My Buried Treasure
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Richard Harding Davis >> My Buried Treasure
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MY BURIED TREASURE
by Richard Harding Davis
This is a true story of a search for buried treasure. The only
part that is not true is the name of the man with whom I searched
for the treasure. Unless I keep his name out of it he will not let
me write the story, and, as it was his expedition and as my share
of the treasure is only what I can make by writing the story, I
must write as he dictates. I think the story should be told,
because our experience was unique, and might be of benefit to
others. And, besides, I need the money.
There is, however, no agreement preventing me from describing him
as I think he is, or reporting, as accurately as I can, what he
said and did as he said and did it.
For purposes of identification I shall call him Edgar Powell. The
last name has no significance; but the first name is not chosen at
random. The leader of our expedition, the head and brains of it,
was and is the sort of man one would address as Edgar. No one would
think of calling him "Ed," or "Eddie," any more than he would
consider slapping him on the back.
We were together at college; but, as six hundred other boys were
there at the same time, that gives no clew to his identity. Since
those days, until he came to see me about the treasure, we had not
met. All I knew of him was that he had succeeded his father in
manufacturing unshrinkable flannels. Of course, the reader
understands that is not the article of commerce he manufactures;
but it is near enough, and it suggests the line of business to
which he gives his life's blood. It is not similar to my own line
of work, and in consequence, when he wrote me, on the unshrinkable
flannels official writing-paper, that he wished to see me in
reference to a matter of business of "mutual benefit," I was
considerably puzzled.
A few days later, at nine in the morning, an hour of his own
choosing, he came to my rooms in New York City.
Except that he had grown a beard, he was as I remembered him, thin
and tall, but with no chest, and stooping shoulders. He wore
eye-glasses, and as of old through these he regarded you
disapprovingly and warily as though he suspected you might try to
borrow money, or even joke with him. As with Edgar I had never felt
any temptation to do either, this was irritating.
But from force of former habit we greeted each other by our first
names, and he suspiciously accepted a cigar. Then, after fixing me
both with his eyes and with his eye-glasses and swearing me to
secrecy, he began abruptly.
"Our mills," he said, "are in New Bedford; and I own several small
cottages there and in Fairhaven. I rent them out at a moderate
rate. The other day one of my tenants, a Portuguese sailor, was
taken suddenly ill and sent for me. He had made many voyages in and
out of Bedford to the South Seas, whaling, and he told me on his
last voyage he had touched at his former home at Teneriffe. There
his grandfather had given him a document that had been left him by
his father. His grandfather said it contained an important secret,
but one that was of value only in America, and that when he
returned to that continent he must be very careful to whom he
showed it. He told me it was written in a kind of English he could
not understand, and that he had been afraid to let any one see it.
He wanted me to accept the document in payment of the rent he owed
me, with the understanding that I was not to look at it, and that
if he got well I was to give it back. If he pulled through, he was
to pay me in some other way; but if he died I was to keep the
document. About a month ago he died, and I examined the paper. It
purports to tell where there is buried a pirate's treasure. And,"
added Edgar, gazing at me severely and as though he challenged me
to contradict him, I intend to dig for it!"
Had he told me he contemplated crossing the Rocky Mountains in a
Baby Wright, or leading a cotillon, I could not have been more
astonished. I am afraid I laughed aloud.
"You!" I exclaimed. "Search for buried treasure?"
My tone visibly annoyed him. Even the eye-glasses radiated
disapproval.
"I see nothing amusing in the idea," Edgar protested coldly. "It is
a plain business proposition. I find the outlay will be small, and
if I am successful the returns should be large; at a rough estimate
about one million dollars."
Even to-day, no true American, at the thought of one million
dollars, can remain covered. His letter to me had said, "for our
mutual benefit." I became respectful and polite, I might even say
abject. After all, the ties that bind us in those dear old college
days are not lightly to be disregarded.
"If I can be of any service to you, Edgar, old man," I assured him
heartily, "if I can help you find it, you know I shall be only too
happy." With regret I observed that my generous offer did not seem
to deeply move him.
"I came to you in this matter," he continued stiffly, "because you
seemed to be the sort of person who would be interested in a search
for buried treasure."
"I am," I exclaimed. "Always have been."
"Have you," he demanded searchingly, "any practical experience?"
I tried to appear at ease; but I knew then just how the man who
applies to look after your furnace feels, when you ask him if he
can also run a sixty horse-power dynamo.
