Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 167, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1919 — Page 2

PIECES EIGHT

BEING THE AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF A—TREASURE DISCOVERED IN THE BAHAMA. ISLANDS IN--THE-YEAR—tgoj —NOW-fiRSE-GIVEN TO THE PUBLIC. z

by Richard Le Gallienne

A SHAPE OF WITCHCRAFT.

Synopsis—The man who tells this story—call him the hero, for short—is visiting his friend, John Saunders, British official in Nassau. Bahama islands. Charles Webster, a local merchant, completes the trio of friends. Saunders produces a written document purporting to be the death-bed statement of Henry P. Tobias, a successful pirate, made by him In 185>. It gives two apoca wnere two millions and a half of treasure were buried by him and his companions. The conversation of the three friends is overheard by a pock-marked stranger. The document disappears. Saunders, however, has A copy. The hero, determined to seek the buried treasure, charters a schooner. The pockmarked man is taken on as a passenger. On the voyage somebody empties the gasoline tank. The pero and the passenger clash, the passenger leaving a manifesto bearing the “Henry p. Tobias, Jr." The hero lands on Dead Men's Shoes. There is a fight, which is followed by several funerals. The hero finds a cave containing the skeletons of two pirates and a massive chest—empty save for a few pieces of eight scattered on the bottom. The hero returns to Nassau and by good luck learns the location of Short Shrift island. Webster buys the yawl Flamingo, and he and the hero sail for Snort Shrift island. As the Flamingo leaves the wharf a young fellow. "Jack Harkaway," jumps aboard and is allowed to remain. Jack proves an interesting and mysterious passenger. Tne adventurers capture Tobias. “Jack Harkaway” proves to be a girl and disappears. The hero sails to Short Shrift island. sees an entrancing girl with a Spanish dubloon.

CHAPTER I—Continued. My presence seemed at once to put her on her guard. The music of her voice was suddenly hushed, as though she had hurriedly, almost in terror, (thrown a robe of reticence about an Impulsive naturalness not to be displayed before strangers. As for the storekeeper, he was evidently a familiar acquaintance. He had known her —he said after she was gone—since she was a little girl. While he spoke, my eyes had accidentally fallen on the coin still in his hand, with which she had just paid him. “Why,” I said, “this is a Spanish doubloon!” “That’s what it is," said the Englishman laconically. “But doesn’t it strike you as strange that she should pay her bills with Spanish doubloons?" I asked. “It did at first," he answered; and then, as if annoyed with himself, he was attempting to retrieve an expression that carried an implication he evidently didn’t wish me to retain, he added: “Of course, she doesn’t always pay in Spanish doubloons. I suppose they have, a few old coins in the family and use them when they run out of others.” It was as lame an explanation as well could be. and no one could doubt that., whatever his reason for so doing, he was “But haven’t you trouble in disposing of them?" I inquired. “Gold is always gold," he answered, “and we don’t see enough of it here to be particular as to whose head is stamped upon it, or what date. Besides, as I said, it isn't as if I got many of them; ana you can always dispose of them as curiosities.” “Will you sell me this one?" I asked. “I s©e no harm in your having it,” he said, “but I’d just as soon you -didn't mention where you got it.” “Certainly,” I answered, disguising my wonder at his secretiveness. “What is it worth?” He named the sum of sixteen dollars and seventy-five cents. Having paid him that amount I bade him good-night, glad to be alone with my eager, glowing thoughts. These I took with me to n bit of coral beach, made doubly white by the moon, rustled over by giant palms, and whispered to by the vast living jewel of the sea. I took out my strange doubloon and flashed it in the moon. Blut, brightly as it shone, it. hardly seemed as bright as it would have seemed a short while back; or. perhaps, it were truer to say that in another, newer aspect it shone a hundred times more brightly. The adventure to whicli it .called me was no longer single and. simple as before, but a gloriously confused goal of cloudy splendors, the burning core of which —suddenly . raying out, and then lost again in brightness—were the eyes of a mysterious girl. CHAPTER 11. Under the influence of the Moon. My days now began to drift rather .aimlessly, as without apparent purpose I continued tp linger on an island that might well seem to have little attraction to a stranger—how little I could see by the', mystification of the a

