through the window and riddled McGee’s breast with slugs, killing him
almost instantly. By the same discharge the stranger at McGee’s side
also received attentions which proved fatal in the course of two or three
days.
CHAPTER L.
These murder and jury statistics remind me of a certain very
extraordinary trial and execution of twenty years ago; it is a scrap of
history familiar to all old Californians, and worthy to be known by other
peoples of the earth that love simple, straightforward justice
unencumbered with nonsense. I would apologize for this digression but
for the fact that the information I am about to offer is apology enough
in itself. And since I digress constantly anyhow, perhaps it is as well
to eschew apologies altogether and thus prevent their growing irksome.
Capt. Ned Blakely–that name will answer as well as any other fictitious
one (for he was still with the living at last accounts, and may not
desire to be famous)–sailed ships out of the harbor of San Francisco for
many years. He was a stalwart, warm-hearted, eagle-eyed veteran, who had
been a sailor nearly fifty years–a sailor from early boyhood. He was a
rough, honest creature, full of pluck, and just as full of hard-headed
simplicity, too. He hated trifling conventionalities–“business” was the
word, with him. He had all a sailor’s vindictiveness against the quips
and quirks of the law, and steadfastly believed that the first and last
aim and object of the law and lawyers was to defeat justice.
He sailed for the Chincha Islands in command of a guano ship. He had a
fine crew, but his negro mate was his pet–on him he had for years
lavished his admiration and esteem. It was Capt. Ned’s first voyage to
the Chinchas, but his fame had gone before him–the fame of being a man
who would fight at the dropping of a handkerchief, when imposed upon, and
would stand no nonsense. It was a fame well earned. Arrived in the
islands, he found that the staple of conversation was the exploits of one
Bill Noakes, a bully, the mate of a trading ship. This man had created a
small reign of terror there. At nine o’clock at night, Capt. Ned, all
alone, was pacing his deck in the starlight. A form ascended the side,
and approached him. Capt. Ned said:
“Who goes there?”
“I’m Bill Noakes, the best man in the islands.”
“What do you want aboard this ship?”
“I’ve heard of Capt. Ned Blakely, and one of us is a better man than
‘tother–I’ll know which, before I go ashore.”
“You’ve come to the right shop–I’m your man. I’ll learn you to come
aboard this ship without an invite.”
He seized Noakes, backed him against the mainmast, pounded his face to a
pulp, and then threw him overboard.
Noakes was not convinced. He returned the next night, got the pulp
renewed, and went overboard head first, as before.
He was satisfied.
A week after this, while Noakes was carousing with a sailor crowd on
shore, at noonday, Capt. Ned’s colored mate came along, and Noakes tried
to pick a quarrel with him. The negro evaded the trap, and tried to get
away. Noakes followed him up; the negro began to run; Noakes fired on
him with a revolver and killed him. Half a dozen sea-captains witnessed
the whole affair. Noakes retreated to the small after-cabin of his ship,
with two other bullies, and gave out that death would be the portion of
any man that intruded there. There was no attempt made to follow the
villains; there was no disposition to do it, and indeed very little
thought of such an enterprise. There were no courts and no officers;
there was no government; the islands belonged to Peru, and Peru was far
away; she had no official representative on the ground; and neither had
any other nation.
However, Capt. Ned was not perplexing his head about such things. They
concerned him not. He was boiling with rage and furious for justice.
At nine o’clock at night he loaded a double-barreled gun with slugs,
fished out a pair of handcuffs, got a ship’s lantern, summoned his
quartermaster, and went ashore. He said: