ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN
body. You know what you have got, Maka. Let us have the best things, and let every one of you take a hand in making a fire and cooking. What we want is a first-class feast."
"I got 'em," said Maka, who understood English a good deal better than he could speak it,—"ham, cheese, lots things. All want supper—good supper."
While the meal was being prepared, Captain Horn walked over to Mrs. Cliff and Ralph. "Now, I beg of you," he said, "don't let these men know we have found anything. This is a very important matter. Don't talk about it, and if you can't keep down your excitement, let them think it is the prospect of good victuals, and plenty of them, that has excited you."
After supper Maka and Cheditafa were called upon to tell their story, but they said very little. They had gone to the place where the Rackbirds had kept their stores, and had selected what Maka considered would be most desirable, including some oil for the lantern, and had brought away as much as they could carry. This was all.
When the rest of his party had gone inside, hoping to get their minds quiet enough to sleep, and the captain was preparing to follow them, Maka arose from the spot on the open plateau where the tired negroes had stretched themselves for the night, and said:
"Got something tell you alone. Come out here."
When the two had gone to a spot a little distance from the cavern entrance, where the light of the moon, now nearly set, enabled objects to be seen with some distinctness, Maka took from inside his shirt a small piece of clothing. "Look here," said he. "This belong to Davis."
96
