Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 155, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1919 — PIECES OF EIGHT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PIECES OF EIGHT

By Richard Le Gallienne

Being the Authentic Narrative of a Treasure Discovered in the Bahama Islands in the Year 1003. Now First Given to the Public.

Copjrrichl by Doubleday, Page & Company.

CHAPTER Vl—Continued. "I ean’t afford to give you that, Theodore.” •Td die for dat.” he declared. "Take this handkerchief instead;” 'but, meanwhile, my eyes were opening. “Take this Instead, Theodore,” I suggested. •Td die for dat.” he repeated, touching the tie. His voice and touch made me sick and afraid, just as people in a Junatic asylum make one afraid. “Look out I”, murmured Tom at my elbow. And just then I noticed hiding in some bushes of seven-year apple trees, two faces I had good reason to know. I had barely time to pull out the commandant's revolver from my pocket. 1 knew it was to be either the pockmarked genius or the engineer. But for the moment I was not to be sure which one I had hit; For, as my gun went off. something heavy ?ame down on my head, and for the time I was shut off from whatever else ■was going oh. • • • • • "““Which did I hit. Tom?” were my first words as I came back to the glory of the world; but I didn't say them for a long time, and, from what Tom told me, it was a wonder I ever eaid them at all. - . > “There he is. sar,” said Tom, pointing to a long, dark figure stretched out near by. “I’m afraid he's not the man you were looking for.” “Poor fellow!” I said; it was George, the engineer; “I’m sorry—but I saw the muzzles of their guns sticking out of the bush there. It was they or me.”

4£That no He. sar, and if it hadn't been for that suckin’ fish’s skin you wouldn’t be here now.” ' ~ ~ "It didn't save me from ft pretty good one on the head. Tom. did it?" “No. sar. but that was just it—if | it hadn’t been for that knock on the; head, pulling you down just that minute, that thar pockmarked fellow would have got you. As it was, he grazed your cheek and got one of his own men killed by mistake —the very fellow that hit you." There he is—over there.” “And who’s that other, Tom?” I asked, pointing to another dark figure a few yards away. •. ♦ ; “That’s the captain, sar.” “The captain? -Oh, I’m sorry for I that God knows Fm sorry for that.” “Yes, sar, he was one of the finest gentlemen I ever knowed was Captain Tomlinson; a brave man and a good navigator. And he’d tAken a powerful fancy to you, for when you got that crack on the head he picked up your gun and began blazing away, with words I should never have expected from a religious man. The others, except our special friend—” “Let’s call him Tobias from now on, Tom,” I interposed. “Well, him, sar, kept his nerve, but the others ran for the boats as if the devil was after them; but the captain's gun was quicker, and only four of them got to the Susan B. The other two fell on their faces, as if something had tripped them up, in a couple of feet of water. But just then Tqbias hit the captain in the heart; ah! if only he had one of those skins —but he always laughed off such things aS superstitious. “There was only me and Tobias then, and the dog, for the engineer boy hah 'gone on his knees to the Su#san B. fellows at the first crack, and j begged them to take him away with them. There was no one left but Tobias and the dog and me, and I was sure my end was not far off, for I was never much of a shot. “As Cfod is my witness, sar, I was ready to die, and there was a moment when I thought that the time had cpme; but Tobias suddenly walked away to the top of the bluff and’ . 'c > . ■ *

called out to the Swn B„ that was just up -her sails. At bls word they put outa boat for him, and while he waited he came down the hill toward me and the dog, that stood growling over you; and for sure I thought it was the end. But he said • ‘Tell that fellow there that I’m not going to kill a defenseless man. He might have killed me once but he some day or other, but, despise me all he likes—l’m not such carrion as he thinks me; and if he only likes to keep out of my way I’m willing to keep out of his. Tell him when he wakes up that as long as he gives up going after what belongs to me —for it was my grandfather’s—he is safe, but the minute he sets his foot or hand on what is mine, It’s either his life or mine.* And then he turned away and was rowed to the Susan 8., and they soon sailed away.” “With the black flag at the peak, I suppose, Tom,” said I. “Well, that was a fine speech, quite a flight of oratory, and I'm sure I'm obliged to him for Ttie lifo thnr's still worth having, in spite of this ungodly aching In my head. But how about the poor captain there! Where does all hfs eloquence come in there? He can’t call it self-defense. They were waiting ready to murder us, as you saw. I’m afraid the captain and the law between them are all that is necessary to cook the goose of our friend Henry P. Tobias, Jr., without any help from me —though, as the captain died for me, I should prefer they allowed me to make it a personal matter.” “It’s the beginning of the price,” said Tom. “The beginning of the price?”

