Guy Boothby

“ Reaching the block, he signed me to kneel. I took a last look round—first at the thick jungle, then at the great mountain pushing itself up into the blue sky. After that my eyes returned to the block, and, gentlemen both, a wonderful circumstance happened. Understand me clearly! Standing on either side of it were two thin columns of palest blue smoke, maybe six feet in height. As I stared at 'em they gradually took the shapes of men, till I could make out the features of old Milwaukee and poor Jim Dance, of London Town. ”

“ Is it likely that a shipwrecked mariner would think of treasure?'
"A storm was brewing in his eyes, and I guessed it would break on me. Suddenly he yelled: 'You lie, you dog, you thief—you lie! You came for what you could steal, but nothing shall you take away, nothing, nothing—not one stone. The Fates that consumed those who came aforetime shall consume you also. Shipwreck or no shipwreck, you shall die!'
"He fell to beating a gong with his stick, and a dozen or so natives came tumbling in. ”

“ Clutching what I could hold, I dashed across the cabin, up into the light, and throwing myself upon the ground, spread what I had brought before me. It took less than a second to see that they were diamonds, and by all the stars and stripes, diamonds of the first water! There they lay, winking and blinking at me and the sun, and for the first, time I began to savee my amazing wealth. For the minute I was clean, stark, staring mad. I closed my eyes, and wondered if, when I opened them again, I should find it all a dream ”

“ As for myself, I put a good face on it, and resolved, since I could no longer live a free and independent American citizen, to die as such. Pity, I thought, there wasn't a band. I was led up the village, to the open plot before Don Silvio's house. It might have been the Fourth of July for the crowd that was assembled. In the centre, for my special benefit, was an object which held an awful fascination for me: a curiously carved block of wood, dull brown in colour, and on two sides much stained and worn. ”

“ Walking the streets of Thursday Island, the smallest of the group, yet the centre of commerce and the seat of such government as the Colony of Queensland can afford it, you will be struck with the number of nationalities represented. Dwelling together, if not in unity, certainly in unison, are Caucasians and Mongolians, Ethiopians and Malayans, John Chinaman living cheek by jowl with the barbarian Englishman, Cingalee with Portuguese, Frenchman with Kanaka—all prejudices alike forgotten in the one absorbing struggle for the unchanging British sovereign. ”

“ There was one old chap who used to drop in every night, and smoke, and chew, and spit, and lie, till you couldn't rest. From his talk, he'd once done a bit in our line, and his great sweat was about an island he'd been to fifty years ago, where there's an old Portugee treasure-ship aground, chock full of gold, diamonds, rubies, and pearls, all waitin' for the man as'll go to get 'em. At first I reckoned he lied, for how he got there he didn't rightly remember; but he swore he found the ship, and was in the act of broaching her cargo, when the natives came and sent him back to sea again. ”

“ He was as white as myself, and from the antics of the chief who had fetched me to his presence, I could see that he had a great hold over the niggers. Throwing himself upon the ground, that old fool of a chief feebly wagged his toes till told to rise. Then he started explaining where he had found me and what I was doing.
"During his yarn old grandf'er, whose name I afterwards found was Don Silvio, riddled me into auger-holes with his evil little eyes; then, having ordered the chief out, he started to examine me himself. ”

“ Whether you believe it or not, of course I don't know; but I take my affidavy that all I have told you is true; and, what's more, if you'll fit out a vessel to search for that island and its treasure, I'll take command of her. Should we find it, I reckon I can make you the two richest men on earth; and when I get my wife and child I shall be the happiest. In proof that the treasure's there, and as my contribution towards the expenses, I hand you this. ”

“ Patten, let me introduce you to a friend who is anxious to hear the curious story you told me last night. Will you smoke?"
Gravely bowing to me, he selected a cheroot, lit it, and blew the smoke luxuriously through his nose. The lamp-light fell full and fair upon his face, and instinctively I began to study it. ”

“ Why, I think, Milwaukee, you are a fool to have brought us on such a rotten chase, and we're bigger fools to have followed you. The island, I guess, never existed, and we'll get stretched for this boat by the first warship that sights us. ”

“ Java's a one-horse place for business purposes, but if you know the ropes—well, there's not a better place in the world to hide in.
"Now, gentlemen both, you may take it from me that there never was such a chap for browsing about among niggers, finding out what was doing and if there was anything to be made, as Esdras W. Dyson, of Milwaukee, U.S.A. In the first place, he could patter any lingo from Chinese to Malay with a tongue that'd talk round the devil himself ”

“ On the verandahs of the hotels sit continually men who talk with the familiarity of old friends about the uttermost parts of the earth, and whose lives are mainly spent in places to which the average man never goes nor dreams of going. ”

“ Esdras W. Dyson, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A.; James Dance, of London, England; and Nicodemus B. Patten, of Sacramento City, now before you. I reckon most folks would have called us adventurers, for we'd ferreted into nearly every corner of the globe. Snakes alive! but I've seen things in my time that would fairly stagger even you, and I guess my story of to-night ain't the least curious of 'em.
"Perhaps you don't remember the junk that fell foul of the Bedford Castle nigh upon three years ago, when she was four days out from Singapore?" ”

“ THE TREASURE OF SACRAMENTO NICK.
By Guy Boothby.
AWAY on the northern most coast of Australia lies a little world all by itself, and unlike anything else to be found in the whole immemorial East. Its chief centre is in Torres Straits, where the majority of the inhabitants employ themselves in pearl-fishing, gathering bêche-de-mer and tortoise-shell, and generally in accumulating those gigantic fortunes of which one hears so much and sees so little. ”

“ One of my luggers took him out of an open boat about two degrees west of the Ladrones."
"But he surely knows how he got into the boat? Men don't go pleasure trips across oceans without knowing whence they started. Hasn't he anything to say for himself?" ”

“ How does a man hear anything? Why, by going to the places and among the folk who talk. I got wind of it months ago, but never came across anything straight out till I went fantee among the niggers. Losh, boys, if you want yarns to raise your scalp, go down town and smoke among the darkies ”

“ Directly I sighted that instrument, I began to guess there might be something in his yarn after all; for, where-ever he got it, it was a genuine Portugee's weapon of a couple of hundred years back. Well, as any lubber knows, the Portugee sailed these seas two hundred years ago; why shouldn't one of 'em have been wrecked with all her cargo and never been heard of since? Answer me that! ”