Evening Star Newspaper, July 2, 1922, Page 57

THE /SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. O, JULY 2, 1922—PART % ° Dicing With Death for Treasure of $6,000,000 in the TEAMSHIP Blakely, Built by the U. S. Shipping Board, Has Left Philadel- | phia, Bound for An Open-Sea Position Eight Miles South of Old Head of Kinsale. Ireland. Where Great Ocean Liner Lies at Bottom of the Sca——Torpedo- Wrecked Vessel Contains $5,000,000 in Gold Bullion Alone, Locked in the Ship’s Strong Room—New Ideas in Attempting to Get at Treasure—Work for Super- CURTAIN-DROP SE' SHOW BESIDE A SUVKEN V BY IRVING S. SAYFORD OW would it please you, in this day of super-thrills, when man ascends nonchal- antly before breakfast to pat the soaring eagle on the wing and as lightly at noon descends to lunch among the fishes? How would it allure you to be hitched by vour head to the steel cable of a deck- hoom and dropped like a plummet forty-seven fathoms deep in the Iris sea. there, bronze-armored. in the black chambers of a casket ship. to dice with death for a huge stake of treasure and of jewels? Love of gold fears few sepulchers, shrinks from no ghosts. Seven years and more the Lusitanfa's dead have slept, apart. No hymn of funeral surf or elegy of tide or the brave music of the starlight winds has plaved across their grave. But now at last the silence and the darkness |ana the strange. restless pes with creature eves that alone have kept | THERE sailed a few days ago from the Kensington docks of Cramp's ards, in Philadelphia, the United | States Shipping Board-built steam- ship Blakely, 3.000 tons, twin- 125 knots. bound for an open-sea position eight miles south of Oid | Head of Kinsale, Ireland. There, five | miles outside at Britain's t !mile jurisdictional limit, lies the | the watch must give their vigil over ;,rm_ a time Love of gold has | weighed anchors on a quest! x ok ok ok divers. pedoed wresk of the Cunard Line's Lusitania, In her strong room $5,000,- j000 in gold bullion and $1,000,000 in passengers’ money and jewels. The British admiralty's survey soundings place her uvon an even keel. sunk only five or six feet on a gravelly bottom in 286 feet of water, her fun- nels undamaged 1f Benjamin Franklin Leavitt of Boston and Philadelphia, Inventor of the manganese-bronse, non-crushable, deep-sea diving suit and organizer and head of the Lusitania Salvaging Company, which bears his name, brings up the $6,000,000 loot of the | murdered ship, it will be the second [time in marine annals of the world that any such depth feat has been ac- jcomplished, and it will be the fore- | runner of other sub-sea “raids” even Imore spectacularly rich. One hundred and fifty feet is the conceded depth at which a diver in a | standara (collapsible) suit can do any salvage work. Very few can avcom- plish anything and live below 125 feel. The pressure of the water, which increases by one pound to the square inch for each twenty-seven inches of descent below the fifty-foot mark is too great for heart and cir- culation to sustain. It is of record that three divers went down In stand- ard suits 236 feet to attach hoisting chains to the United States F-4, sunk by internal explosion in Honolulu harbor in 1916, but one of the daring jmen was brought up dead, another ipald with a prolonged stay in the | hospital. The tnird was not seriously tnjured. . Against this discouraging result stands the record of the cargo sal- vaging of the lake steamship Pewa- bic by Mr. Leavitt in 1916, the “first” success adverted to in a foregoing paragraph. to which the proposed sal- | vaging of the Lusitania will range a: | sacond achievement. O her bridal trip the Pewabic, upon a spring evening in 1865, with | excursionists dancing to music on her deck. was in colllsion with a sister ship, and sank in twenty minutes— the Lusitania’s death time—in 176 feet off Thunder Bay Island, in Lake BENJAMIN FRANKLIN LEAVITT. INVNENTOR OF THE BRONZE DIVING SUIT AND SEEKER OF LOST TREASURES OF THE SEAS. Huron. One hundred and twenty-six persons perished. Within the thirty years preceding 1917 three attempts were made to salvage what might re- Sad Lot of Little Peking Emperor | After Picking the Beau- tiful Lady Jung and Lady Tuan for His Brides, the Marriage Is Held Up Because There Is No Money in The Treasury — The Son of Heaven Sits His Disconsolate 1n Forbidden City Palace and Bewails Bachelor- dom. Patrick Gallagher. the author of this article, lives close to the imperial pal ace in Peking. e has been writing about orlental affairs since 1902, when he first went to China. The facts in this article were obtained first hand BY PATRICK GALLAHER. BY PATRICK GALLAGHER. 