_ CHAPTER V. THE RACKBIRDS
The new African was sitting on the ground, as far back from the edge of
the ledge as he could get, shivering and shaking, for the water was cold.
He had apparently reached the culmination and termination of his fright.
After his tumble into the water, which had happened because he had been
unable to stop in his mad flight, he had not nerve enough left to do
anything more, no matter what should appear to scare him, and there was
really no reason why he should be afraid of this big white man, who did
not even look at him or give him a thought.
Maka's tale, which he told so rapidly and incoherently that he was
frequently obliged to repeat portions of it, was to the following effect:
He had thought a great deal about the scarcity of water, and it had
troubled him so that he could not sleep. What a dreadful thing it would
be for those poor ladies and the captain and the boy to die because they
had no water! His recollections of experiences in his native land made
him well understand that streams of water are to be looked for between
high ridges, and the idea forced itself upon him very strongly that on
the other side of the ridge to the south there might be a stream. He
knew the captain would not allow him to leave the camp if he asked
permission, and so he rose very early, even before it was light, and
going down to the shore, made his way along the beach--on the same route,
in fact, that the Englishman Davis had taken. He was a good deal
frightened sometimes, he said, by the waves, which dashed up as if they
would pull him into the water. When he reached the point of the rocky
ridge, he had no difficulty whatever in getting round it, as he could
easily keep away from the water by climbing over the rocks.
He found that the land on the other side began to recede from the ocean,
and that there was a small sandy beach below him. This widened until it
reached another and smaller point of rock, and beyond this Maka believed
he would find the stream for which he was searching. And while he was
considering whether he should climb over it or wade around it, suddenly a
man jumped down from the rock, almost on top of him. This man fell down
on his back, and was at first so frightened that he did not try to move.
Maka's wits entirely deserted him, he said, and he did not know anything,
except that most likely he was going to die.
But on looking at the man on the ground, he saw that he was an African
like himself, and in a moment he recognized him as one of his
fellow-slaves, with whom he had worked in Guiana, and also for a short
time on the Panama Canal. This made him think that perhaps he was not
going to die, and he went up to the other man and spoke to him. Then
the other man thought perhaps he was not going to die, and he sat up
and spoke.
When the other man told his tale, Maka agreed with him that it would be
far better to die of thirst than to go on any farther to look for water,
and, turning, he ran back, followed by the other, and they never stopped
to speak to each other until they had rounded the great bluff, and were
making their way along the beach toward the camp. Then his fellow-African
told Maka a great deal more, and Maka told everything to the captain.
The substance of the tale was this: A mile farther up the bay than Maka
had gone, there was a little stream that ran down the ravine. About a
quarter of a mile up this stream there was a spot where, it appeared from
the account, there must be a little level ground suitable for
habitations. Here were five or six huts, almost entirely surrounded by
rocks, and in these lived a dozen of the most dreadful men in the whole
world. This Maka assured the captain, his eyes wet with tears as he
spoke. It must truly be so, because the other African had told him things
which proved it.
A little farther up the stream, on the other side of the ravine, there
was a cave, a very small one, and so high up in the face of the rock
that it could only be reached by a ladder. In this lived five black men,
members of the company of slaves who had gone from Guiana to the
isthmus, and who had been brought down there about a year before by two
wicked men, who had promised them well-paid work in a lovely country.
They had, however, been made actual slaves in this barren and doleful
place, and had since worked for the cruel men who had beguiled them
into a captivity worse than the slavery to which they had been
originally destined.
Eight of them had come down from the isthmus, but, at various times
since, three of them had been killed by accident, or shot while trying to
run away. The hardships of these poor fellows were very great, and Maka's
voice shook as he spoke of them. They were kept in the cave all the time,
except when they were wanted for some sort of work, when a ladder was put
up by the side of the rock, and such as were required were called to come
down. Without a ladder no one could get in or out of the cave. One man
who had tried to slip down at night fell and broke his neck.
The Africans were employed in cooking and other rough domestic or menial
services, and sometimes all of them were taken down to the shore of the
bay, where they saw small vessels, and they were employed in carrying
goods from one of these to another, and were also obliged to carry
provisions and heavy kegs up the ravine to the houses of the wicked men.
The one whom he had brought with him, Maka said, had that day escaped
from his captors. One of the Rackbirds, whom in some way the negro had
offended, had sworn to kill him before night, and feeling sure that this
threat would be carried out, the poor fellow had determined to run away,
no matter what the consequences. He had chosen the way by the ocean, in
order that he might jump in and drown himself if he found that he was
likely to be overtaken, but apparently his escape had not yet been
discovered.