"I have never actually FOUND any buried treasure," I admitted; "but
I know where lots of it is, and I know just how to go after it." I
endeavored to dazzle him with expert knowledge.
"Of course," I went on airily, "I am familiar with all the
expeditions that have tried for the one on Cocos Island, and I know
all about the Peruvian treasure on Trinidad, and the lost treasures
of Jalisco near Guadalajara, and the sunken galleon on the Grand
Cayman, and when I was on the Isle of Pines I had several very
tempting offers to search there. And the late Captain Boynton
invited me----"
"But," interrupted Edgar in a tone that would tolerate no trifling,
"you yourself have never financed or organized an expedition with
the object in view of----"
"Oh, that part's easy!" I assured him. "The fitting-out part you
can safely leave to me." I assumed a confidence that I hoped he
might believe was real. "There's always a tramp steamer in the Erie
Basin," I said, "that one can charter for any kind of adventure,
and I have the addresses of enough soldiers of fortune,
filibusters, and professional revolutionists to man a battle-ship,
all fine fellows in a tight corner. And I'll promise you they'll
follow us to hell, and back----"
"That!" exclaimed Edgar, "is exactly what I feared! "
"I beg your pardon!" I exclaimed.
"That's exactly what I DON'T want," said Edgar sternly. "I don't
INTEND to get into any tight corners. I don't WANT to go to hell!"
I saw that in my enthusiasm I had perhaps alarmed him. I continued
more temperately.
"Any expedition after treasure," I pointed out, "is never without
risk. You must have discipline, and you must have picked men.
Suppose there's a mutiny? Suppose they try to rob us of the
treasure on our way home? We must have men we can rely on, and men
who know how to pump a Winchester. I can get you both. And
Bannerman will furnish me with anything from a pair of leggins to
a quick firing gun, and on Clark Street they'll quote me a special
rate on ship stores, hydraulic pumps, divers' helmets----"
Edgar's eye-glasses became frosted with cold, condemnatory scorn.
He shook his head disgustedly.
"I was afraid of this!" he murmured.
I endeavored to reassure him.
"A little danger," I laughed, "only adds to the fun."
"I want you to understand," exclaimed Edgar indignantly, "there
isn't going to be any danger. There isn't going to be any fun. This
is a plain business proposition. I asked you those questions just
to test you. And you approached the matter exactly as I feared you
would. I was prepared for it. In fact," he explained shamefacedly,
"I've read several of your little stories, and I find they run to
adventure and blood and thunder; they are not of the analytical
school of fiction. Judging from them," he added accusingly, "you
have a tendency to the romantic." He spoke reluctantly as though
saying I had a tendency to epileptic fits or the morphine habit.
"I am afraid," I was forced to admit, "that to me pirates and
buried treasure always suggest adventure. And your criticism of my
writings is well observed. Others have discovered the same fatal
weakness. We cannot all," I pointed out, "manufacture unshrinkable
flannels."
At this compliment to his more fortunate condition, Edgar seemed to
soften.
"I grant you," he said, "that the subject has almost invariably
been approached from the point of view you take. And what," he
demanded triumphantly, "has been the result? Failure, or at least,
before success was attained, a most unnecessary and regrettable
loss of blood and life. Now, on my expedition, I do not intend that
any blood shall be shed, or that anybody shall lose his life. I
have not entered into this matter hastily. I have taken out
information, and mean to benefit by other people's mistakes. When
I decided to go on with this," he explained, "I read all the books
that bear on searches for buried treasure, and I found that in each
case the same mistakes were made, and that then, in order to remedy
the mistakes, it was invariably necessary to kill somebody. Now, by
not making those mistakes, it will not be necessary for me to kill
any one, and nobody is going to have a chance to kill me.
"You propose that we fit out a schooner and sign on a crew. What
will happen? A man with a sabre cut across his forehead, or with a
black patch over one eye, will inevitably be one of that crew. And,
as soon as we sail, he will at once begin to plot against us. A
cabin boy who the conspirators think is asleep in his bunk will
overhear their plot and will run to the quarter-deck to give
warning; but a pistol shot rings out, and the cabin boy falls at
the foot of the companion ladder. The cabin boy is always the first
one to go. After that the mutineers kill the first mate, and lock
us in our cabin, and take over the ship. They will then broach a
cask of rum, and all through the night we will listen to their
drunken howlings, and from the cabin airport watch the body of the
first mate rolling in the lee scuppers."
