Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/50

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN 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 38