Maka was going on to tell something more about the wicked men, when
the captain interrupted him. "Can this friend of yours speak
English?" he asked.
"Only one, two words," replied Maka.
"Ask him if he knows the name of that band of men."
"Yes," said Maka, presently, "he know, but he no can speak it."
"Are they called the Rackbirds?" asked Captain Horn.
The shivering negro had been listening attentively, and now half rose and
nodded his head violently, and then began to speak rapidly in African.
"Yes," said Maka, "he says that is name they are called."
At this moment Ralph appeared upon the scene, and the second African,
whose name was something like Mok, sprang to his feet as if he were about
to flee for his life. But as there was no place to flee to, except into
the water or into the arms of Ralph, he stood still, trembling. A few
feet to the left the shelf ended in a precipitous rock, and on the right,
as has been said, it gradually descended into the water, the space on
which the party stood not being more than twenty feet long and five or
six feet wide. When he saw Ralph, the captain suddenly stopped the
question he was about to ask, and said in an undertone to Maka:
"Not a word to the boy. I will tell."
"Oh," cried Ralph, "you do not know what a lively couple there is out
there. I found that my sister and Mrs. Cliff had made up their minds that
they would perish in about two days, and Mrs. Cliff had been making her
will with a lead-pencil, and now they are just as high up as they were
low down before. They would not let me come to get them some water,
though I kept telling them they never tasted anything like it in their
whole lives, because they wanted to hear everything about everything. My
sister will be wild to come to this lake before long, even if Mrs. Cliff
does not care to try it. And when you are ready to come to them, and
bring Maka, they want to know who that other colored man is, and how Maka
happened to find him. I truly believe their curiosity goes ahead of their
thirst." And so saying he went down to the lake to fill a pail he had
brought with him.
The captain told Ralph to hurry back to the ladies, and that he would be
there in a few minutes. Captain Horn knew a great deal about the
Rackbirds. They were a band of desperadoes, many of them outlaws and
criminals. They had all come down from the isthmus, to which they had
been attracted by the great canal works, and after committing various
outrages and crimes, they had managed to get away without being shot or
hung. Captain Horn had frequently heard of them in the past year or two,
and it was generally supposed that they had some sort of rendezvous or
refuge on this coast, but there had been no effort made to seek them out.
He had frequently heard of crimes committed by them at points along the
coast, which showed that they had in their possession some sort of
vessel. At one time, when he had stopped at Lima, he had heard that there
was talk of the government's sending out a police or military expedition
against these outlaws, but he had never known of anything of the sort
being done.
Everything that, from time to time, had been told Captain Horn about
the Rackbirds showed that they surpassed in cruelty and utter vileness
any other bandits, or even savages, of whom he had ever heard. Among
other news, he had been told that the former leader of the band, which
was supposed to be composed of men of many nationalities, was a French
Canadian, who had been murdered by his companions because, while robbing
a plantation in the interior,--they had frequently been known to cross
the desert and the mountains,--he had forborne to kill an old man
because as the trembling graybeard looked up at him he had reminded him
of his father. Some of the leading demons of the band determined that
they could not have such a fool as this for their leader, and he was
killed while asleep.
Now the band was headed by a Spaniard, whose fiendishness was of a
sufficiently high order to satisfy the most exacting of his fellows.
These and other bits of news about the Rackbirds had been told by one of
the band who had escaped to Panama after the murder of the captain,
fearing that his own talents for baseness did not reach the average
necessary for a Rackbird.
When he had made his landing from the wreck, Captain Horn never gave a
thought to the existence of this band of scoundrels. In fact, he had
supposed, when he had thought of the matter, that their rendezvous must
be far south of this point.
But now, standing on that shelf of rock, with his eyes fixed on the water
without seeing it, he knew that the abode of this gang of wretches was
within a comparatively short distance of this spot in which he and his
companions had taken refuge, and he knew, too, that there was every
reason to suppose that some of them would soon be in pursuit of the negro
who had run away.
Suddenly another dreadful thought struck him. Wild beasts, indeed!
He turned quickly to Maka. "Does that man know anything about Davis and
the two sailors? Were they killed?" he asked.
Maka shook his head and said that he had already asked his companion that
question, but Mok had said that he did not know. All he knew was that
those wicked men killed everybody they could kill.
The captain shut his teeth tightly together. "That was it," he said. "I
could not see how it could be jaguars, although I could think of nothing
else. But these bloodthirsty human beasts! I see it now." He moved toward
the passage. "If that dirty wretch had not run away," he thought, "we
might have stayed undiscovered here until a vessel came. But they will
track his footsteps upon the sand--they are bound to do that." _