"But you forget," I protested eagerly, "there is always ONE
faithful member of the crew, who----"
Edgar interrupted me impatiently.
"I have not overlooked him," he said. "He is a Jamaica negro of
gigantic proportions, or the ship's cook; but he always gets his
too, and he gets it good. They throw HIM to the sharks! Then we all
camp out on a desert island inhabited only by goats, and we build
a stockade, and the mutineers come to treat with us under a white
flag, and we, trusting entirely to their honor, are fools enough to
go out and talk with them. At which they shoot us up, and withdraw
laughing scornfully." Edgar fixed his eye-glasses upon me
accusingly.
"Am I right, or am I wrong?" he demanded. I was unable to answer.
"The only man," continued Edgar warmly who ever showed the
slightest intelligence in the matter was the fellow in the 'Gold
Bug. HE kept his mouth shut. He never let any one know that he was
after buried treasure, until he found it. That's me! Now I know
EXACTLY where this treasure is, and----"
I suppose, involuntarily, I must have given a start of interest;
for Edgar paused and shook his head, slyly and cunningly. "And if
you think I have the map on my person now," he declared in triumph,
"you'll have to guess again!"
"Really," I protested, "I had no intention----"
"Not you, perhaps," said Edgar grudgingly; "but your Japanese valet
conceals himself behind those curtains, follows me home, and at
night----"
"I haven't got a valet," I objected.
Edgar merely smiled with the most aggravating self- sufficiency.
"It makes no difference," he declared. "NO ONE will ever find that
map, or see that map, or know where that treasure is, until I point
to the spot."
"Your caution is admirable," I said; "but what," I jeered, "makes
you think you can point to the spot, because your map says
something like, 'Through the Sunken Valley to Witch's Caldron, four
points N. by N. E. to Gallows Hill where the shadow falls at
sunrise, fifty fathoms west, fifty paces north as the crow flies,
to the Seven Wells'? How the deuce," I demanded, "is any one going
to point to that spot?"
"It isn't that kind of map," shouted Edgar triumphantly. " If it
had been, I wouldn't have gone on with it. It's a map anybody can
read except a half-caste Portuguese sailor. It's as plain as a
laundry bill. It says," he paused apprehensively, and then
continued with caution, "it says at such and such a place there is
a something. So many somethings from that something are three
what-you-may-call- 'ems, and in the centre of these three
what-you-may-call-'ems is buried the treasure. It's as plain as
that!"
"Even with the few details you have let escape you," I said, "I
could find THAT spot in my sleep."
"I don't think you could," said Edgar uncomfortably; but I could
see that he had mentally warned himself to be less communicative.
"And," he went on, "I am willing to lead you to it, if you
subscribe to certain conditions."
Edgar's insulting caution had ruffled my spirit.
"Why do you think you can trust ME?" I asked haughtily. And then,
remembering my share of the million dollars, I added in haste, "I
accept the conditions."
"Of course, as you say, one has got to take SOME risk," Edgar
continued; "but I feel sure," he said, regarding me doubtfully,
"you would not stoop to open robbery." I thanked him.
"Well, until one is tempted," said Edgar, "one never knows WHAT he
might do. And I've simply GOT to have one other man, and I picked
on you because I thought you could write about it."
"I see," I said, "I am to act as the historian of the expedition."
"That will be arranged later," said Edgar. "What I chiefly want you
for is to dig. Can you dig?" he asked eagerly. I told him I could;
but that I would rather do almost anything else.
"I MUST have one other man," repeated Edgar, "a man who is strong
enough to dig, and strong enough to resist the temptation to murder
me." The retort was so easy that I let it pass. Besides, on Edgar,
it would have been wasted.
"I THINK you will do," he said with reluctance. "And now the
conditions!"
I smiled agreeably.
"You are already sworn to secrecy," said Edgar. "And you now agree
in every detail to obey me implicitly, and to accompany me to a
certain place, where you will dig. If I find the treasure, you
agree, to help me guard it, and convey it to wherever I decide it
is safe to leave it. Your responsibility is then at an end. One
year after the treasure is discovered, you will be free to write
the account of the expedition. For what you write, some magazine
may pay you. What it pays you will be your share of the treasure."
