The Adventures of Captain Horn

by Frank Richard Stockton

  CHAPTER XLIII

  MOK AS A VOCALIST

  It would have been very comfortable to the mind of Edna, during herwaiting days in Paris, had she known there was a letter to her fromCaptain Horn, in a cottage in the town of Sidmouth, on the south coast ofDevonshire. Had she known this, she would have chartered French trains,Channel steamers, English trains, flies, anything and everything whichwould have taken her the quickest to the little town of Sidmouth. Had sheknown that he had written to her the first chance he had had, all herdoubts and perplexities would have vanished in an instant. Had she readthe letter, she might have been pained to find that it was not such aletter as she would wish to have, and she might have grieved that itmight still be a long time before she could expect to hear from himagain, or to see him, but she would have waited--have waited patiently,without any doubts or perplexities.

  This letter, with a silver coin,--much more than enough to pay anypossible postage,--had been handed by Shirley to the first mate of theBritish steamer, in the harbor of Valparaiso, and that officer had givenit to a seaman, who was going on shore, with directions to take it tothe post-office, and pay for the postage out of the silver coin, andwhatever change there might be, he should keep it for his trouble. On theway to the post-office, this sailor stopped to refresh himself, andmeeting with a fellow-mariner in the place of refreshment, he refreshedhim also. And by the time the two had refreshed themselves to theirsatisfaction, there was not much left of the silver coin--not enough topay the necessary postage to France.

  "But," said the seaman to himself, "it doesn't matter a bit. We are boundfor Liverpool, and I'll take the letter there myself, and then I'll sendit over to Paris for tuppence ha'penny, which I will have then, andhaven't now. And I bet another tuppence that it will go sooner than if Iposted it here, for it may be a month before a mail-steamer leaves theother side of this beastly continent. Anyway, I'm doing the best I can."

  He put the letter in the pocket of his pea-jacket, and the bottom of thatpocket being ripped, the letter went down between the outside cloth andthe lining of the pea-jacket to the very bottom of the garment, where itremained until the aforesaid seaman had reached England, and had gonedown to see his family, who lived in the cottage in Sidmouth. And therehe had hung up his pea-jacket on a nail, in a little room next to thekitchen, and there his mother had found it, and sewed on two buttons, andsewed up the rips in the bottoms of two pockets. Shortly after this, thesailor, happening to pass a post-office box, remembered the letter he hadbrought to England. He went to his pea-jacket and searched it, but couldfind no letter. He must have lost it--he hoped after he had reachedEngland, and no doubt whoever found it would put a tuppence ha'pennystamp on it and stick it into a box. Anyway, he had done all he could.

  One pleasant spring evening, the negro Mok sat behind a table in thewell-known beer-shop called the "Black Cat." He had before him ahalf-emptied beer-glass, and in front of him was a pile of three smallwhite dishes. These signified that Mok had had three glasses of beer, andwhen he should finish the one in his hand, and should order another, thewaiter would bring with it another little white plate, which he would puton the table, on the pile already there, and which would signify that theAfrican gentleman must pay for four glasses of beer.

  Mok was enjoying himself very much. It was not often that he had such anopportunity to sample the delights of Paris. His young master, Ralph, hadgiven him strict orders never to go out at night, or in his leisurehours, unless accompanied by Cheditafa. The latter was an extremelyimportant and sedate personage. The combined dignity of a butler and aclergyman were more than ever evident in his person, and he was a painfuldrawback to the more volatile Mok. Mok had very fine clothes, which itrejoiced him to display. He had a fine appetite for everything fit to eatand drink. He had money in his pockets, and it delighted him to seepeople and to see things, although he might not know who they were orwhat they were. He knew nothing of French, and his power of expressinghimself in English had not progressed very far. But on this evening, inthe jolly precincts of the Black Cat, he did not care whether the peopleused language or not. He did not care what they did, so that he couldsit there and enjoy himself. When he wanted more beer, the waiterunderstood him, and that was enough.

  The jet-black negro, gorgeously arrayed in the livery Ralph had chosenfor him, and with his teeth and eyeballs whiter than the pile of platesbefore him, was an object of great interest to the company in thebeer-shop. They talked to him, and although he did not understand them,or answer them, they knew he was enjoying himself. And when the landlordrang a big bell, and a pale young man, wearing a high hat, and sitting ata table opposite him, threw into his face an expression of exaltedmelancholy, and sang a high-pitched song, Mok showed how he appreciatedthe performance by thumping more vigorously on the table than any of theother people who applauded the singer.

  Again and again the big bell was rung, and there were other songs andchoruses, and then the company turned toward Mok and called on him tosing. He did not understand them, but he laughed and pounded his fistupon the table. But when the landlord came down to his table, and rangthe bell in front of him, that sent an informing idea into the Africanhead. He had noticed that every time the bell had been rung, somebody hadsung, and now he knew what was wanted of him. He had had four glasses ofbeer, and he was an obliging fellow, so he nodded his head violently, andeverybody stopped doing what they had been doing, and prepared to listen.

