CHAPTER XLII
INKSPOT HAS A DREAM OF HEAVEN
The next day the work of loading the _Arato_ with the bags of gold wasbegun, and it was a much slower and more difficult business than theunloading of the _Miranda_, for the schooner lay much farther out fromthe beach. But there were two men more than on the former occasion, andthe captain did not push the work. There was no need now forextraordinary haste, and although they all labored steadily, regularhours of work and rest were adhered to. The men had carried so many bagsfilled with hard and uneven lumps that the shoulders of some of them weretender, and they had to use cushions of canvas under their loads. But theboats went backward and forward, and the bags were hoisted on board andlowered into the hold, and the wall of gold grew smaller and smaller.
"Captain," said Burke, one day, as they were standing by a pile of bagswaiting for the boat to come ashore, "do you think it is worth it! ByGeorge! we have loaded and unloaded these blessed bags all down thewestern coast of South America, and if we've got to unload and load themall up the east coast, I say, let's take what we really need, and leavethe rest."
"I've been at the business a good deal longer than you have," said thecaptain, "and I'm not tired of it yet. When I took away my first cargo,you must remember that I carried each bag on my own shoulders, and ittook me more than a month to do it, and even all that is only a drop inthe bucket compared to what most men who call themselves rich have to dobefore they make their money."
"All right," said Burke, "I'll stop growling. But look here, captain.How much do you suppose one of these bags is worth, and how many arethere in all? I don't want to be inquisitive, but it would be a sort ofcomfort to know."
"No, it wouldn't," said the captain, quickly. "It would be anything elsebut a comfort. I know how many bags there are, but as to what they areworth, I don't know, and I don't want to know. I once set aboutcalculating it, but I didn't get very far with the figures. I need all mywits to get through with this business, and I don't think anything wouldbe more likely to scatter them than calculating what this gold is worth.It would be a good deal better for you--and for me, too--to consider, asShirley does, that these bags are all filled with good, clean, anthracitecoal. That won't keep us from sleeping."
"Shirley be hanged!" said Burke, "He and you may be able to do that, butI can't. I've got a pretty strong mind, and if you were to tell me thatwhen we get to port, and you discharge this crew, I can walk off with allthe gold eagles or twenty-franc pieces I can carry, I think I could standit without losing my mind."
"All right," said the captain, "If we get this vessel safely to France,I will give you a good chance to try your nerves."
Day by day the work went on, and at last the _Arato_ took the place ofthe _Miranda_ as a modern _Argo_.
During the reembarkation of the treasure, the captain, as well as Shirleyand Burke, had kept a sharp eye on Garta. The two mates were afraid hemight run away, but, had he done so, the captain would not have regrettedit very much. He would gladly have parted with one of the bags in orderto get rid of this encumbrance. But the prisoner had no idea of runningaway. He knew that the bags were filled with treasure, but as he couldnow do nothing with any of it that he might steal, he did not try tosteal any. If he had thoughts of the kind, he knew this was no time fordishonest operation. He had always been a hardworking sailor, with a goodappetite, and he worked hard now, and ate well.
The _Miranda's_ stores had not been injured by water, and when they hadbeen put on board, the _Arato_ was well fitted out for a long voyage.Leaving the _Miranda_ on the beach, with nothing in her of much value,the _Arato_, which had cleared for Callao, and afterwards set out on awild piratical cruise, now made a third start, and set sail for a voyageto France. They had good weather and tolerably fair winds, and beforethey entered the Straits of Magellan the captain had formulated a planfor the disposition of Garta.
"I don't know anything better to do with him," said he to Shirley andBurke, "than to put him ashore at the Falkland Islands. We don't want totake him to France, for we would not know what to do with him after wegot him there, and, as likely as not, he would swear a lot of liesagainst us as soon as he got on shore. We can run within a league ofStanley harbor, and then, if the weather is good enough, we can put himin a boat, with something to eat and drink, and let him row himself intoport. We can give him money enough to support himself until he canprocure work."
"But suppose there is a man-of-war in there," said Shirley, "he might saythings that would send her after us. He might not know where to say wegot 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 ashe is could say ought to give any cruiser the right to interfere with uswhen we are sailing under the American flag. And when I go 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 theirschooner. I'll send her back to Valparaiso and let her be claimed."
"It is a ticklish business," said Burke, "but I don't know what else canbe done. It is a great pity I didn't know he was going to surrender whenwe had that fight."
They had been in the Straits less than a week when Inkspot dreamed hewas in heaven. His ecstatic visions became so strong and vivid that theyawakened him, when he was not long in discovering the cause which hadproduced them. The dimly lighted and quiet forecastle was permeated by adelightful smell of spirituous liquor. Turning his eyes from right toleft, in his endeavors to understand this unusual odor of luxury,Inkspot perceived the man Garta standing on the other side of theforecastle, with a bottle in one hand and a cork in the other, and, ashe looked, Garta raised the bottle to his mouth, threw back his head,and drank.
