the skipper and his crew a "creepy" sensation, and
awed them somewhat--in short, they were depressed by the strange
circumstance to such an extent that Captain Freeman had to employ stern
measures to keep down a mutiny, so fearful were the men of going to sea
under that terrible omen.
The third circumstance is equally singular. As Freeman was pacing the
deck and talking reassuringly to his crew his foot struck a small,
grimy, metallic object lying on the deck. He picked it up and
discovered that it, too, bore the odor of burned powder. When he had
cleaned it he was amazed to discover that it was the amulet which he
had bought that very day from Rabaya. He could not believe it was the
same until he had made a search and found that it had been stolen from
his pocket.
It needs only to be added that the Flying Devil was never seen
afterwards.
* * * * *
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