  Mok's repertoire of songs could not be expected to be large. In fact, heonly knew one musical composition, and that was an African hymn whichCheditafa had taught him. This he now proceeded to execute. He threwback his head, as some of the others had done, and emitted a successionof grunts, groans, yelps, barks, squeaks, yells, and rattles whichutterly electrified the audience. Then, as if his breath filled his wholebody, and quivering and shaking like an angry squirrel when it chattersand barks, Mok sang louder and more wildly, until the audience, unable torestrain themselves, burst into laughter, and applauded with canes,sticks, and fists. But Mok kept on. He had never imagined he could singso well. There was only one person in that brasserie who did not applaudthe African hymn, but no one paid so much attention to it as this man,who had entered the Black Cat just as Mok had begun.

  He was a person of medium size, with a heavy mustache, and a facedarkened by a beard of several days' growth. He was rather roughlydressed, and wore a soft felt hat. He was a Rackbird.

  This man had formerly belonged to the band of desperadoes which had beenswept away by a sudden flood on the coast of Peru. He had accompanied hiscomrades on the last marauding expedition previous to that remarkableaccident, but he had not returned with them. He had devised a littlescheme of his own, which had detained him longer than he had expected,and he was not ready to go back with them. It would have been difficultfor him to reach the camp by himself, and, after what he had done, he didnot very much desire to go, there as he would probably have been shot asa deserter; for Captain Raminez was a savage fellow, and more thanwilling to punish transgressions against his orders. This deserter,Banker by name, was an American, who had been a gold-digger, a gambler,a rough, and a dead shot in California, and he was very well able to takecare of himself in any part of the world.

  He had made his way up to Panama, and had stayed there as long as it wassafe for him to do so, and had eventually reached Paris. He did not likethis city half so well as he liked London, but in the latter city hehappened to be wanted, and he was not wanted in Paris. It was generallythe case that he stayed where he was not wanted.

  Of course, Banker knew nothing of the destruction of his band, and thefact that he had not heard from them since he left them gave him not theslightest regret. But what did astonish him beyond bounds was to sit at atable in the Black Cat, in Paris, and see before him, dressed like thevalet of a Spanish grandee, a coal-black negro who had once been hisespecial and particular slave and drudge, a fellow whom he had kicked andbeaten and sworn at, and whom he no doubt would have shot had he
stayedmuch longer with his lawless companions, the Rackbirds. There was nomistaking this black man. He well remembered his face, and even the tonesof his voice. He had never heard him sing, but he had heard him howl, andit seemed almost impossible that he should meet him in Paris. And yet, hewas sure that the man who was bellowing and bawling to the delight of theguests of the Black Cat was one of the African wretches who had beenentrapped and enslaved by the Rackbirds.

  But if Banker had been astonished by Mok, he was utterly amazed andconfounded when, some five minutes later, the door of the brasserie wassuddenly opened, and another of the slaves of the Rackbirds, with whoseface he was also perfectly familiar, hurriedly entered.

  Cheditafa, who had been sent on an errand that evening, had missed Mokon his return. Ralph was away in Brussels with the professor, so thathis valet, having most of his time on his hands, had thought to take aholiday during Cheditafa's absence, and had slipped off to the BlackCat, whose pleasures he had surreptitiously enjoyed before, but never tosuch an extent as on this occasion. Cheditafa knew he had been there,and when he started out to look for him, it was to the Black Cat that hewent first.

  Before he had quite reached the door, Cheditafa had been shocked andangered to hear his favorite hymn sung in a beer-shop by that reprobateand incompetent Mok, and he had rushed in, and in a minute seized theblatant vocalist by the collar, and ordered him instantly to shut hismouth and pay his reckoning. Then, in spite of the shouts ofdisapprobation which arose on every side, he led away the negro as if hehad been a captured dog with his tail between his legs.

  Mok could easily have thrown Cheditafa across the street, but his respectand reverence for his elder and superior were so great that he obeyed hiscommands without a word of remonstrance.

  Now up sprang Banker, who was in such a hurry to go that he forgot to payfor his beer, and when he performed this duty, after having been abruptlyreminded of it by a waiter, he was almost too late to follow the twoblack men, but not quite too late. He was an adept in the tracking ofhis fellow-beings, and it was not long before he was quietly followingMok and Cheditafa, keeping at some distance behind them, but neverallowing them to get out of his sight.

  In the course of a moderate walk he saw them enter the Hotel Grenade.This satisfied the wandering Rackbird. If the negroes went into thathotel at that time of night, they must live there, and he could suspendoperations until morning.