This man had formerly belonged to the band of desperadoes which had been swept away by a sudden flood on the coast of Peru. He had accompanied his comrades on the last marauding expedition previous to that remarkable accident, but he had not returned with them. He had devised a little scheme 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 difficult for him to reach the camp by himself, and, after what he had done, he did not very much desire to go, there as he would probably have been shot as a deserter; for Captain Raminez was a savage fellow, and more than willing 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 take care of himself in any part of the world.

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

Of course, Banker knew nothing of the destruction of his band, and the fact that he had not heard from them since he left them gave him not the slightest regret. But what did astonish him beyond bounds was to sit at a table in the Black Cat, in Paris, and see before him, dressed like the valet of a Spanish grandee, a coal-black negro who had once been his especial and particular slave and drudge, a fellow whom he had kicked and beaten and sworn at, and whom he no doubt would have shot had he stayed much longer with his lawless companions, the Rackbirds. There was no mistaking this black man. He well remembered his face, and even the tones of his voice. He had never heard him sing, but he had heard him howl, and it seemed almost impossible that he should meet him in Paris. And yet, he was sure that the man who was bellowing and bawling to the delight of the guests of the Black Cat was one of the African wretches who had been entrapped and enslaved by the Rackbirds.

But if Banker had been astonished by Mok, he was utterly amazed and confounded when, some five minutes later, the door of the bra.s.serie was suddenly opened, and another of the slaves of the Rackbirds, with whose face he was also perfectly familiar, hurriedly entered.

Cheditafa, who had been sent on an errand that evening, had missed Mok on his return. Ralph was away in Brussels with the professor, so that his valet, having most of his time on his hands, had thought to take a holiday during Cheditafa's absence, and had slipped off to the Black Cat, whose pleasures he had surrept.i.tiously enjoyed before, but never to such 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 he went first.

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

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

Now up sprang Banker, who was in such a hurry to go that he forgot to pay for his beer, and when he performed this duty, after having been abruptly reminded of it by a waiter, he was almost too late to follow the two black men, but not quite too late. He was an adept in the tracking of his fellow-beings, and it was not long before he was quietly following Mok and Cheditafa, keeping at some distance behind them, but never allowing 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 that hotel at that time of night, they must live there, and he could suspend operations until morning.

CHAPTER XLIV

MR. BANKER'S SPECULATION

That night Banker was greatly disturbed by surmises and conjectures concerning the presence of the two negroes in the French capital. He knew Cheditafa quite as well as he knew Mok, and it was impossible that he should be mistaken. It is seldom that any one sees a native African in Paris, and he was positive that the men he had seen, dressed in expensive garments, enjoying themselves like gentlemen of leisure, and living at a grand hotel, were the same negroes he had last seen in rags and shreds, lodged in a cave in the side of a precipice, toiling and shuddering under the commands of a set of desperadoes on a desert coast in South America.

There was only one way in which he could explain matters, and that was that the band had had some great success, and that one or more of its members had come to Paris, and had brought the two negroes with them as servants. But of one thing he had no doubts, and that was that he would follow up the case. He had met with no successes of late, but if any of his former comrades had, he wanted to meet those dear old friends. In Paris he was not afraid of anything they might say about his desertion.

Very early in the morning Banker was in front of the Hotel Grenade. He did not loiter there; he did not wander up and down like a vagrant, or stand about like a spy. It was part of his business to be able to be present in various places almost at the same time, and not to attract notice in any of them. It was not until after ten o'clock that he saw anything worthy of his observation, and then a carriage drove up to the front entrance, and on the seat beside the driver sat Cheditafa, erect, solemn, and respectable. Presently the negro got down and opened the door of the carriage. In a few moments a lady, a beautiful lady, handsomely dressed, came out of the hotel and entered the carriage. Then Cheditafa shut the door and got up beside the driver again. It was a fine thing to have such a footman as this one, so utterly different from the ordinary groom or footman, so extremely _distingue_!

As the carriage rolled off, Banker walked after it, but not in such a way as to attract attention, and then he entered a cab and told the _cocher_ to drive to the Bon Marche. Of course, he did not know where the lady was going to, but at present she was driving in the direction of that celebrated mart, and he kept his eye upon her carriage, and if she had turned out of the Boulevard and away from the Seine, he would have ordered his driver to turn also and go somewhere else. He did not dare to tell the man to follow the carriage. He was shaved, and his clothes had been put in as good order as possible, but he knew that he did not look like a man respectable enough to give such an order without exciting suspicion.

But the carriage did go to the Bon Marche, and there also went the cab, the two vehicles arriving at almost the same time. Banker paid his fare with great promptness, and was on the pavement in time to see the handsomely dressed lady descend and enter the establishment. As she went in, he took one look at the back of her bonnet. It had a little green feather in it. Then he turned quickly upon Cheditafa, who had shut the carriage door and was going around behind it in order to get up on the other side.