7 HE Lord of Ten Thousand Years! What's the use if You can't treat your brides to the proper sort of wed- dings”" ‘Who wants to be an emperor, yet too poor to buy jade bangles for his Best girls?” No! The printer hasn't blundered; *brides” and “best girls” are correct. The questions are being asked today by his imperial majesty. Tung. Manchu emperor and Son of Heaven, as he sits under the tented- leaf roof of his pavilion behind the huge purple walls of the Forbidden city in Peking. China His majesty is sixteen years, four months and rome days old. according t6 6ur way af counting. In Asia the baby is a year old at birth, so Hsuan Tung is over seventeen in his own ¢ountry. That is the least of his troubles. He has picked out two little Manchu ladies to be his brides, to love and cherish forever and afterward. and he wants to do the thing, or things, right. The bankrupt but dis- united Chinese republic insists upon getting In his majesty’'s way. Under an agreement promising him $2.000,- 000 a year for abdicating the throne in 1912 it admits owing him several millions, but it savs it cannot pay. Between the lines of these senti- mental and aordid facts a pathetic comedy has been written into the an- nals of the court of Peking. * x % % OUNG Hsuan Tung I8 a slender, pale youth; short for his age, ‘but with theé long, oval face of his ‘Manehu family. He has large, dreamy eyes and a slender nos Manchu eyes are not uptilted, like those of their Chinese kin. They have pre- served many marks of resemblance to the parent Jewish stock, to which some people ssy they belons. His father., Prince Chun, is the younger brother of the late Emperor Kwang Heu, who was poisoned in November, 1908, by order of the great dowagér empress whéen she was told she was dying. She chose Chun's little baby, Pu YI, as successor to the throne, and, in accordance with old custom, he was given a new name, Hsuan Tung, because it {s highly im- proper even to whispér the personal mame of the Son of Heaven, whose job it is to pray for the people at the $reat White marble altar of heaven o #ight Ume*for the farmers Hsuan | and keep the dog from eating the moon or the sun on occasion of eclipses. The name Hsuan Tung was supposed to bring the baby emperor good luck, but all the luck he has had has been very bad indeed. An English tutor, author of sev- eral very good books about the Chinese. has tried to make a man out of Hsuan Tung. He has taught the boy English and French. and other western things. Bad blood, bad asso- ciations and bad habits hamper Hsuan Tung. Undoubtedly he is going the way of his immediate ancestors. For several generations, practically l-mc» the really fine Emperor Chien Lung, what are called “wolves and foxes” have ruled the Manchu court. These “wolves and foxes” are the eunuchs and concubines of the harem, unnatural creatures who concoct and stage plays that would shock even Broadway. The “wiggle” of our te dancers came from Peking by way of Paris and other parts. It was first danced by a famous male player nick- named “Cobbler's Wax Li." * %k X X THE two little girls to whom Hsuan Tung had engaged himself are the Lady Jung and the Lady Tuan. The latter is a grandchild of a Man- chu hero. He was given the choice of joining up with Sun Yat Sen or having his head cut off by a rebel with a long and ugly sword. He knelt down without hesitation, and oft went his head. Americans who knew him were very sorry, because this faithful old fellow who gave his HSUAN TUNG. (Courtesy of Asia Magasine.) ters had risked his head to save American missionaries during the Boxer murders of 1900. The Lady Juns is said to be quite a Chinese beauty, which presupposes plump arms and all that ought to go with them. She is a jolly girl, too, according to court gossip. High are the walls and dismal are the gates of the Forbidden city, within which live Hsuan Tung and the de- posed court. Contrary to So many American newspaper reports, the boy emperor has never left the palace. He is virtually a prisoner, a state prisoner of considerable importance. The palace is form by many Chinese-style houses, pavilions, courts and covered corridors. The gilt ridges and brightly colored roofs make a lovely picture. Soldiers stand guard, day and night, on the walls and inside and outside the looked gates. Here and ‘there are horrible stone animals and birds, also & turtle or two. The turtle is famous in Chinese classical stories. Behind the big walls all is beauty and bright- ness, but some of the house orni ments might well be bartered for a little steam heat and modern plumb- ing. Chinese palaces are chill affairs in the bitterly cold Peking winter time. The palace cooks are famous for the wonderful things they can do Wwith food and tradesmen’s bills. A court friend of mine studiéd the progress in price of an egg from the néarby market to the doy emperor’s table It ascended just 500 per cant. life for his wicked and fooiish mas-1 The grass grows high between. the broken marbles at the palace gates. Inside the young Son of Heaven is choosing two wives from the season's crop of Manchu buds. His imperial majesty i< seated on a high chair. Several officials and one or two ladies of high rank stand close to him. A troop little Manchu misses, all duly certified. are led in. * K x % THE irls mince before “The Lord of Ten Thousand Years." They know they are on parade. All desire to catch and hold his majesty’s eve. which among them may become em- press and order the others about? Their mammas have told them all about their great day of opportunity, and each has been dressed up In her best. looped Into the stiff, embroidered robes of state, scented and painted and powdered; the long. black hair twirled around a bangle placed flat on the crown of each littie head, and on top of all the tall, flapping head- dress, with its beaded “rabbits ears. His diminutive