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good Tom. to whom, for once, of course, I could not confide. Yet I had a vague purpose; or, at least, I had a feeling that, if I waited on something would develop in the direction of my hopes. The doubloon still suggested that it was the key to a door of fascinating mystery to which chance might at any moment direct me. And' —why not admit it? —apart from myburled treasure, to the possible discovery of which the doubloon seemed to point, I was possessed with a growing desire for another glimpse of those haunting eyes. They needed not their association with the mysterious gold, they were magnetic enough to draw any man, with even the rudiments of imagination, along the path of the unknown. All .the paths out of the little, settlement were paths Into the unknown, and, day after day, I followed one or another of them out Into the wilderness, taking a gun with me, as an ostensible excuse for any spying eye, and bringing back with me occasional bags of the wild pigeons which wfere plentiful on the island. One day I had thus wandered unusually far afield, and at nightfall found myself still several miles from home on a rocky path overhanging the sea. There was no sign of habitation anywhere. It was a wild and lonely place, and presently over its savage beauty stole the glamor of the moon rising far over the sea. I sat down on a ledge of the cllfls and watched the moonlight grow in intensity as the darkness of the woods deepened behind me. It was a night full of witchcraft ; a night on which the stars, the moon, aud the sett together seemed hinting at some wonderful thing about to happen. Then, as if the fairy night were matching my thoughts with a challenge. what was this bright wonder suddenly present on one of the boulders far down beneath me? —a tall shape of witchcraft whiteness, standing, full in the moon, like a statue in luminous marble of some goddess* of antiquity. My eyes and my heart together told me it was she; and, as she hung poised over the edge of the water in the attitude of one about to dive, a turn of her head gave me that longed-for glimpse of those living eyes filled with mponlight. She stood another moment, still as the night, ( in her loveliness; and the next she had dived directly into the path of the moon. I saw her eyes moonfilled again, as she came to the surface, and began to swim—not, as one might have expected, out from the land, but directly In toward the unseen base of the cliffs. The moon-path did lead to a golden door in the rocks, I said to myself, and she was about to enter it. It was a secret door known only to herself; and then, for the first time that night, I thought of that doubloon. Perhaps if I had not thought of it I should not have done what then I did. There will, doubtless, be those who will censure me. If so, I am afraid they must. At all events, it was the thought of that doubloon that swayed the balance of my hesitation in taking the moon-path in the track of that bright apparition. 1 I looked for a way down to the edge of the sea. It was not easy to find, but after much perilous scrambling I at length found "myself on the boulder which had so lately been the pedestal of that Radiance; and, in another moment. I had dived into the moon-path and was swimming toward the mysterious golden door. Before me the rocks opened in a deep narrow crevasse, a long rift, evidently slashing back into the cliff, beneath the road on which I had been treading. I could see the moonlit water vanishing into a sort of gleaming lane between the vast overhanging walls. . Presently I felt my feet rest lightly on firm sand, and, still shoulder deep in the water, I walked on another yard or twee— to be brought to a sudden stop. There she was coming toward me s breast high in that watery tunnel 1 The moon, continuing its serene ascension, lit her up with a sudden beam. O! shape of blqom and glory! For a moment we both stood looking at each other, as if transfixed. Then she gave a frightened cry and put her hands up to her bosom; as she did so a stream of something bright—like gold pieces—fell from her moutfi; and two like streams from her opened hands. Then, as quick as light, she had-darted past me and dived into the moon-path beyond. She must have swam under the water a long way, for when I saw her dark head rise again ih the glimmering path it was. at, a distance of many yards. I had no thought of following her, but stood in a dream among the watery gleams and echoes. For me had come that hour of wonder : for me out of that tropic sea, into whose flawless deeps my eyes had' so