“It’s the dead hand.” continued Tom ; “I told you. you’ll remember, that wherever treasure is there's a ghost of a dead man keeping guard and waiting till another dead man comes along to take up sentry duty so to say. The ghost is getting busy. And it makes me think that we're coming pretty near to the treasure, or we wouldn’t have had all this happen. Mark me, the treasure’s near by—or the ghost wouldn’t be .so malicious”’ Ami then, looking around where the captain and the engineer and Silly Theodore lay, I said: "‘The first thing we've got to do is' to bury these poor fellows; but where,” 1 added, “are the other two that fell in the water?” “Oh,” said Tom, “a couple of shark's got them just before you woke up.”

CHAPTER VII. In Which Tom and I Attend Several Funerals. When Tom and I came to look over the ground with a view to finding a burial place for the dead I realized with grim emphasis the truth of Charlie Webster's remarks —In those snuggery nights that seemed So remote and far away—on the nature of the soil which would have to be gone over in quest of my treasure. No wonder he had spoken of dynamite. “Why. Tom,” I said, “there isn’t.,a wheelbarrow load of. real soil In a square mile. We couldn’t dig a grave for a dog in stuff like this,” and, as I spoke, the pewterlike rock under my feet clanged and echoed with a metallic sound. “Come along, Tom, I can't stand any more of this. We’ll huye to leave our funerals till tomorrow, and get aboard for the night”—for the Maggie Darling was still floating there serenely, as though men and their violence had no existence on the planet. “We'd better cover them up, against the turkey buzzards,” said Tom, two of those unsavory birds rising in the air as we returned to the shore. We did this as well as we were able with rocks and the wreckage of an old boat strewn on the beach. I don’t think two men were ever so glad of the morning, driving before it the haunted night. After breakfast our first thought was naturally to the sad and disagreeable business before us.

“I tell you what I've been thinking, sar," said Tom, as we rowed ashore, and I managed to pull down a turkey buzzard that rose at our approach—happily our coverings had proved fairly effective—“l’ve been thinking that the only one of the three that really matters is the captain, and we can find sufficient soil for him in one of those big holes.” “How about the others?” “Well, to tell the truth, I was thinking that sharks are good enough for them.” “They deserve no better, Tom, and I think we may as well get rid of them first.” So it was done as we said, and carrying them by the feet and shoulders to the edge of the bluff—George, and Silly Theodore, and the nameless giant who had knocked me down so opportunely—we skillfully flung them in, and they glided off with scarce a splash. Then we turned to the poor captain and carried him as gently as we could over the rough grahnd to the biggest of the banana holes, as the natives

call them, and there we were able to dig him a fairly respectable grave. Tom and Sailor and I were now, to the best of our belief, alone on the island, and a lonesomer spot it would be hard to imagine, or one touched at certain hours with a fairer beauty—a beauty wraithlike and, like a sea shell, haunted with the marvel of the sea. First we w>ent over our stores, and, thanks to those poor dead mouths that did not need to be reckoned with any more,, we had plenty of everything tc last us for at least a month, not to speak of fishing, at which Tom was an expert. When, however, we turned to our plans for the treasure hunting we soon came to a dead stop. The indications given by Tobias seemed, in the face of such a terrain, naive to a degree. Possibly the land had changed since his day. Some little, of course, it must have done. Tom and I went over Tobias’ directions again and there was the compass carved on the rock, and the cross. There was something which, if it was ever there at all, was there still- — for in that climate the weather leaves things unperished almost as in Egypt. Sitting on the highest bluff we could find, Tom and I looked around. “That compass is somewhere among these infernal rocks —if it ever was carved there at all —that’s one thing certain, Tom; but look at the rocks!” Over twenty miles of rocks north and south, and from two to six from east to west A more hopeless job the

mind of man could not conceive. Tom shook his head, and scratched his graying wool. “I go most by the ghost, sar/’ he said. “All these men had never been killed if the ghost hadn’t been somewhere near. Mark me, if we find the treasure it’ll be by the ghost.” “That’s all very well,” I laughed. “But how are we going to get the ghost to show his hand? He’s got such bloodthirsty ways with him.” “They always have, sar,” said Tom, no doubt with some ancestral shudder of voodoo worship in his blood. “Yes, sar, they always cry out for blood. It’s all they’ve got to live on. They drink it like you and me drink coffee or rum. It’s terrible to hear them in the night”

