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CHAPTER XLVII. A MAN-CHIMPANZEE

Since the affair with the Rackbird, Cheditafa had done his duty more earnestly than ever before. He said nothing to Mok about the Rackbird. He had come to look upon his fellow-African as a very low creature, not much better than a chimpanzee. During Ralph’s absence Mok had fallen into all sorts of irregular habits, going out without leave whenever he got a chance, and disporting himself generally in a very careless and unservant-like manner.

On the evening that Ralph was expected from Brussels, Mok was missing. Cheditafa could not find him in any of the places where he ought to have been, so he must be out of doors somewhere, and Cheditafa went to look for him.

This was the first time that Cheditafa had gone into the streets alone at night since the Rackbird incident in the Tuileries Gardens. As he was the custodian of Mok, and responsible for him, he did not wish to lose sight of him, especially on this evening.

It so happened that when Cheditafa went out of the hotel, his appearance was noticed by Mr. Banker. There was nothing remarkable about this, for the evening was the time when the ex-Rackbird gave the most attention to the people who came out of the hotel. When he saw Cheditafa, his soul warmed within him. Here was the reward of patience and steadfastness — everything comes to those who wait.

A half-hour before, Banker had seen Mok leave the hotel and make his way toward the Black Cat. He did not molest the rapidly walking negro. He would not have disturbed him for anything. But his watchfulness became so eager and intense that he almost, but not quite, exposed himself to the suspicion of a passing gendarme. He now expected Cheditafa, for the reason that the manner of the younger negro indicated that he was playing truant. It was likely that the elder man would go after him, and this was exactly what happened.

Banker allowed the old African to go his way without molestation, for the brightly lighted neighborhood of the hotel was not adapted to his projected performance. But he followed him warily, and, when they reached a quiet street, Banker quickened his pace, passed Cheditafa, and, suddenly turning, confronted him. Then, without a word having been said, there flashed upon the mind of the African everything that had happened, not only in the Tuileries Gardens, but in the Rackbirds’ camp, and at the same time a prophetic feeling of what was about to happen.

By a few quick pulls and jerks, Banker had so far removed his disguise that Cheditafa knew him the instant that his eyes fell upon him. His knees trembled, his eyeballs rolled so that nothing but their whites could be seen, and he gave himself up to death. Then spoke out the terrible Rackbird.

What he said need not be recorded here, but every word of superheated vengeance, with which he wished to torture the soul of his victim before striking him to the earth, went straight to the soul of Cheditafa, as if it had been a white-hot iron. His chin fell upon his breast. He had but one hope, and that was that he would be killed quickly. He had seen people killed in the horrible old camp, and the man before him he believed to be the worst Rackbird of them all.

When Banker had finished stabbing and torturing the soul of the African, he drew a knife from under his coat, and down fell Cheditafa on his knees.

The evening was rainy and dark, and the little street was nearly deserted. Banker, who could look behind and before him without making much show of turning his head, had made himself sure of this before he stepped in front of Cheditafa. But while he had been pouring out his torrent of heart-shrivelling vituperation, he had ceased to look before and behind him, and had not noticed a man coming down the street in the opposite direction to that in which they had been going.

This was Mok, who was much less of a fool than Cheditafa took him for. He had calculated that he would have time to go to the Black Cat and drink two glasses of beer before Ralph was likely to appear, and he also made up his mind that two glasses were as much as he could dispose of without exciting the suspicions of the young man. Therefore, he had attended to the business that had taken him out of doors on that rainy night, and was returning to the hotel with a lofty consciousness of having done wrong in a very wise and satisfactory manner.

He wore india-rubber overshoes, because the pavements were wet, and also because this sort of foot-gear suited him better than hard, unyielding sole-leather. Had he had his own way, he would have gone bare-footed, but that would have created comment in the streets of Paris — he had sense enough to know that.

