Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/375

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN scarcely restrain from a shudder at the thought of what might have happened had the bottle been full. But he did not report the occurrence. Inkspot was a fellow-African, and he had barely escaped punishment for his former misdeed. It would be better to keep his mouth shut, and he did.

Against the north winds, before the south winds, and on the winds from the east and the west, through fair weather and through foul, the Arato sailed up the South Atlantic. It was a long, long voyage, but the schooner was skilfully navigated and sailed well. Sometimes she sighted great merchant-steamers plying between Europe and South America, freighted with rich cargoes, and proudly steaming away from the little schooner, whose dark-green hull could scarcely be distinguished from the color of the waves. And why should not the captain of this humble little vessel sometimes have said to himself, as he passed a big three-master or a steamer:

"What would they think if they knew that, if I chose to do it, I could buy every ship, and its cargo, that I shall meet between here and Gibraltar!"

"Captain," said Shirley, one day, "what do you think about the right and wrong of this?"

"What do you mean?" asked Captain Horn.

"I mean," replied Shirley, "taking away the gold we have on board. We've had pretty easy times lately, and I've been doing a good deal of thinking, and sometimes I have wondered where we got the right to clap all this treasure into bags and sail away with it."

"So you have stopped thinking the bags are all filled with anthracite coal," said the captain. 361