The adventures of Captain Horn/Chapter 51
CHAPTER LI
BANKER DOES SOME IMPORTANT BUSINESS
When Banker went back to the prison cell, he was still firmly convinced that he had been overreached by his former captain, Raminez; and, although he knew it not, there were good reasons for his convictions. Often had he noticed, in the Rackbirds' camp, a peculiar form of the eyebrows which surmounted the slender, slightly aquiline nose of his chief. Whenever Raminez was anxious, or beginning to be angered, his brow would slightly knit, and the ends of his eyebrows would approach each other, curling upward and outward as they did so. This was an action of the eye brows which was peculiar to the Darcias of Granada, from which family the professor's father had taken a wife, and had brought her to Paris. A sister of this wife had afterwards married a Spanish gentleman named Blanquotè, whose second son, having fallen into disgrace in Spain, had gone to America, where he changed his name to Raminez, and performed a number of discreditable deeds, among which was the deception of several of his discreditable comrades in regard to his family. They could not help knowing that he came from Spain, and he made them all believe that his real name was Raminez. There had been three of them, besides Banker, who had made it the object of their lives to wait for the opportunity to obtain blackmail from his family, by threatened declarations of his deeds.
This most eminent scoundrel, whose bones now lay at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, had inherited from his grandfather that same trick of the eyebrows above his thin and slightly aquiline nose which Banker had observed upon the countenance of the professor in the police station, and who had inherited it from the same Spanish gentleman.
The next day Banker received a visitor. It was Professor Barré. As this gentleman entered the cell, followed by two guards, who remained near the door, Banker looked up in amazement. He had expected a message, but had not dreamed that he should see the man himself.
"Captain," he exclaimed, as he sprang to his feet, "this is truly good of you. I see you are the same old trump as ever, and do not bear malice." He spoke in Spanish, for such had been the language in common use in camp.
The professor paid no attention to these words. "I came here," he said, "to demand of you why you made that absurd and malicious charge against me the other day. Such charges are not passed over in France, but I will give you a chance to explain yourself."
Banker looked at him admiringly. "He plays the part well," he said to himself. "He is a great gun. There is no use of my charging against him. I will not try it, but I shall let him see where I stand."
"Captain," said he, "I have nothing to explain, except that I was stirred up a good deal and lost my temper. I oughtn't to have made that charge against you. Of course, it could not be of any good to me, and I am perfectly ready to meet you on level ground. I will take back everything I have already said, and, if necessary, I will prove that I made a mistake and never saw you before, and I only ask in return that you get me out of this and give me enough to make me comfortable. That won't take much, you know, and you seem to be in first-class condition these days. There! I have put it to you fair and square, and saved you the trouble of making me any offers. You stand by me, and I'll stand by you. I am ready to swear until I am black in the face that you never were in Peru, and that I never saw you until the other day, when I made that mistake about you on account of the queer fashion of your eyebrows, which looked just like those of a man who really had been my captain, and that I now see you are two entirely different men. I will make a good tale of it, captain, and I will stick to it—you can rely on that. By all the saints, I hope those two fellows at the door don't understand Spanish!"
The professor had made himself sure that the guards who accompanied him spoke nothing but French. Without referring to Banker's proposed bargain, he said to him, "Was the captain of the bandits under whom you served a Spaniard?"
"Yes, you were a Spaniard," said Banker.
"From what part of Spain did he come?"
"You let out several times that you once lived in Granada."
"What was that captain's real name?" asked the professor.
"Your name was Raminez—unless, indeed," and here his face clouded a little, "unless, indeed, you tricked us. But I have pumped you well on that point, and, drunk or sober, it was always Raminez."
"Raminez, then, a Spaniard of my appearance," said the professor, "was your captain when you were in a band called the Rackbirds, which had its rendezvous on the coast of Peru?"
"Yes, you were all that," said Banker.
"Very well, then," said Barre. "I have nothing more to say to you at present," and he turned and left the cell. The guards followed, and the door was closed.
Banker remained dumb with amazement. When he had regained his power of thought and speech, he fell into a state of savage fury, which could be equalled by nothing living, except, perhaps, by a trapped wild cat, and among his objurgations, as he strode up and down his cell, the most prominent referred to the new and incomprehensible trick which this prince of human devils had just played upon him. That he had been talking to his old captain he did not doubt for a moment, and that that captain had again got the better of him he doubted no less.
It may be stated here that, the evening before, the professor had had a long talk with Ralph regarding the Rackbirds and their camp. Professor Barré had heard something of the matter before, but many of the details were new to him.
When Ralph left him, the professor gave himself up to reflections upon what he had heard, and he gradually came to believe that there might be some reason for his identification as the bandit captain by the man Banker.
For five or six years there had been inquiries on foot concerning the second son of Señor Blanquotè of Granada, whose elder brother had died without heirs, and who, if now living, would inherit Blanquotè's estates. It was known that this man had led a wild and disgraceful career, and it was also ascertained that he had gone to America, and had been known on the Isthmus of Panama and elsewhere by the name of Raminez. Furthermore, Professor Barré had been frequently told by his mother that when he was a boy she had noticed, while on a visit to Spain, that he and this cousin very much resembled each other.
It is not necessary to follow out the legal steps and inquiries, based upon the information which he had had from Ralph and from Banker, which were now made by the professor. It is sufficient to state that he was ultimately able to prove that the Rackbird chief known as Raminez was, in reality, Tomaso Blanquotè, that he had perished on the coast of Peru, and that he, the professor, was legal heir to the Blanquotè estates.
Barré had not been able to lead his pupil to as high a place in the temple of knowledge as he had hoped, but, through his acquaintance with that pupil, he himself had become possessed of a castle in Spain.