When he first perceived, by the dim light of a street lamp, two persons standing together on his side of the street, his conscience, without any reason for it, suggested that he cross over and pass by without attracting attention. To wrong-doers attention is generally unwelcome.

Mok not only trod with the softness and swiftness of a panther, but he had eyes like that animal, and if there were any light at all, those eyes could make good use of it. As he neared the two men, he saw that one was scolding the other. Then he saw the other man drop down on his knees. Then, being still nearer, he perceived that the man on his knees was Cheditafa. Then he saw the man in front of him draw a knife from under his coat.

As a rule, Mok was a coward, but two glasses of beer were enough to turn his nature in precisely the opposite direction. A glass less would have left him timorous, a glass more would have made him foolhardy and silly. He saw that somebody was about to stab his old friend. In five long, noiseless steps, or leaps, he was behind that somebody, and had seized the arm which held the knife.

With a movement as quick as the stroke of a rattlesnake, Banker turned upon the man who had clutched his arm, and when he saw that it was Mok, his fury grew tornado-like. With a great oath, and a powerful plunge backward, he endeavored to free his arm from the grasp of the negro. But he did not do it. Those black fingers were fastened around his wrist as though they had been fetters forged to fit him. And in the desperate struggle the knife was dropped.

In a hand-to-hand combat with a chimpanzee, a strong man would have but little chance of success, and Mok, under the influence of two glasses of beer, was a man-chimpanzee. When Banker swore, and when he turned so that the light of the street lamp fell upon his face, Mok recognized him. He knew him for a Rackbird of the Rackbirds — as the cruel, black-eyed savage who had beaten him, trodden upon him, and almost crushed the soul out of him, in that far-away camp by the sea. How this man should have suddenly appeared in Paris, why he came there, and what he was going to do, whether he was alone, or with his band concealed in the neighboring doorways, Mok did not trouble his mind to consider. He held in his brazen grip a creature whom he considered worse than the most devilish of African devils, a villain who had been going to kill Cheditafa.

Every nerve under his black skin, every muscle that covered his bones, and the two glasses of beer, sung out to him that the Rackbird could not get away from him, and that the great hour of vengeance had arrived.

Banker had a pistol, but he had no chance to draw it. The arms of the wild man were around him. His feet slipped from under him, and instantly the two were rolling on the wet pavement. But only for an instant. Banker was quick and light and strong to such a degree that no man but a man-chimpanzee could have overpowered him in a struggle like that. Both were on their feet almost as quickly as they went down, but do what he would, Banker could not get out his pistol.

Those long black arms, one of them now bared to the shoulder, were about him ever. He pulled, and tugged, and swerved. He half threw him one instant, half lifted the next, but never could loosen the grasp of that fierce creature, whose whole body seemed as tough and elastic as the shoes he wore.

Together they fell, together they rolled in the dirty slime, together they rose as if they had been shot up by a spring, and together they went down again, rolling over each other, pulling, tearing, striking, gasping, and panting.

Cheditafa had gone. The moment of Mok’s appearance, he had risen and fled. There were now people in the street. Some had come out of their houses, hearing the noise of the struggle, for Banker wore heavy shoes. There were also one or two pedestrians who had stopped, unwilling to pass men who were engaged in such a desperate conflict.

No one interfered. It would have seemed as prudent to step between two tigers. Such a bounding, whirling, tumbling, rolling, falling, and rising contest had never been seen in that street, except between cats. It seemed that the creatures would dash themselves through the windows of the houses.

It was not long before Cheditafa came back with two policemen, all running, and then the men who lay in the street, spinning about as if moving on pivots, were seized and pulled apart. At first the officers of the law appeared at a loss to know what had happened, and who had been attacked. What was this black creature from the Jardin des Plantes? But Banker’s coat had been torn from his back, and his pistol stood out in bold relief in his belt, and Cheditafa pointed to the breathless bandit, and screamed: “Bad man! Bad man! Try to kill me! This good Mok save my life!”

