Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/464

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ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN

Mrs. Cliff was wild to reach her house, that she might touch it with the magician's wand of which she was now the possessor, that she might touch not only it, but that she might touch and transform the whole of Plainton, and, more than all, that with it she might touch and transform herself. She had bought all she wanted. Paris had yielded to her everything she asked of it, and no ship could sail too fast which should carry her across the ocean.

The negroes were all attached to the captain's domestic family. Maka and Cheditafa were not such proficient attendants as the captain might have employed, but he desired to have these two near him, and intended to keep them there as long as they would stay. Although Mok and the three other Africans had much to learn in regard to the duties of domestic servants, there would always be plenty of people to teach them.


In his prison cell Banker sat, lay down, or walked about, cursing his fate and wondering what was meant by the last dodge of that rascal Raminez. He never found out precisely, but he did find out that the visit of Professor Barré to his cell had been of service to him.

That gentleman, when he became certain that he should so greatly profit by the fact that an ex-brigand had pointed him out as an ex-captain of brigands, had determined to do what he could for the fellow who had unconsciously rendered him the service. So he employed a lawyer to attend to Banker's case, and as it was not difficult to prove that the accused had not even touched Cheditafa, but had only threatened to

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