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Updated: June 24, 2025
On the other hand, if the brig lay too near the entrance to the caves, the treasure-laden boats must be launched through the surf, and, in case of high seas, this operation might be hazardous; consequently, he determined to anchor in the Rackbirds' cove and submit to the delay and inconvenience of the land transportation of the gold.
"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 Barré. "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.
He now knew that the great danger he had feared had been a real one, and far greater than he had imagined. A systematic attack by all the Rackbirds would have swept away his single resistance as the waters had swept them and their camp away. As to parley or compromise with those wretches, he knew that it would have been useless to think of it.
It was this long chain of rocks which had concealed them from their enemies, and on the other side of which must be the ravine in which the Rackbirds had made their camp. Immediately below the captain was a little gorge, not very deep nor wide, and from its general trend toward the east and south the captain was sure that it formed the upper part of the ravine of the Rackbirds.
Instantly the captain conjectured what he meant. Mok, the second African, had been stationed to watch the lake approach, and he had deserted! Now the hot thought flashed upon the captain that the rascal had been a spy. The Rackbirds had known that there were shipwrecked people in these caves. How could they help knowing it, if they had killed Davis and the others?
"Captain," said Miss Markham, "do you think those Rackbirds killed the three sailors?" "I am very much afraid of it," he answered. "If they did, they must have known that these poor fellows were survivors of a shipwreck, and I suppose they stole up behind them and shot them down or stabbed them.
They were all eager to escape from the place. Three of them longed for the return of Rynders, but the other one steadily hoped that they might get away before his men came back. How to do this, or how to take with him the treasure of the Incas, was a puzzling question with which the captain racked his brains by day and by night. At last he bethought himself of the Rackbirds' vessel.
But the little bay which had been the harbor of the Rackbirds exactly suited his purpose, and here it was that he intended to land his bags of guano. He had brought with him on the vessel suitable timber with which to build a small pier, and he carried also a lighter, or a big scow, in which the cargo would be conveyed from the anchored schooner to the pier.
Captain Horn found Edna at the entrance to the caves, busily employed in filling one of the Rackbirds' boxes with ship-biscuit. "Miss Markham," said he, "I wish to have a little business talk with you before I leave. Where is Ralph?" "He is down at the boat," she answered. "Very good," said he. "Will you step this way?"
There was no water to be seen, except the brook which always ran at the bottom of the ravine, and which now seemed not very much bigger than it had been that morning. But the little brook was all there was in the ravine, except the bare rocks, wet and glistening. There were no huts, no Rackbirds, nothing. Even the vines and bushes which had been growing up the sides of the stream were all gone.
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