Two more policemen now came hurrying up, for other people had given the alarm, and it was not considered necessary to debate the question as to who was the aggressor in this desperate affair. Cheditafa, Mok, and Banker were all taken to the police station.

As Cheditafa was known to be in the service of the American lady at the Hotel Grenade, the portier of that establishment was sent for, and having given his testimony to the good character of the two negroes, they were released upon his becoming surety for their appearance when wanted.

As for Banker, there was no one to go security. He was committed for trial.

* * * * *

When Ralph went to his room, that night, he immediately rang for his valet. Mok, who had reached the hotel from the police station but a few minutes before, answered the summons. When Ralph turned about and beheld the black man, his hair plastered with mud, his face plastered with mud, and what clothes he had on muddy, torn, and awry, with one foot wearing a great overshoe and the other bare, with both black arms entirely denuded of sleeves, with eyes staring from his head, and his whole form quivering and shaking, the young man started as if some afrit of the “Arabian Nights” had come at this dark hour to answer his call.

To the eager questions which poured upon him when his identity became apparent, Mok could make no intelligible answer. He did not possess English enough for that. But Cheditafa was quickly summoned, and he explained everything. He explained it once, twice, three times, and then he and Mok were sent away, and told to go to bed, and under no circumstances to mention to their mistress what had happened, or to anybody who might mention it to her. And this Cheditafa solemnly promised for both.

The clock struck one as Ralph still sat in his chair, wondering what all this meant, and what might be expected to happen next. To hear that a real, live Rackbird was in Paris, that this outlaw had threatened his sister, that the police had been watching for him, that he had sworn to kill Cheditafa, and that night had tried to do it, amazed him beyond measure.

At last he gave up trying to conjecture what it meant. It was foolish to waste his thoughts in that way. To-morrow he must find out. He could understand very well why his sister had kept him in ignorance of the affair in the Gardens. She had feared danger to him. She knew that he would be after that scoundrel more hotly than any policeman. But what the poor girl must have suffered! It was terrible to think of.

The first thing he would do would be to take very good care that she heard nothing of the attack on Cheditafa. He would go to the police office early the next morning and look into this matter. He did not think that it would be necessary for Edna to know anything about it, except that the Rackbird had been arrested and she need no longer fear him.

When Ralph reached the police station, the next day, he found there the portier of the hotel, together with Cheditafa and Mok.

After Banker’s examination, to which he gave no assistance by admissions of any sort, he was remanded for trial, and he was held merely for his affair with the negroes, no charge having been made against him for his attempt to obtain money from their mistress, or his threats in her direction. As the crime for which he had been arrested gave reason enough for condign punishment of the desperado, Ralph saw, and made Cheditafa see, it would be unnecessary as well as unpleasant to drag Edna into the affair.

That afternoon Mr. Banker, who had recovered his breath and had collected his ideas, sent for the police magistrate and made a confession. He said he had been a member of a band of outlaws, but having grown disgusted with their evil deeds, had left them. He had become very poor, and having heard that the leader of the band had made a fortune by a successful piece of rascality, and had married a fine lady, and was then in Paris, he had come to this city to meet him, and to demand in the name of their old comradeship some assistance in his need. He had found his captain’s wife. She had basely deceived him after having promised to help him, and he had been insulted and vilely treated by that old negro, who was once a slave in the Rackbirds’ camp in Peru, and who had been brought here with the other negro by the captain. He also freely admitted that he had intended to punish the black fellow, though he had no idea whatever of killing him. If he had had such an idea, it would have been easy enough for him to put his knife into him when he met him in that quiet street. But he had not done so, but had contented himself with telling him what he thought of him, and with afterwards frightening him with his knife. And then the other fellow had come up, and there had been a fight. Therefore, although he admitted that his case was a great misdemeanor, and that he had been very disorderly, he boldly asserted that he had contemplated no murder. But what he wished particularly to say to the magistrate was that the captain of the Rackbirds would probably soon arrive in Paris, and that he ought to be arrested. No end of important results might come from such an arrest. He was quite sure that the great stroke of fortune which had enabled the captain’s family to live in Paris in such fine style ought to be investigated. The captain had never made any money by simple and straightforward methods of business.

