CHAPTER XXXVII
THE "ARATO"
The subject of the labors of an African Hercules, mythical as these
labors might be, was so interesting to the four men who had been drinking
and smoking in the tavern, that they determined to pursue it as far as
their ignorance of the African's language, and his ignorance of English
and Spanish, would permit. In the first place, they made him sit down
with them, and offered him something to drink. It was not whiskey, but
Inkspot liked it very much, and felt all sorts of good effects from it.
In fact, it gave him a power of expressing himself by gestures and single
words in a manner wonderful. After a time, the men gave him something to
eat, for they imagined he might be hungry, and this also helped him very
much, and his heart went out to these new friends. Then he had a little
more to drink, but only a little, for the horse-dealer and the thin-nosed
man, who superintended the entertainment, were very sagacious, and did
not want him to drink too much.
In the course of an hour, these four men, listening and watching keenly
and earnestly, had become convinced that this black man had been on a
ship which carried bags of gold similar to the rude prism possessed by
the horse-dealer, that he had left that vessel for the purpose of
obtaining refreshments on shore and had not been able to get back to it,
thereby indicating that the vessel had not stopped long at the place
where he had left it, and which place must have been, of course,
Valparaiso.
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