Of my part of the million dollars, which I had hastily calculated
could not be less than one-fifth, I had already spent over one
hundred thousand dollars and was living far beyond my means. I had
bought a farm with a waterfront on the Sound, a motor-boat, and, as
I was not sure which make I preferred, three automobiles. I had at
my own, expense produced a play of mine that no manager had
appreciated, and its name in electric lights was already blinding
Broadway. I had purchased a Hollander express rifle, a REAL amber
cigar holder, a private secretary who could play both rag-time and
tennis, and a fur coat. So Edgar's generous offer left me naked.
When I had again accustomed myself to the narrow confines of my
flat, and the jolt of the surface cars, I asked humbly:
"Is that ALL I get?"
"Why should you expect any more?" demanded Edgar. "It isn't YOUR
treasure. You wouldn't expect me to make you a present of an
interest in my mills; why should you get a share of my treasure?"
He gazed at me reproachfully. "I thought you'd be pleased," he
said. " It must be hard to think of things to write about, and I'm
giving you a subject for nothing. I thought," he remonstrated,
"you'd jump at the chance. It isn't every day a man can dig for
buried treasure."
"That's all right," I said. "Perhaps I appreciate that quite as
well as you do. But my time has a certain small value, and I can't
leave my work just for excitement. We may be weeks, months---- How
long do you think we----"
Behind his eye-glasses Edgar winked reprovingly.
"That is a leading question," he said. "I will pay all your
legitimate expenses--transportation, food, lodging. It won't cost
you a cent. And you write the story--with my name left out," he
added hastily; "it would hurt my standing in the trade," he
explained-- "and get paid for it."
I saw a sea voyage at Edgar's expense. I saw palm leaves, coral
reefs. I felt my muscles aching and the sweat run from my neck and
shoulders as I drove my pick into the chest of gold.
"I'll go with you!" I said. We shook hands on it. "When do we
start?" I asked.
"Now!" said Edgar. I thought he wished to test me; he had touched
upon one of my pet vanities.
"You can't do that with me!" I said. "My bags are packed and ready
for any place in the wide world, except the cold places. I can
start this minute. Where is it, the Gold Coast, the Ivory Coast,
the Spanish Main----"
Edgar frowned inscrutably. "Have you an empty suit-case?" he asked.
"Why EMPTY?" I demanded.
"To carry the treasure," said Edgar. "I left mine in the hall. We
will need two."
"And your trunks?" I said.
"There aren't going to be any trunks," said Edgar. From his pocket
he had taken a folder of the New Jersey Central Railroad. "If we
hurry," he exclaimed, " we can catch the ten-thirty express, and
return to New York in time for dinner."
"And what about the treasure?" I roared.
"We'll' bring it with us," said Edgar.
I asked for information. I demanded confidences. Edgar refused
both. I insisted that I might be allowed at least to carry my
automatic pistol. "Suppose some one tries to take the treasure from
us?" I pointed out.
"No one," said Edgar severely, "would be such an ass as to imagine
we are carrying buried treasure in a suit-case. He will think it
contains pajamas."
"For local color, then," I begged, "I want to say in my story that
I went heavily armed."
"Say it, then," snapped Edgar. "But you can't DO it! Not with me,
you can't! How do I know you mightn't----" He shook his head
warily.
It was a day in early October, the haze of Indian summer was in the
air, and as we crossed the North River by the Twenty- third Street
Ferry the sun flashed upon the white clouds overhead and the
tumbling waters below. On each side of us great vessels with the
Blue Peter at the fore lay at the wharfs ready to cast off, or were
already nosing their way down the channel toward strange and
beautiful ports. Lamport and Holt were rolling down to Rio; the
Royal Mail's MAGDALENA, no longer "white and gold," was off to
Kingston, where once seven pirates swung in chains; the CLYDE was
on her way to Hayti where the buccaneers came from; the MORRO
CASTLE was bound for Havana, which Morgan, king of all the pirates,
had once made his own; and the RED D was steaming to Porto Cabello
where Sir Francis Drake, as big a buccaneer as any of them, lies
entombed in her harbor. And I was setting forth on a
buried-treasure expedition on a snub-nosed, flat- bellied,
fresh-water ferry-boat, bound for Jersey City! No one will ever
know my sense of humiliation. And, when the Italian boy insulted my
immaculate tan shoes by pointing at them and saying, "Shine?" I
could have slain him. Fancy digging for buried treasure in freshly
varnished boots! But Edgar did not mind. To him there was nothing
lacking; it was just as it should be. He was deeply engrossed in
calculating how many offices were for rent in the Singer Building!