All this voluntary testimony was carefully taken down, and although the magistrate did not consider it necessary to believe any of it, the arrival of Captain Horn was thenceforth awaited with interest by the police of Paris.

It was not very plain how Miss Markham of the Hotel Grenade, who was well known as a friend of a member of the American legation, could be the wife of a South American bandit. But then, there might be reasons why she wished to retain her maiden name for the present, and she might not know her husband as a bandit.

CHAPTER XLVIII. ENTER CAPTAIN HORN

It was less than a week after the tumbling match in the street between Banker and Mok, and about eleven o’clock in the morning, when a brief note, written on a slip of paper and accompanied by a card, was brought to Edna from Mrs. Cliff. On the card was written the name of Captain Philip Horn, and the note read thus:

“He is here. He sent his card to me. Of course, you will see him. Oh, Edna! don’t do anything foolish when you see him! Don’t go and throw away everything worth living for in this world! Heaven help you!”

This note was hurriedly written, but Edna read it at a glance.

“Bring the gentleman here,” she said to the man.

Now, with all her heart, Edna blessed herself and thanked herself that, at last, she had been strong enough and brave enough to determine what she ought to do when she met the captain. That very morning, lying awake in her bed, she had determined that she would meet him in the same spirit as that in which he had written to her. She would be very strong. She would not assume anything. She would not accept the responsibility of deciding the situation, which responsibility she believed he thought it right she should assume. She would not have it. If he appeared before her as the Captain Horn of his letters, he should go away as the man who had written those letters. If he had come here on business, she would show him that she was a woman of business.

As she stood waiting, with her eyes upon his card, which lay upon the table, and Mrs. Cliffs note crumpled up in one hand, she saw the captain for some minutes before it was possible for him to reach her. She saw him on board the Castor, a tall, broad-shouldered sailor, with his hands in the pockets of his pea-jacket. She saw him by the caves in Peru, his flannel shirt and his belted trousers faded by the sun and water, torn and worn, and stained by the soil on which they so often sat, with his long hair and beard, and the battered felt hat, which was the last thing she saw as his boat faded away in the distance, when she stood watching it from the sandy beach. She saw him as she had imagined him after she had received his letter, toiling barefooted along the sands, carrying heavy loads upon his shoulders, living alone night and day on a dreary desert coast, weary, perhaps haggard, but still indomitable. She saw him in storm, in shipwreck, in battle, and as she looked upon him thus with the eyes of her brain, there were footsteps outside her door.

As Captain Horn came through the long corridors and up the stairs, following the attendant, he saw the woman he was about to meet, and saw her before he met her. He saw her only in one aspect — that of a tall, too thin, young woman, clad in a dark-blue flannel suit, unshapely, streaked, and stained, her hair bound tightly round her head and covered by an old straw hat with a faded ribbon. This picture of her as he had left her standing on the beach, at the close of that afternoon when his little boat pulled out into the Pacific, was as clear and distinct as when he had last seen it.

A door was opened before him, and he entered Edna’s salon. For a moment he stopped in the doorway. He did not see the woman he had come to meet. He saw before him a lady handsomely and richly dressed in a Parisian morning costume — a lady with waving masses of dark hair above a lovely face, a lady with a beautiful white hand, which was half raised as he appeared in the doorway.

She stood with her hand half raised. She had never seen the man before her. He was a tall, imposing gentleman, in a dark suit, over which he wore a light-colored overcoat. One hand was gloved, and in the other he held a hat. His slightly curling brown beard and hair were trimmed after the fashion of the day, and his face, though darkened by the sun, showed no trace of toil, or storm, or anxious danger. He was a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman, with an air of courtesy, an air of dignity, an air of forbearance, which were as utterly unknown to her as everything else about him, except his eyes — those were the same eyes she had seen on board the Castor and on the desert sands.