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

often gone adream, bad risen th® creature of miracle. ; O! shape of moonlit marble ! O! holiness of this night of moon and stars and sei 1 . ‘ Yes! I was in love. Yet I hope, and think, that the reader will not resent this unexpected iricursion into the realms of sentiment when he considers that my sudfieri attack was not, like most such sudden attacks, an interruption In the robuster course of events, but, instead, curiously in the direct line of my purpose. Because the eyes of an unknown girl had thus suddenly enthralled me, I was not, therefore, to lose sight of that purpose. On the contrary, they had suddenly shone out on the pathway along which I had been blindly groping. But for the accident of being In the dirty little store at so psychological ja moment, hearing that' strangely familiar voice and catching sight of that mysterious doubloon as well as those mysterious eyes, I should have set sail that very night and given up John P. Tobias’ second treasure in final disgust. As It was, I was now warmly on the track of some treasure —whether his or not —with two bright eyes further to point the way. Never surely did a man’s love and his purpose make so practical a combination. When I reached my lodging at last In the early morning following that night of wonders my eyes and heart were not so dazed with that vision in the cave that I did not vividly recall one important detail of the strange picture —those streams of gold that had suddenly ponred out of the mouth and hands of the lovely apparition. Without doubting the evidence of my senses, I was forced to bejieve that, by the oddest piece of luck,l had stumbled upon the hiding place of that hoard of doubloons, on which my fair unknown drew from time to time as she would out of a bank. But who was she?—and where was her home? There had seemed no sign of habitation near the wild place where I had come upon her, though, of course, a solitary house might easily have escaped my notice hidden among all that foliage, particularly at nightfall. To be sure, I had but to Inquire of the storekeeper to learn all I wanted; but I was averse from betraying my interest to him or to anyone in the settlement —for, after all, it was my own affair, and hers. So I determined to pursue my policy of watching and waiting, letting a day or two elapse before I again went out wandering with my gun. I left the craggy bluff facing the sea and plunged into the woods. I had no idea how dark it was going to, but, coming out of the sun, I was at once bewildered by the deep and complicated gloom of massed branches overhead, and the denser darkness of shrubs and vines so intricately interwoven as almost to make a solid wall

She Had Dived Directly Into the Path of the Moon.

about one. Then the atmosphere was so close and airless that a fear of suffocation combined at once with the other fear of being swallowed up in all this savage green life, without hope of finding one’s way out agaih into tfie sun. I fought my way in but a very few yards when both these fears clutched hold of me with a sudden horror', ’ and the perspiration poured from me; I could no ionger distinguish between the way I had come and any other part of the wood! Indeed, there was no way anywhere! I must have battled through the veritable inferno of vegetation for at least an hour —though it seemed a lifetime. Clouds of particularly unpleasant midges filled my eyes, not to speak of mosquitoes and a peculiar kind of persistent stinging fly was adding to my miseries, when at last, begrimed and dripping with sweat, I stumbled out. with a cry of thankfulness, on to comparatively fresh air and something like a broad avenue running north and south through the wood. It was indeed densely overgrown, and had evidently not been used for many years. Still, it was comparatively passable, and one could at least see the sky and take long breaths once more. Still there was no sign of a house anywhere. Presently, however, as I stumbled along I noticed something looming darkly through the- matted forest on my left that suggested walls. I Looking closer, I saw that it was the

