Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/425

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN think that it would be necessary for Edna to know anything about it, except that the Rackbird had been arrested and she need no longer fear him.

When Kalph reached the police station, the next day, he found there the portier of the hotel, together with Cheditafa and Mok.

After Banker's examination, to which he gave no assistance by admissions of any sort, he was remanded for trial, and he was held merely for his affair with the negroes, no charge having been made against him for his attempt to obtain money from their mistress, or his threats in her direction. As the crime for which he had been arrested gave reason enough for condign punishment of the desperado, Ralph saw, and made Cheditafa see, it would be unnecessary as well as unpleasant to drag Edna into the affair.

That afternoon Mr. Banker, who had recovered his breath and had collected his ideas, sent for the police magistrate and made a confession. He said he had been a member of a band of outlaws, but having grown disgusted with their evil deeds, had left them. He had become very poor, and having heard that the leader of the band had made a fortune by a successful piece of rascality, and had married a fine lady, and was then in Paris, he had come to this city to meet him, and to demand in the name of their old comradeship some assistance in his need. He had found his captain's wife. She had basely deceived him after having promised to help him, and he had been insulted and vilely treated by that old negro, who was once a slave in the Rackbirds' camp in Peru, and who had been brought here with the other negro by the captain. He also freely admitted that he had intended 409