majesty looks them over with an alr of assumed boredom —but he picke out the beaut! As times are 80 hard, he is limited to two. where his ancestors have sometimes indulged in scores, and more than one in hundreds. He makes his choice very carefully, nods to the chamber- lain, and the girls prostrate them- selves many times and back out. Later the chosen damsels are pre- sented to the emperor for a final test, Then the astrologers take charge. How about the horoscope? Do the exact hours and conditions of birth unite properly with the imperial chart of fate? The court astrologers sit around a table with many queer writings and drawings in front of them. They drink many cups of tea and continue debates much older than Confucius. It the old man up in the stars has tied the boy and the girls at birth with the red string of marriage all is well beyond the Peiho. If not, all must be begun over again. I was in Peking when the be- throthal preliminaries were being ar- ranged, and I was told that the court astrologers disagreed over the em- peror's choice. This was given as the cause of a terible scene in the palace, when the Princess Chun, mother of Hsuan Tung, called the Chin concubine “an old cat” The concubine took her revenge in the Forbldden city way. She gave the princess-mother an overdose of opium and that ended the argument. * K K * THE princess died. The emperor suddenly discovered that he was a little boy, robbed of his mother. Prostrate beside the corpse, he wailed and begged death to give her back to him. For a full month Peking was In mourning. The body was removed to the Chun Palace, near the Drum Tower in the West city, Manchus came from near and far to glve rever- ence to the imperial dead. A month after the orime, about 2 o'clock in a starlit night, Mrs. Gal- ligher and I stood close to the big red cofin as eighty stout servitors carried it from the Chun courtyard. Paper prayers fluttered and glistened like flies about the flaming torches. Bands® with ancient instruments played an old-time Manchu dead march that sounded very much like the howling of tortured hyen: Small fat boys on shaggy Mongol ponies, with harmless bows and quivers and 1ittle wooden swords, acted the part of the famous bannermen. Figures of & power that is past. Manchus and cgm prostrated themselves in the dust. Dim shadows of a power U’A#“ mm' oo‘l,'n AT a foew months later— w0 briet 18 1 ef—the you: Smper of ta 0. have: weddings P an nut he hasa't the price main of value of the Pewablic's cargo, and in these unsuccessful efforts the lives of seven divers were sacrificed and $200,000 was spent. The diving suits used were the only sort known —the standard type, made of leather, canvas, rubber, glass and iron or lead weighting. * x * % THEN, one October day In 1916, the steamship Mary Ethel waddled out from the Morgan Transportation Company's Traverse City docks on to the choppy ruffles of Grand Traverse bay, Lake Michigan. On her deck stood a tall, gray-haired. quizzical- taced man of a greatness in his ways, who was looking for trouble and sat- isfled he wouldn't find it. Shake hands with Benjamin Franklin Leavitt, down-east Yankeeman, while the Mary Ethel's mate sounds for depths. That is what the gentleman from Bahston is after—depths. Make ’em deep! Previous to the Traverse bay dives all helmets had crushed in at a depth of 200 feet, he said, under the ele- ment's pressure of ninety pounds to the square inch. The Traverse bay dive of 361 feet encountered a pres- sure of 160 pounds, the Lake Huron dive of 176 feet supported eighty pounds, and the Leavitt suit had been previously tank-tested to a pressure of 220 pounds per square inch, which would obtain at a depth of 600 feet. The only discomfort he experienced in the 361-foot dive, Mr. Leavitt re- ported, was the cold at that depth. After being down and walking about on the lake floor forty-five minutes, he had phoned the deck “Getting a bit chilly down here— below 40 degrees. Nothing more for me to do. Guess I'll come up.” Though it had taken him eight months and cost him $7.000 to con- struct this first bronze-copper, rub- ber-glass suit, Mr. Leavitt scrapped it after the Traverse bay dives, “for,” he sald, “I had learned more by a couple of hours' actual experience than eighteen months of theorizing had taught me. And I set about at once to build a better suit. The eight we are taking along on the Lusitania trip are a developed type B0 per cent superior to the ones | used succes fully In 1916 in Lake Michigan and in 1917 in Lake Huron. * ok kX “I say that T ‘used successfully.' By this T mean exactly what those therein lies as- have no diffi- words convey, and surance that 1 shall culty making my way into the in- terior of the Lusitania, cutting through the vessel's topmost or upper promenade deck and her second or main promenade deck to gain access to the purser's strong room in the grand entrance on the third or saloon deck amidships, exactly In the center of the vessel's length. “The upper promenade deck is at the 250-foot depth level, and I shall not have to even descend to the sea floor at 285 feet if T do not wish. As I have demonstrated entire absence of danger and entire freedom of loco- motion and lateral manipulation of the arms at 361 feet, there