Had it not been for the dark eyes which looked so steadfastly at him, Captain Horn, would have thought that he had been shown into the wrong room. But he now knew there was no mistake, and he entered. Edna raised her hand and advanced to meet him.

He shook hands with her exactly as he had written to her, and she shook hands with him just as she had telegraphed to him. Much of her natural color had left her face. As he had never seen this natural color, under the sun-brown of the Pacific voyage, he did not miss it.

Instantly she began to speak. How glad she was that she had prepared herself to speak as she would have spoken to any other good friend! So she expressed her joy at seeing him again, well and successful after all these months of peril, toil, and anxiety, and they sat down near each other.

He looked at her steadfastly, and asked her many things about Ralph, Mrs. Cliff, and the negroes, and what had happened since he left San Francisco. He listened with a questioning intentness as she spoke. She spoke rapidly and concisely as she answered his questions and asked him about himself. She said little about the gold. One might have supposed that he had arrived at Marseilles with a cargo of coffee. At the same time, there seemed to be, on Edna’s part, a desire to lengthen out her recital of unimportant matters. She now saw that the captain knew she did not care to talk of these things. She knew that he was waiting for an opportunity to turn the conversation into another channel, — waiting with an earnestness that was growing more and more apparent, — and as she perceived this, and as she steadily talked to him, she assured herself, with all the vehemence of which her nature was capable, that she and this man were two people connected by business interests, and that she was ready to discuss that business in a business way as soon as he could speak. But still she did not yet give him the chance to speak.

The captain sat there, with his blue eyes fixed upon her, and, as she looked at him, she knew him to be the personification of honor and magnanimity, waiting until he could see that she was ready for him to speak, ready to listen if she should speak, ready to meet her on any ground — a gentleman, she thought, above all the gentlemen in the world. And still she went on talking about Mrs. Cliff and Ralph.

Suddenly the captain rose. Whether or not he interrupted her in the middle of a sentence, he did not know, nor did she know. He put his hat upon a table and came toward her. He stood in front of her and looked down at her. She looked up at him, but he did not immediately speak. She could not help standing silently and looking up at him when he stood and looked down upon her in that way. Then he spoke.

“Are you my wife?” said he.

“By all that is good and blessed in heaven or earth, I am,” she answered.

Standing there, and looking up into his eyes, there was no other answer for her to make.

* * * * *

Seldom has a poor, worn, tired, agitated woman kept what was to her a longer or more anxious watch upon a closed door than Mrs. Cliff kept that day. If even Ralph had appeared, she would have decoyed him into her own room, and locked him up there, if necessary.

In about an hour after Mrs. Cliff began her watch, a tall man walked rapidly out of the salon and went down the stairs, and then a woman came running across the hall and into Mrs. Cliff’s room, closing the door behind her. Mrs. Cliff scarcely recognized this woman. She had Edna’s hair and face, but there was a glow and a glory on her countenance such as Mrs. Cliff had never seen, or expected to see until, in the hereafter, she should see it on the face of an angel.

“He has loved me,” said Edna, with her arms around her old friend’s neck, “ever since we had been a week on the Castor.”

Mrs. Cliff shivered and quivered with joy. She could not say anything, but over and over again she kissed the burning cheeks of her friend. At last they stood apart, and, when Mrs. Cliff was calm enough to speak, she said:

“Ever since we were on the Castor! Well, Edna, you must admit that Captain Horn is uncommonly good at keeping things to himself.”

“Yes,” said the other, “and he always kept it to himself. He never let it go away from him. He had intended to speak to me, but he wanted to wait until I knew him better, and until we were in a position where he wouldn’t seem to be taking advantage of me by speaking. And when you proposed that marriage by Cheditafa, he was very much troubled and annoyed. It was something so rough and jarring, and so discordant with what he had hoped, that at first he could not bear to think of it. But he afterwards saw the sense of your reasoning, and agreed simply because it would be to my advantage in case he should lose his life in his undertaking. And we will be married to-morrow at the embassy.”