ruin of a small stone cottage, roofless, and indescribably swallowed up in the pitiless scrub. And then, near by, I descried another such ru|n, and still another—all. as it were, sunk in the terrible gloom of the vegetation, as sometimes, at low tide, one can discern the walls of a ruined village at the bottom of the sea. Evidently I had come upon a longabandoned settlemefit, and presently, on some slightly higher ground to the left, I thought I could make out the half-submerged walls of a much more ambitious edifice. Looking closer, I noted, with a thrill of surprise, the beginning of a very narrow path, not more than a foot wide, leading up through the scrub in its direction. Narrow as it was, it had clearly been kept open by the not-infrequent passage of feet With a certain eerie feeling, I edged my way into it, and, after following it for a hundred yards or so, found myself dose to the roofless ruin of a spacious stone house with somethingof the appearance of an old English manor house. Mullioned windows, finely masoned, opened in the shattered wall, and an elaborate stone staircase, In the interstices of which stout shrubs were growing, gave, or once had given, an entrance through an arched doorway —an entrance now stoutly disputed by the glistening' trunk of a gum-elemi tsee and endless matted ropelike roots of giant vines and creepers that writhed like serpents over the whole edifice. Forcing my way up this staircase, I found myself in a stone hall some sixty feet long, at one end of which yawned a huge fireplace, its flue mounting up through a finely carved chimney, still standing firmly at the top of the southern gable. How had th is‘almost baronial magnificence .come to be in this far-away corner of a desert island? At first I concluded that here was a relic of the brief colonial prosperity of the Bahamas, when its cotton lords lived like princes, with a slave population for retainers —days when even the bootblacks in Nassau played pit'ch-and-toss with gold pieces; but as I considered further, it seemed to me that the style of the architecture and' the age of the building -suggested an earlier date. Could it be that this had been the home of one of those early eighteenth century pirates who took pride in flaunting the luxury and pomp of princes, and who had perhaps made this his headquarters and stronghold for the storage of his loot on the return from his forays on the Spanish Main? This, as the more spirited conjecture, I naturally preferred, and, ih default of exact information, decided to accept. ' « The more I pondered upon this fancy and remarked the extent of the ruins including several subsidiary outhouses —and noted, too, one or two choked stone staircases that seemed to descend into the bowels of the earth, the more plausible it seemed. In one or two places where I suspected underground cellars —dungeons for* unhappy captives belike, or strong vaults for the storage es the treasure —I tested the floors by dropping heavy stones, aud they seemed unmistakably to reverberate with a hollow rumbling sound; but I could find no present way of getting down into them. As I said, the staircases that promised an entrance into them were choked with debris. But I promised myself to come some other day, with pick and shovel, and make an attempt at exploring them. Meanwhile, after poking about in as much of the ruins as I could penetrate, I stepped out through a gap in one of the walls and found myself again on the path by which I had entered. I noticed that it still ran on farther north, as having a destination beyond. So leaving the haunted ruins behind I pushed on and had gone but a short distance when the path began to descend slightly from the ridge on which the ruins stood; and there, in a broad square hollow before me, was the welcome living green of a flourishing plantation of coconut palms! It was evidently of considerable extent —a quarter at a mile or so, I judged—and the palms were very thick and planted close together. To my surprise, too, I observed, as at length the path brought me to them after a sharp descent, that they were fenced in by a high bamboo stockade, for the most part in good condition, but here and there broken down with decay. Through. one of these gaps I presently made my way and found myself among the soaring columns of the palms, hung aloft with clusters of the great green mits. Fallen palm fronds made a carpet for my feet —very pleasant after the rough and tangled way I had traveled, and now and again one of the coco nuts would fall down with a thud amid the green silence. One of these, which narrowly missed my head, suggested that here I had the opportunity of quenching very agreeably the thirst of which I had become suddenly aware. My claspknife soon made an opening through the tough shell, and, seated on the ground, I set my mouth to it, and, raising the nut above my head, allowed the “milk” — cool as spring water —to gurgle deliciously down my parched throat. When at length I had drained it, and my head once more returned to its natural angle, I was suddenly made aware that my poaching had not gone unobserved.

Most surprising people in a most curious habitation.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

In Large Supply.

When yon start to borrow trouble the loan is generally oversubscribed. — Boston Transcript.

HALFWAY MEASURES FUTILE IN FIGHTING TUBERCULOSIS IN POULTRY—GET AN AX

Fowl Infected With “T. B.” May Appear Healthy Until Disease Has Advanced.

(Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) “T. B.” in the flock does not stand' for “talented breadwinners.” It signifies that the fowl are afflicted with tuberculosis, which means that the flock as a unit must “go west.” Halfway measures are futile in fighting tuberculosis, as there is no treatment of any avail against the disease in poultry. The one practical course is to kill off the whole flock with maximum expedition and immediately thereafter to disinfect thoroughly all the houses and runs. Tuberculosis of fowls is a chronic contagious disease, characterized by the development of nodules called tubercles in various organs of the body, but most frequently in the liver, spleen and intestines. T. B. of fowls is readily communicated to most species of birds and to several species of mammals, but it is almost impossible to communicate the tuberculosis of man and cattle to fowls. Parrots and the smaller caged birds are very susceptible to human tuberculosis, however, and are often affected by it. T. B. Introduced by Purchase. Tuberculosis Is generally introduced into the poultry yard by fowls purchased from infected flocks, or by eggs of diseased birds th'at are obtained for hatching. If the disease exists in neighboring flocks the contagion may be carried by small birds or animals passing from one yard to another. A peculiarity of tuberculosis of birds is that the liver and intestines are nearly always very severely affected, and that as a consequence the bacilli are very numerous in the intestinal contents and arg scattered with the droppings everywhere that the fowl go. The introduction of a single diseased bird, therefore, may cause the infection of the greater part of the flock in a few weeks. In the same way when wild birds contract the disease the bacilli are carried and deposited in all the yards which they visit. The eggs of diseased birds frequently contain the bacilli, as has been proved by the inoculation of material from such eggs into susceptible experimental animals. The young chicks hatched from such infected eggs are diseased when they leave the shell, and of course soon infect the poultry with which they run. Moreover, since the infertile incubated eggs are often fed to chickens, it is evident that even the eggs which do not hatch may introduce the contagion unless they are cooked before feeding. Pigs, cats, rats and mice are especially liable to be infested with fowl tuberculosis from eating the careasses of birds which have died, to the extent that these animals transmit the contagion to other fowls. Even calves and colts are sometimes found suffering from this form of tuberculosis. No Early External Evidences. For the most part there are no external symptoms of T. B. in the flock until the disease has reached an advanced stage of development. Then the birds begin to show a gradual loss of weight, wasting of muscles, paleness of the comb, and toward the end dullness and sleepiness. Very often there is at the same time a tuberculous inflammation of the joints and of the sheaths of tendons, which is revealed by lameness, swelling of the joints and legs, and sometimes by the formation of hard external tumors of considerable size. Occasionally the skin over the swollen joints breaks, the interior of the joint is ulcerated, and a small quantity of pus containing large numbers of tubercle bacilli is discharged. Swellings and bony enlargements of the joints of fowl are invariably suspicious and their nature should always be investigated by killing the bird and examining the liver, spleen^ 7 and intestines to determine whether thepe have on their surfaces any whitish or yellowish, spots which when cut into prove to be tuberculous masses. As was previously mentioned prevention by the rapid extermination of the diseased flock is the only effective control when T. B. goes on a rampage among the fowl. If any birds slightly affected are retained the chances are they will be subsequent carriers and distributors of the disease. Hence it is not advisable to keep any fowls that have been exposed _to the contagion, no matter how valuable they may be. The birds that have died or are killed, as well as all the accu-

