After an hour or two of wandering up and down the waterside, he became sure that there was no vessel in that harbor waiting for him to swim to her.  Then he became equally certain that he was very hungry.  It was not long, however, before a good, strong negro like Inkspot found employment.  It was not necessary for him to speak very much Spanish, or any other language, to get a job at carrying things up a gang-plank, and, in pay for this labor, he willingly took whatever was given him.

That night, with very little money in his pocket, Inkspot entered a tavern, a low place, but not so low as the one he had patronized on his arrival in Valparaiso.  He had had a meagre supper, and now possessed but money enough to pay for one glass of whiskey, and having procured this, he seated himself on a stool in a corner, determined to protract his enjoyment as long as possible.  Where he would sleep that night he knew not, but it was not yet bedtime, and he did not concern himself with the question.

Near by, at a table, were seated four men, drinking, smoking, and talking.  Two of these were sailors.  Another, a tall, dark man with a large nose, thin at the bridge and somewhat crooked below, was dressed in very decent shore clothes, but had a maritime air about him, notwithstanding.  The fourth man, as would have been evident to any one who understood Spanish, was a horse-dealer, and the conversation, when Inkspot entered the place, was entirely about horses.  But Inkspot did not know this, as he understood so few of the words that he heard, and he would not have been interested if he had understood them.  The horse-dealer was the principal spokesman, but he would have been a poor representative of the shrewdness of his class, had he been trying to sell horses to sailors.  He was endeavoring to do nothing of the kind.  These men were his friends, and he was speaking to them, not of the good qualities of his animals, but of the credulous natures of his customers.  To illustrate this, he drew from his pocket a small object which he had received a few days before for some horses which might possibly be worth their keep, although he would not be willing to guarantee this to any one at the table.  The little object which he placed on the table was a piece of gold about two inches long, and shaped like an irregular prism.

This, he said, he had received in trade from a man in Santiago, who had recently come down from Lima.  The man had bought it from a jeweller, who had others, and who said he understood they had come from California.  The jeweller had owed the man money, and the latter had taken this, not as a curiosity, for it was not much of a curiosity, as they could all see, but because the jeweller told him exactly how much it was worth, and because it was safer than money to carry, and could be changed into current coin in any part of the world.  The point of the horse-dealer’s remarks was, however, the fact that not only had he