"Look here," whispered Banker, seizing the clerical butler by the shoulder, "who is that lady? Quick, or I'll put a knife in you."

At these words Cheditafa's heart almost stopped beating, and as he quickly turned he saw that he looked into the face of a man, an awfully wicked man, who had once helped to grind the soul out of him, in that dreadful cave by the sea. The poor negro was so frightened that he scarcely knew whether he was in Paris or Peru.

"Who is she?" whispered again the dreadful Rackbird.

"Come, come!" shouted the coachman from his seat, "we must move on."

"Quick! Who is she?" hissed Banker.

"She?" replied the quaking negro. "She is the captain's wife. She is--"

But he could say no more, for a policeman was ordering the carriage to move on, for it stopped the way, and the coachman was calling impatiently. Banker could not afford to meet a policeman. He released his hold on Cheditafa and retired unnoticed. An instant afterward he entered the Bon Marche.

Cheditafa climbed up to the side of the driver, but he missed his foothold several times, and came near falling to the ground. In all Paris there was no footman on a carriage who looked less upright, less sedate, and less respectable than this poor, frightened black man.

Through the corridors and pa.s.sageways of the vast establishment went Banker. But he did not have to go far. He saw at a counter a little green feather in the back of a bonnet. Quietly he approached that counter, and no sooner had the attendant turned aside to get something that had been asked for than Banker stepped close to the side of the lady, and leaning forward, said in a very low but polite voice:

"I am so glad to find the captain's wife. I have been looking for her."

He was almost certain, from her appearance, that she was an American, and so he spoke in English.

Edna turned with a start. She saw beside her a man with his hat off, a rough-looking man, but a polite one, and a man who looked like a sailor.

"The captain!" she stammered. "Have you--do you bring me anything!

A letter?"

"Yes, madam," said he. "I have a letter and a message for you."

"Give them to me quickly!" said she, her face burning.

"I cannot," he said. "I cannot give them to you here. I have much to say to you, and much to tell you, and I was ordered to say it in private."

Edna was astounded. Her heart sank. Captain Horn must be in trouble, else why such secrecy? But she must know everything, and quickly. Where could she meet the man? He divined her thought.

"The Gardens of the Tuileries," said he. "Go there now, please. I will meet you, no matter in what part of it you are." And so saying, he slipped away unnoticed.

When the salesman came to her, Edna did not remember what she had asked to see, but whatever he brought she did not want, and going out, she had her carriage called, and ordered her coachman to take her to the Gardens of the Tuileries. She was so excited that she did not wait for Cheditafa to get down, but opened the door herself, and stepped in quickly, even before the porter of the establishment could attend to her.

When she reached the Gardens, and Cheditafa opened the carriage door for her, she thought he must have a fit of chills and fever. But she had no time to consider this, and merely told him that she was going to walk in the Gardens, and the carriage must wait.

It was some time before Edna met the man with whom she had made this appointment. He had seen her alight, and although he did not lose sight of her, he kept away from her, and let her walk on until she was entirely out of sight of the carriage. As soon as Edna perceived Banker, she walked directly toward him. She had endeavored to calm herself, but he could see that she was much agitated.

"How in the devil's name," he thought to himself, "did Raminez ever come to marry such a woman as this? She's fit for a queen. But they say he used to be a great swell in Spain before he got into trouble, and I expect he's put on his old airs again, and an American lady will marry anybody that's a foreign swell. And how neatly she played into my hand!

She let me know right away that she wanted a letter, which means, of course, that Raminez is not with her."

"Give me the letter, if you please," said Edna.

"Madam," said Banker, with a bow, "I told you I had a letter and a message. I must deliver the message first."

"Then be quick with it," said she.

"I will," said Banker. "Our captain has had great success lately, you know, but he is obliged to keep a little in the background for the present, as you will see by your letter, and as it is a very particular letter, indeed, he ordered me to bring it to you."

Edna's heart sank. "What has happened?" said she. "Why--"

"Oh, you will find all that in the letter," said Banker. "The captain has written out everything, full and clear. He told me so himself. But I must get through with my message. It is not from him. It is from me. As I just said, he ordered me to bring you this letter, and it was a hard thing to do, and a risky thing to do. But I undertook the job of giving it to you, in private, without anybody's knowing you had received it."

"What!" exclaimed Edna. "n.o.body to know!"

"Oh, that is all explained," said he, hurriedly. "I can't touch on that.

My affair is this: The captain sent me with the letter, and I have been to a lot of trouble to get it to you. Now, he is not going to pay me for all this,--if he thanks me, it will be more than I expect,--and I am going to be perfectly open and honest with you, and say that as the captain won't pay me, I expect you to do it; or, putting it in another way, before I hand you the letter I brought you, I want you to make me a handsome present."

"You rascal!" exclaimed Edna. "How dare you impose on me in this way?"