criminals. They had all come down from the isthmus, to which they had
been attracted by the great canal works, and after committing various
outrages and crimes, they had managed to get away without being shot or
hung. Captain Horn had frequently heard of them in the past year or two,
and it was generally supposed that they had some sort of rendezvous or
refuge on this coast, but there had been no effort made to seek them out.
He had frequently heard of crimes committed by them at points along the
coast, which showed that they had in their possession some sort of
vessel. At one time, when he had stopped at Lima, he had heard that there
was talk of the government's sending out a police or military expedition
against these outlaws, but he had never known of anything of the sort
being done.

Everything that, from time to time, had been told Captain Horn about
the Rackbirds showed that they surpassed in cruelty and utter vileness
any other bandits, or even savages, of whom he had ever heard. Among
other news, he had been told that the former leader of the band, which
was supposed to be composed of men of many nationalities, was a French
Canadian, who had been murdered by his companions because, while robbing
a plantation in the interior,--they had frequently been known to cross
the desert and the mountains,--he had forborne to kill an old man
because as the trembling graybeard looked up at him he had reminded him
of his father. Some of the leading demons of the band determined that
they could not have such a fool as this for their leader, and he was
killed while asleep.

Now the band was headed by a Spaniard, whose fiendishness was of a
sufficiently high order to satisfy the most exacting of his fellows.
These and other bits of news about the Rackbirds had been told by one of
the band who had escaped to Panama after the murder of the captain,
fearing that his own talents for baseness did not reach the average
necessary for a Rackbird.

When he had made his landing from the wreck, Captain Horn never gave a
thought to the existence of this band of scoundrels. In fact, he had
supposed, when he had thought of the matter, that their rendezvous must
be far south of this point.

But now, standing on that shelf of rock, with his eyes fixed on the water
without seeing it, he knew that the abode of this gang of wretches was
within a comparatively short distance of this spot in which he and his
companions had taken refuge, and he k