Inkspot greatly disliked this man. He had been one of the fellows who hadill-treated him when the _Arato_ sailed under Cardatas, and he fullyagreed with his fellow-blacks that the scoundrel should have been shot.But now his feelings began to undergo a change. A man with a bottle ofspirits might prove to be an angel of mercy, a being of beneficence, andif he would share with a craving fellow-being his rare good fortune, whyshould not all feelings of disapprobation be set aside? Inkspot could seeno 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 suppliantwas, he seized the bottle in his left hand, and with his right struckpoor 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 ofthe forecastle, and closed a little door upon it, which fastened with asnap. This little locker, just large enough to hold one bottle, had beenmade by one of the former crew of the _Arato_ solely for the purpose ofconcealing spirits, and was very ingeniously contrived. Its door was aportion of the side of the forecastle, and a keyhole was concealed behinda removable knot. Garta had not opened the locker before, for the reasonthat he had been unable to find the key. He knew it had been concealedin the forecastle, but it had taken him a long time to find it. Now hissecret was discovered, and he was enraged. Going over to the hammock,where Inkspot had again ensconced himself, he leaned over the negro andwhispered:
"If you ever say a word of that bottle to anybody, I'll put a knife intoyou! No matter what they do to me, I'll settle with you."
Inkspot did not understand all this, but he knew it was a threat, and hewell understood the language of a blow in the face. After a while he wentto sleep, but, if he smelt again the odor of the contents of the bottle,he had no more heavenly dreams.
The next day Captain Horn found himself off the convict settlement ofPunta Arenas, belonging to the Chilian government. This was the firstport he had approached since he had taken command of the _Arato_, but hefelt no desire nor need to touch at it. In fact, the vicinity of PuntaArenas seemed of no importance whatever, until Shirley came to him andreported that the man Garta was nowhere to be foun
d. Captain Hornimmediately ordered a search and inquiry to be made, but no traces of theprisoner could be discovered, nor could anybody tell anything about him.Burke and Inkspot had been on watch with him from four to eight, but theycould give no information whatever concerning him. No splash nor criesfor help had been heard, so that he could not have fallen overboard, andit was generally believed that, when he knew himself to be in thevicinity of a settlement, he had quietly slipped into the water and hadswum for Punta Arenas. Burke suggested that most likely he had formerlybeen a resident of the place, and liked it better than being taken offto unknown regions in the schooner. And Shirley considered this veryprobable, for he said the man had always looked like a convict to him.
At all events, Garta was gone, and there was no one to say how long hehad been gone. So, under full sail, the _Arato_ went on her way. It was arelief to get rid of the prisoner, and the only harm which could come ofhis disappearance was that he might report that his ship had been stolenby the men who were sailing her, and that some sort of a vessel might besent in pursuit of the _Arato_, and, if this should be the case, thesituation would be awkward. But days passed on, the schooner sailed outof the Straits, and no vessel was seen pursuing her.
To the northeast Captain Horn set his course. He would not stop at RioJaneiro, for the _Arato_ had no papers for that port. He would not lie tooff Stanley harbor, for he had now nobody to send ashore. But he wouldsail boldly for France, where he would make no pretensions that hisauriferous cargo was merely ballast. He was known at Marseilles. He hadbusiness relations with bankers in Paris. He was a Californian and anAmerican citizen, and he would merely be bringing to France a vesselfreighted with gold, which, by the aid of his financial advisers, wouldbe legitimately cared for and disposed of.
One night, before the _Arato_ reached the Falkland Islands, Maka, who wason watch, heard a queer sound in the forecastle, and looking down thecompanionway, he saw, by the dim light of the swinging lantern, a manwith a hatchet, endeavoring to force the blade of it into the side of thevessel. Maka quickly perceived that the man was Inkspot, and as he couldnot imagine what he was doing, he quietly watched him. Inkspot workedwith as little noise as possible, but he was evidently bent upon forcingoff one of the boards on the side of the forecastle. At first Makathought that his fellow-African was trying to sink the ship by opening aseam, but he soon realized that this notion was absurd, and so he letInkspot go on, being very curious to know what he was doing. In a fewminutes he knew. With a slight noise, not enough to waken a soundsleeper, a little door flew open, and almost immediately Inkspot held abottle in his hand.
Maka slipped swiftly and softly to the side of the big negro, but he wasnot quick enough. Inkspot had the neck of the bottle in his mouth and thebottom raised high in the air. But, before Maka could seize him by thearm, the bottle had come down from its elevated position, and a dolefulexpression crept over the face of Inkspot. There had been scarcely ateaspoonful of liquor left in the bottle. Inkspot looked at Maka, andMaka looked at him. In an African whisper, the former now ordered thedisappointed negro to put the bottle back, to shut up the locker, andthen to get into his hammock and go to sleep as quickly as he could, forif Mr. Shirley, who was on watch on deck, found out what he had beendoing, Inkspot would wish he had never been born.
