Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/402

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN in Panama, though in the Rackbirds' camp he was called nothing but "the captain."

"And you only told him I was the captain's wife?" asked Edna. "You didn't say I was Captain Horn's wife?"

Cheditafa tried his best to recollect, and he felt very sure that he had simply said she was the captain's wife.

When his examination was finished, Cheditafa burst into an earnest appeal to his mistress not to go out again alone while she stayed in Paris. He said that this Rackbird was an awfully wicked man, and that he would kill all of them if he could. If the police caught him, he wanted to go and tell them what a bad man he was. He did not believe the police had caught him. This man could run like a wild hare, and policemen's legs were so stiff.

Edna assured him that she would take good care of herself, and, after enjoining upon him not to say a word to any one of what had happened until she told him to, she sent him away.

When Edna sat in council with herself upon the events of the morning, she was able to make some very fair conjectures as to what had happened. The scoundrel she met had supposed her to be the wife of the Rackbirds' captain. Having seen and recognized Cheditafa, it was natural enough for him to suppose that the negro had been brought to Paris by some of the band. All this seemed to be good reasoning, and she insisted to herself over and over again that she was quite sure that Captain Horn had nothing to do with the letter which the man had been intending to give her. 386