When we reached the other side, he refused to answer any of my
eager questions. He would not let me know even for what place on
the line he had purchased our tickets, and, as a hint that I should
not disturb him, he stuffed into my hands the latest magazines. "At
least tell me this," I demanded. "Have you ever been to this place
before to-day?"
"0nce," said Edgar shortly, "last week. That's when I found out I
would need some one with me who could dig."
"How do you know it's the RIGHT place?" I whispered.
The summer season was over, and of the chair car we were the only
occupants; but, before he answered, Edgar looked cautiously round
him and out of the window. We had just passed Red Bank.
"Because the map told me," he answered. "Suppose," he continued
fretfully, "you had a map of New York City with the streets marked
on it plainly? Suppose the map said that if you walked to where
Broadway and Fifth Avenue meet, you would find the Flatiron
Building. Do you think you could find it?"
"Was it as easy as THAT?" I gasped.
"It was as easy as THAT!" said Edgar.
I sank back into my chair and let the magazines slide to the floor.
What fiction story was there in any one of them so enthralling as
the actual possibilities that lay before me? In two hours I might
be bending over a pot of gold, a sea chest stuffed with pearls and
rubies!
I began to recall all the stories I had heard as a boy of treasure
buried along the coast by Kidd on his return voyage from the
Indies. Where along the Jersey sea-line were there safe harbors?
The train on which we were racing south had its rail head at
Barnegat Bay. And between Barnegat and Red Bank there now was but
one other inlet, that of the Manasquan River. It might be Barnegat;
it might be Manasquan. It could not be a great distance from
either; toward the ocean down a broad, sandy road. The season had
passed and the windows of the cottages and bungalows on either side
of the road were barricaded with planks. On the verandas hammocks
abandoned to the winds hung in tatters, on the back porches the
doors of empty refrigerators swung open on one hinge, and on every
side above the fields of gorgeous golden-rod rose signs reading
"For Rent." When we had progressed in silence for a mile, the sandy
avenue lost itself in the deeper sand of the beach, and the horse
of his own will came to a halt.
On one side we were surrounded by locked and deserted bathing
houses, on the other by empty pavilions shuttered and barred
against the winter, but still inviting one to 'Try our salt water
taffy" or to "Keep cool with an ice-cream soda." Rupert turned and
looked inquiringly at Edgar. To the north the beach stretched in an
unbroken line to Manasquan Inlet. To the south three miles away we
could see floating on the horizon-like a mirage the hotels and
summer cottages of Bay Head.
"Drive toward the inlet," directed Edgar. "This gentleman and I
will walk."
Relieved of our weight, the horse stumbled bravely into the
trackless sand, while below on the damper and firmer shingle we
walked by the edge of the water.
The tide was coming in and the spent waves, spreading before them
an advance guard of tiny shells and pebbles, threatened our boots'
and at the same time in soothing, lazy whispers warned us of their
attack. These lisping murmurs and the crash and roar of each
incoming wave as it broke were the only sounds. And on the beach we
were the only human figures. At last the scene began to bear some
resemblance to one set for an adventure. The rolling ocean, a coast
steamer dragging a great column of black smoke, and cast high upon
the beach the wreck of a schooner, her masts tilting drunkenly,
gave color to our purpose. It became filled with greater promise of
drama, more picturesque. I began to thrill with excitement. I
regarded Edgar appealingly, in eager supplication. At last he broke
the silence that was torturing me.
"We will now walk higher up," he commanded. "If we get our feet
wet, we may take cold."
My spirit was too far broken to make reply. But to my relief I saw
that in leaving the beach Edgar had some second purpose. With each
heavy step he was drawing toward two high banks of sand in a hollow
behind which, protected by the banks, were three stunted,
wind-driven pines. His words came back to me.
"So many what-you-may-call-'ems." Were these pines the three
somethings from something, the what-you-may-call-'ems? The thought
chilled me to the spine. I gazed at them fascinated. I felt like
falling on my knees in the sand and tearing their secret from them
with my bare hands. I was strong enough to dig them up by the
roots, strong enough to dig the Panama Canal! I glanced tremulously
at Edgar. His eyes were wide open and, eloquent with dismay, his
lower jaw had fallen. He turned and looked at me for the first time
with consideration. Apology and remorse were written in every line
of his countenance.
I'm sorry, he stammered. I had a cruel premonition. I exclaimed
with distress.
"You have lost the map!" I hissed.
"No, no," protested Edgar; "but I entirely forgot to bring any
lunch!"