“Well, Tom,” I remarked, “you may be right, but of one thing I'm certain; if the ghost’s going to get any one, it sha'n’t be you.” “We’ve both got one good chance against them—” Tom Was beginning. “Don't tell me again about that old sucking fish.” “Mind you keep it safe, for all that,” said Tom gravely. “I wouldn't lose mine for a thousand pounds.” “Well, all right, but let's forget the damned old ghosts for the present.” We decided to try a plan that was really no plan at all; that is to say, to seek more or less at random, till we consumed all our stores except jtist enough to take us home. Meanwhile we would, each of us, every day, cut a sort of radiating swathe, working sin-gle-handed, from the cove entrance. Thus we would prospect as much of the country as possible in < sort of fan, both of us keeping pur eyes open for a compass carved on a rock. In. this we might, hope tp cover np inconsiderable stretch of the country in the three weeks, and, moreover, the country most likely to give some results, as toeing that lying in a semicircle from the little harbor where the ships would have lain. It wasn t much of a plan perhaps, but it seemed the' most possible among the impossibles. Harder work than we had undertaken no men hav.e ever set their hands •to. It Would have broken the back of the most able-bodied navvy; and when

we reached the boat at sunset we had scarce strength left to eat our supper and roll into our bunks. A mdchete is a heavy weapon that needs nd little skill in handling with economy of force, and Tom, who had been brought up to it, was, in spite of his years, a better practitioner than I. I have already hinted at the kind of devil’s underbrush we had to cut our way through, but no words can do justice to the almost intelligent stubbornness with which those weird growths opposed us. It really seemed as though they were inspired by a diabolic willforce pitting itself against our will, vegetable Incarnation of evil strength and fury and cunning. Day after day Tom and I returned home dead beat, with hardly a tired word to exchange with each other. We had now been at it for about a fortnight, and I loved the old chap more every day for the grit and courage with which he supported our terrible labors and kept up his spirits. Once or twice we had made fancied discoveries w’hich we called off the other to see,-and once or twice we had tried some blasting on rocks that seemed to suggest mysterious tunnelings into the earth. But it had all proved a vain thing and a weariness of the flesh. And the ghost of John P. Tobias still kept his secret.

CHAPTER VIII. An Unfinished Game of Cards. One evening as I returned to the ship unusually worn out and disheartened I asked Tom how the stores were holding out. He answered cheerfully that they would last another week and leave us enough to get home. “Well, shall we stick out the other week or not, Tom? I don’t want to kill you, and I confess I’m nearly all in myself.” “May as well stick it out, sar, now we’ve gone so far. Then we’ll have done, all we can, and there’s a certain satisfaction in doing that, sar.” So next morning we went at it again, and the next, and .the next again, and then on the ’ fourth day, when our week was drawing to its close, something at last happened to change the grim monotony of our days. It was shortly after the lunch hour. Tom and I, who were now working too far apart to hear each other’s halloos, had fired our revolvers once or twice to show that all was right with us. But; for no reason I can give, I suddenly got a feeling that all was not right with the old man, so I fired my revolver and gave him time for a reply. But there was no answer. Again I fired. Still no answer. I was on the point of firing again w’hen I heard something coming through the brush behind me. It was Sailor racing toward me over the jagged rocks. Evidently there was something wrong. “Something wrong with old Tom, Sailor?” I asked, as though he could answer me. And indeed he did answer as plainly as dog could do, wagging his tail and whining and turning to go back with me in the direction whence he had come.

“Off we go, then, old chap,” and as he ran ahead, I followed him as fast as I could. It took me the best part of an hour t to get to where Tom had been working. Sailor brushed his way ahead, pushing through the scrub with canine importance. Presently, at the top of a slight elevation, I came among the bushes to a softer spot where the soil had given way, and saw that it was the mouth of a shaft .like a wide chimney flue, the earth of which had evidently fallen In. Here Sailor stopped and whined, pawing the earth, and at the same time I heard a moaning underneath. “Is that you, Tom?” I called. Thank God, the old chap was not dead at all events. “Thank the Lord, it’s you. sar,” he cried. “I’m all right, but I’ve had a bad fall —Mid I can’t seem able to move.” “Hold on and keep up your heart— Til be with you In a minute,” I called down to him.

A cave, a pirate’s bones, a chest and— P

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

They Glided Off With Scarce a Splash.