At all events, Garta was gone, and there was no one to say how long he had been gone.  So, under full sail, the Arato went on her way.  It was a relief to get rid of the prisoner, and the only harm which could come of his disappearance was that he might report that his ship had been stolen by the men who were sailing her, and that some sort of a vessel might be sent in pursuit of the Arato, and, if this should be the case, the situation would be awkward.  But days passed on, the schooner sailed out of the Straits, and no vessel was seen pursuing her.

To the northeast Captain Horn set his course.  He would not stop at Rio Janeiro, for the Arato had no papers for that port.  He would not lie to off Stanley harbor, for he had now nobody to send ashore.  But he would sail boldly for France, where he would make no pretensions that his auriferous cargo was merely ballast.  He was known at Marseilles.  He had business relations with bankers in Paris.  He was a Californian and an American citizen, and he would merely be bringing to France a vessel freighted with gold, which, by the aid of his financial advisers, would be legitimately cared for and disposed of.

One night, before the Arato reached the Falkland Islands, Maka, who was on watch, heard a queer sound in the forecastle, and looking down the companionway, he saw, by the dim light of the swinging lantern, a man with a hatchet, endeavoring to force the blade of it into the side of the vessel.  Maka quickly perceived that the man was Inkspot, and as he could not imagine what he was doing, he quietly watched him.  Inkspot worked with as little noise as possible, but he was evidently bent upon forcing off one of the boards on the side of the forecastle.  At first Maka thought that his fellow-African was trying to sink the ship by opening a seam, but he soon realized that this notion was absurd, and so he let Inkspot go on, being very curious to know what he was doing.  In a few minutes he knew.  With a slight noise, not enough to waken a sound sleeper, a little door flew open, and almost immediately Inkspot held a bottle in his hand.

Maka slipped swiftly and softly to the side of the big negro, but he was not quick enough.  Inkspot had the neck of the bottle in his mouth and the bottom raised high in the air.  But, before Maka could seize him by the arm, the bottle had come down from its elevated position, and a doleful expression crept over the face of Inkspot.  There had been scarcely a teaspoonful of liquor left in the bottle.  Inkspot looked at Maka, and Maka looked at him.  In an African whisper, the former now ordered the disappointed negro to put the bottle back, to shut up the locker, and then to get into his hammock and go to sleep as quickly as he could, for if Mr. Shirley, who was on watch on deck, found out what he had been doing, Inkspot would wish he had never been born.