The Adventures of Captain Horn

by Frank R. Stockton

"'I forgot to say that as soon as Shirley began to talk about the dead man and his gold, I left the warehouse in charge of Maka, and took him to my hotel, where he told me the rest of his story in a room with the door locked. I must try to take as many reefs in what followed as I can. I don't believe that the finding of the gold made any difference in their plans, for, of course, it would have been foolish for them to try to get to us by themselves. They cut the blanket in half and made up the gold into two packages, and then they started back for the mountains, taking with them all the provisions they could carry in addition to the gold, and leaving their guns behind them. Shirley said their loads got heavier and heavier as they ploughed through the sand, and it took them three days to cover the ground they had gone over before in two. When they got to the village, they found scarcely a man in the place, for the fellows who had deserted them were frightened, and kept out of sight. They stayed there all night, and then they went on with their bundles to the next village, where they succeeded in getting a couple of travelling-bags, into which they put their gold, so that they might appear to be carrying their clothes.

"'After a good deal of travel they reached Callao, and there they made inquiries for A. McLeish, but nobody knew of him. Of course, he was a sailor who had had a letter sent there. They went up to Lima and sold a few pieces of the gold, but, before they did it, they got a heavy hammer and pounded them up, so that no one would know what their original shape was. Shirley said he could not say exactly why they did this, but that they thought, on the whole, it would be safer. Then they went to San Francisco on the first vessel that sailed. They must have had a good deal of talk on the voyage in regard to the gold, and it was in consequence of their discussions that Shirley wanted so much to find me. They had calculated, judging by the pieces they had sold, that the gold they had with them was worth about twelve thousand dollars, and they both thought they ought to do the right thing about it. In the first place, they tried in San Francisco to find out something about McLeish, but no one knew of such a man. They then began to consider some persons they did know about. They had heard in Lima that some of the people of the Castor had been rescued, and if any of them were hard up, as most likely they were, Shirley and Burke thought that by rights they ought to have some of the treasure that they had found. Shirley said at first they had gone on the idea that each of them would have six thousand dollars and could go into business for himself, but after a while they thought this would be a mean thing to do. They had all been shipwrecked together, and two of them had had a rare piece of good luck, and they thought it no more than honorable to share this good luck with the others, so they concluded the best thing to do was to see me about it. Burke left this business to Shirley, because he wanted to go to see his sister who lives in St. Louis.

"'They had not formed any fixed plan of division, but they believed that, as they had had the trouble, and, in fact, the danger, of getting the gold, they should have the main share, but they considered that they had enough to help out any of the original party who might be hard up for money." Of course, we must always remember," said Shirley, in finishing up his story, "that if we can find the heirs of McLeish, the money belongs to them. But, even in that case, Burke and I think we ought to keep a good share of it to pay us for getting it away from that beastly desert." Here I interrupted him. "Don't you trouble yourself any more about McLeish," I said. "That money did not belong to him. He stole it." "How do you know that, and who did he steal it from?" cried Shirley. "He stole it from me," said I.

"'At this point Shirley gave such a big jump backward that his chair broke beneath him, and he went crashing to the floor. He had made a start a good deal like that when I told him how the Rackbirds had been swept out of existence when I had opened the flood-gate that let out the waters of the lake, and I had heard the chair crack then. Now, while he had been telling me about his finding that man in the sand, with his load of gold, I had been listening, but I had also been thinking, and almost any man can think faster than another one can talk, and so by this time I had made up my mind what I was going to say to Shirley. I would tell him all about my finding the gold in the mound. It touched me to think that these poor fellows, who did all that they could to help us escape, and then, when they got safely home, started immediately to find us in order that they might give us some of that paltry twelve thousand dollars—give to us, who are actually millionaires, and who may be richer yet! It would not do to let any of the crew get ahead of their captain in fair dealing, and that was one reason why I determined to tell him. Then, there was another point. Ever since I have been here, selling and storing the gold I brought away, I have had a heavy load on my mind, and that was the thought of leaving all the rest of the gold in that mound for the next person who might come along and find it.

"'I devised plan after plan of getting more of it, but none of them would work. Two things were certain: One was that I could not get any more away by myself. I had already done the best I could and all I could in that line. And the second thing was that if I should try for any more of the treasure, I must have people to help me. The plan that suited me best was to buy a small vessel, man it, go down there, load up with the gold, and sail away. There would be no reasonable chance that any one would be there to hinder me, and I would take in the cargo just as if it were guano, or anything else. Then I would go boldly to Europe. I have looked into the matter, and I have found that the best thing I can do, if I should get that gold, would be to transport it to Paris, where I could distribute it better than I could from any other point. But the trouble was, where could I get the crew to help me? I have four black men, and I think I could trust them, as far as honesty goes, but they would not be enough to work the ship, and I could not think of any white men with whom I would trust my life and that gold in the same vessel. But now they seemed to pop up right in front of me.

"'I knew Shirley and Burke pretty well when they were on the Castor, and after what Shirley told me I knew them better, and I believed they were my men. To be sure, they might fail me, for they are only human, but I had to have somebody to help me, and I did not believe there were any other two men who would be less likely to fail me. So by the time Shirley had finished his yarn I was ready to tell him the whole thing, and propose to him and Burke to join me in going down after the rest of the treasure and taking it to France.'"

At this point Ralph sprang to his feet, his eyes flashing. "Edna!" he cried, "I say that your Captain Horn is treating me shamefully. In the first place, he let me come up here to dawdle about, doing nothing, when I ought to have been down there helping him get more of that treasure. I fancy he might have trusted me, and if I had been with him, we should have brought away nearly twice as much gold, and at this minute we should be twice as well off as we are. But this last is a thousand times worse. Here he is, going off on one of the most glorious adventures of this century, and he leaves me out. What does he take me for? Does he think I am a girl? When he was thinking of somebody to go with him, why didn't he think of me, and why doesn't he think of me now? He has no right to leave me out!"

"I look at the matter in a different light," said his sister. "Captain Horn has no right to take you off on such a dangerous adventure, and, more than that, he has no right to take you from me, and leave me alone in the world. He once made you the guardian of all that treasure, and now he considers you as my guardian. You did not desert the first trust, and I am sorry to think you want to desert the other."

"That's all very fine," said Ralph. "You blow hot and you blow cold at the same time. When you want me to keep quiet and do what I am told, you tell me I am not of age, and that you are my guardian; and when you want me to stay here and make myself useful, you tell me I am wonderfully trusty, and that I must be your guardian."

Edna smiled. "That is pretty good reasoning," she said, "but there isn't any reasoning needed in this case. No matter what Captain Horn may say or do, I would not let you go away from me."