The next day, when they had an opportunity for an African conversation,Inkspot assured his countryman that he had discovered the little lockerby smelling the whiskey through the boards, and that, having no key, hehad determined to force it open with a hatchet. Maka could not helpthinking that Inkspot had a wonderful nose for an empty bottle, andcould scarcely restrain from a shudder at the thought of what mighthave happened had the bottle been full. But he did not report theoccurrence. Inkspot was a fellow-African, and he had barely escapedpunishment for his former misdeed. It would be better to keep his mouthshut, and he did.
Against the north winds, before the south winds, and on the winds fromthe east and the west, through fair weather and through foul, the _Arato_sailed up the South Atlantic. It was a long, long voyage, but theschooner was skilfully navigated and sailed well. Sometimes she sightedgreat merchant-steamers plying between Europe and South America,freighted with rich cargoes, and proudly steaming away from the littleschooner, whose dark-green hull could scarcely be distinguished from thecolor of the waves. And why should not the captain of this humble littlevessel sometimes have said to himself, as he passed a big three-master ora steamer:
"What would they think if they knew that, if I chose to do it, I couldbuy every ship, and its cargo, that I shall meet between here andGibraltar!"
"Captain," said Shirley, one day, "what do you think about the right andwrong of this?"
"What do you mean?" asked Captain Horn.
"I mean," replied Shirley, "taking away the gold we have on board. We'vehad pretty easy times lately, and I've been doing a good deal ofthinking, and sometimes I have wondered where we got the right to clapall this treasure into bags and sail away with it."
"So you have stopped thinking the bags are all filled with anthracitecoal," said the captain.
"Yes," said the other. "We are getting on toward the end of this voyage,and it is about time to give up that fancy. I always imagine, when I amnear the end of a voyage, what I am going to do when I go ashore, and ifI have any real right to some of the gold down under our decks, I shalldo something very different from anything I ever did before."
"I hope you don't mean going on a spree," said Burke, who was standingnear. "That would be something entirely different."
"I thought," said the captain, "that you both understood this business,but I don't mind going over it again. There is no doubt in my mind thatthis gold originally belonged to the Incas, who then owned Peru, and theyput it into that mound to keep it from the Spaniards, whose descendantsnow own Peru, and who rule it without much regard to the descendants ofthe ancient Peruvians. Now, when I discovered the gold, and began to havean idea of how valuable the find was, I knew that the first thing to dowas to get it out of that place and away from the country. Whatever is tobe done in the way of fair play and fair division must be done somewhereelse, and not there. If I had informed the government of what I hadfound, this gold would have gone directly into the hands of thedescendants of the people from whom its original owners did their verybest 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 onewe would all have been clapped into prison."
"I suppose by that," said Burke, "that you looked upon the stone mound inthe cave as a sort of will left by those old Peruvians, and you madeyourself an executor to carry out the intentions of the testators, asthe lawyers say."
"But we can set it down as dead certain," interrupted Shirley, "that thetestators didn't mean us to have it."
"No," said the captain, "nor do I mean that we shall have all of it. Iintend to have the question of the ownership of this gold decided bypeople who are able and competent to decide such a question, and who willbe fair and honest to all parties. But whatever is agreed upon, andwhatever is done with the treasure, I intend to charge a good price--aprice which shall bear a handsome proportion to the value of thegold--for my services, and all our services. Some of this charge I havealready taken, and I intend to have a great deal more. We have workedhard and risked much to get this treasure--"
"Yes," thought Burke, as he remembered the trap at the bottom of themound. "You risked a great deal more than you ever supposed you did."
"And we are bound to be well paid for it," continued the captain. "Nomatter where this gold goes, I shall have a good share of it, and this Iam going to divide among our party, according to a fair scale. How doesthat strike you, Shirley?"
"If the business is going to be conducted as you say, captain," repliedthe first mate, "I say it will be all fair and square, and I needn'tbother my head with any more doubts about it. But there is one thing Iwish you would tell me: how much do you think I will be likely to ge
t outof this cargo, when you divide?"
"Mr. Shirley," said the captain, "when I give you your share of thiscargo, you can have about four bags of anthracite coal, weighing a littleover one hundred pounds, which, at the rate of six dollars a ton, wouldbring you between thirty and forty cents. Will that satisfy you? Ofcourse, this is only a rough guess at a division, but I want to see howit falls in with your ideas."
Shirley laughed. "I guess you're right, captain," said he. "It will bebetter for me to keep on thinking we are carrying coal. That won'tbother my head."
"That's so," said Burke. "Your brain can't stand that sort of badger. I'dhate to go ashore with you at Marseilles with your pocket full and yourskull empty. As for me, I can stand it first-rate. I have already builttwo houses on Cape Cod,--in my head, of course,--and I'll be hanged if Iknow which one I am going to live in and which one I am going to put mymother in."
The Adventures of Captain Horn Page 42