mulated manure, sweepings and scrapings of the poultry houses, should be completely destroyed by fire. So far as known there is no danger of communicating the disease to man by eating the cooked flesh of tuberculous fowls. In most cases, however, the diseased birds are so emaciated and their general health so affected that thejr flesh is not fit for humjm consumption. It is better, in all cases, to burn the carcasses of the birds in which tuberculosis hodules are found, and thus avoid all danger of the disease being communicated to either man or animals.

PREVENT SPREAD OF VIRULENT DISEASES

Dead Animals Should Be Buried Deep or Burned. Left on Surface of Ground Their Odor Soon Invites Scavengers to Congregate and to Bring Infectious Material. (Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) The carcasses of animals which have succumbed to infectious diseases like anthrax, hog cholera, blackleg, tuberculosis, etc., are charged with myriads of virulent disease germs, find just as long as they remain ' where scavengers can reach them and portions of them can be carried away promiscuously, they are a dangerous menace over a large territory to all animals which are liable to be attacked by disease germs. Even carcasses of animals which have died from other causes than infectious diseases, unless they are disposed of in a proper way, are a source of danger. Left on the surface of' the ground, their odor soon invites scavengers to congregate and to bring with them the infectious material with which they may have-become contaminated by eating cart-ion elsewhere. Dead animals on the farm should be buried deep enough to prevent them from being dug up again, or they should be burned. To burn large carcasses like those of dead horses and cattle is difficult and laborious and requires a large quantity of fuel. In most instances it is more economical to bury them. All animals which have died from infectious diseases and are buried should be covered with a heavy layer of lime before the graves are closed. In the winter, when the ground is frozen, it is more difficult to dig graves than at other seasons of the year, but it is just in cold weather that disease germs remain alive and virulent longest in dead organic matter and that scavengers travel the longest distances, have the best appetites, and are most likely to carry disease germs on and in their bodies. The extra trouble of digging graves in the winder is easily offset by the greater danger it counteracts. Low temperature prevents the multiplication of disease germs, but many kinds of disease germs are not killed or deprived of their pernicious possibilities by exposure to a lower temperature than the lowest reached during an icy arctic winter. Everywhere farmers not only should attend to the proper and safe disposal of the bodies *of their own animals which unfortunately die, but they should Insist on the proper disposal of the bodies of all animals which die anywhere in the regions in which itheir farms are located.

POULTRY NOTES.

Alfalfa, clover, cabbage and turnips make good green feed. • • • Do not overlook the fact that the chicks must have shade. » • ♦ Bran and shorts with milk or beef scrap furnish the protein. Ts given different feeds, the hen will balance her own ration. ♦ • • Do not keep little chicks In a very dusty place,' and if it is so dry as to be dusty, a little sprinkling will make It more healthful. *