“To-morrow!” cried Mrs. Cliff. “So soon?”

“Yes,” replied Edna. “The captain has to go away, and I am going with him.”

“That is all right,” said Mrs. Cliff. “Of course I was a little surprised at first. But how about the gold? How much was there of it? And what is he going to do with it?”

“He scarcely mentioned the gold,” replied Edna. “We had more precious things to talk about. When he sees us all together, you and I and Ralph, he will tell us what he has done, and what he is going to do, and — ”

“And we can say what we please?” cried Mrs. Cliff.

“Yes,” said Edna, — ”to whomever we please.”

“Thank the Lord!” exclaimed Mrs. Cliff. “That is almost as good as being married.”

* * * * *

On his arrival in Paris the night before, Captain Horn had taken lodgings at a hotel not far from the Hotel Grenade, and the first thing he did the next morning was to visit Edna. He had supposed, of course, that she was at the same hotel in which Mrs. Cliff resided, which address he had got from Wraxton, in Marseilles, and he had expected to see the elderly lady first, and to get some idea of how matters stood before meeting Edna. He was in Paris alone. He had left Shirley and Burke, with the negroes, in Marseilles. He had wished to do nothing, to make no arrangements for any one, until he had seen Edna, and had found out what his future life was to be.

Now, as he walked back to his hotel, that future life lay before him radiant and resplendent. No avenue in Paris, or in any part of the world, blazing with the lights of some grand festival, ever shone with such glowing splendor as the future life of Captain Horn now shone and sparkled before him, as he walked and walked, on and on, and crossed the river into the Latin Quarter, before he perceived that his hotel was a mile or more behind him.

From the moment that the Arato had left the Straits of Magellan, and Captain Horn had had reason to believe that he had left his dangers behind him, the prow of his vessel had been set toward the Strait of Gibraltar, and every thought of his heart toward Edna. Burke and Shirley both noticed a change in him. After he left the Rackbirds’ cove, until he had sailed into the South Atlantic, his manner had been quiet, alert, generally anxious, and sometimes stern. But now, day by day, he appeared to be growing into a different man. He was not nervous, nor apparently impatient, but it was easy to see that within him there burned a steady purpose to get on as fast as the wind would blow them northward.

Day by day, as he walked the deck of his little vessel, one might have thought him undergoing a transformation from the skipper of a schooner into the master of a great ship, into the captain of a swift Atlantic liner, into the commander of a man-of-war, into the commodore on board a line-of-battle ship. It was not an air of pride or assumed superiority that he wore, it was nothing assumed, it was nothing of which he was not entirely aware. It was the gradual growth within him, as health grows into a man recovering from a sickness, of the consciousness of power. The source of that consciousness lay beneath him, as he trod the deck of the Arato.

This consciousness, involuntary, and impossible to resist, had nothing definite about it. It had nothing which could wholly satisfy the soul of this man, who kept his eyes and his thoughts so steadfastly toward the north. He knew that there were but few things in the world that his power could not give him, but there was one thing upon which it might have no influence whatever, and that one thing was far more to him than all other things in this world.

Sometimes, as he sat smoking beneath the stars, he tried to picture to himself the person who might be waiting and watching for him in Paris, and to try to look upon her as she must really be; for, after her life in San Francisco and Paris, she could not remain the woman she had been at the caves on the coast of Peru. But, do what he would, he could make no transformation in the picture which was imprinted on the retina of his soul. There he saw a woman still young, tall, and too thin, in a suit of blue flannel faded and worn, with her hair bound tightly around her head and covered by a straw hat with a faded ribbon. But it was toward this figure that he was sailing, sailing, sailing, as fast as the winds of heaven would blow his vessel onward.