is nothing to fear. The excess of the pressure ‘density of the ocean’s salt water over the lake's fresh water is too trivial to be figured in. “The 315 tons of copper, 150 tons of fron ore, 136 sides of leather (in a good state of preservation) and other valuables I and my divers salvaged from the Pewablc at 176 feet cost me in the completed operations $20,000, and I sold the lot for $26,000. That is the money fact of it. The Impor- tant fact established is that inventive resource has at last overcome a bar- rier alement, and that from now on the salvaging of treasurs from deep- sunk craft will be an accepted part of the world's work. “I have no hesitation in saying that I did not select the Lusitania for this first deep-sea salvaging as much for the $6,000,000 of gold and jewelry in her hull—there are far richer wrecks waiting me on the ocean's beds—as for the money attracting publicity at- taching to that vessel beyond all others. The expense of the Lusitania salvaging wil: be $160,000, and the Blakely will sall without ons unpaid Bill in her wake. ° “While I anticipate no interference by either Great Britain or the United Btates to block my entering the Lusi- tania. T shall, when I bave recovered the treasure, take it to neither that country nor to this, but to a country whose admiralty court will give me the largest salvage award. I shall be awarded more than 75 per cent of the $6,000,000. “The Lusitania lies five miles out- slde Great Britain's three-mile limit | of jurisdiction, established by inter- national law. But I shall have a care on this voyage to touch at no point, anywhere in the world, within her three-mile zone. The Blakely sails with cold storage and other sup- plies for four months without need of resplenishment of any sort for her complement of sixty officers and crew, including my divers and opera- tives. Besldes myself, there are four experienced divers, all of them for- merly In the ship service of the United States government, and the Blakely carries her own ship’s doctor. * * Xk ¥ “ALL I need and want to saivage the Lusitania treasure is twenty- one diving days. By that I mean twenty-one days during which we can work on the job. You cannot handle diving equipment in a rough sea. The salvage vessel must be kept In place above the wreck by bow and stern anchors led to buoys, and the sea must be calm enough to not thresh the diving and electric light cables. Because weather conditions along the Irish coast are often anything but ideal, four months has been allowed ge out, the work and the return.’” “And after the return, what?" The gray man from Boston smiled. A shrewd smile has he. Never could he have undestudied Sol Smith Rus- sell in “The Poor Relation” One would say there is the imagination of genlus in the Leavitt smile, but noth- ing of the futile dreamer. His lit- tered desk reminds you not of Mr. Rockefeller's lately memoired ma- hogany inhabited by a neat pile of letters at the left, a neater and much smaller at the right and a little jot pad for the great man in between. No-—indeed, no. The desk of Leavitt is as disreputable as the kit bag of Philip Gibba when that painter on Mr. Kipling's ten-league canvas came home from many battle fronts to be an English knight. In the office Mr. Leavitt is no second offender in the wearing of a coat. The first descent to the Lusitania will be made by himself, Mr. Leavitt said, and not until he has completed a survey of the vessel's position and condition will the employed divers be permitted to go down. They will work in two-hour shifts, though the oxygen tank and caustic soda puri- fying tank (the latter for automatic removal of the poisonous carbon-di- oxide gas contained in the diver's ex- haled breath) are “margin-charged,” the former for four-hours' work, the latter for six. Attached to the diver's head will be a sound amplifying dictaphone, so that at all times while submerged he can—and he will be under orders to do so continuously—converse in the ordinary tone of voice with those on the Blakely's deck. He will report, thus, minute-to-minute progress of his observations and work, direct the movement by deck machinery of his submarine light, and order the shift- ing and hoisting operations when tackle or clam scoop is to grip and raise an object, * X * ¥ A 250-candlepower Mazda lamp, con- talned in a half-inch protecting globe of pyrex (unbreakable) glass, will enable the diver to see dimly a distance of seven feet. Asked why he did not provide a more powerful light, Mr. Leavitt replied that mag- nification of candlepower is useless, because a submarine beam cannot be thrown, and 260 candlepower at the Lusitania’s depth gives the same pen- etrative diffusion as would 1,500 can- dlepower. Why, he said, he could not explain. The efficacy of multiplica- tion ceascs below sixty -feet. The light, weighted to 100 pounds. will depend from another point of the deck boom which handles the cargo tackle, or clam. The diver will wear the heaviest obtainable woolen underclothing, a chauffeur's khaki union-all and mack- inac socks—no shoes. He will ex- perience in tife summer season a tem- perature of about 44 degrees while working at the Lusitania. His bronsze suit weighs 350 pounds above water, and with him inside will weigh seventy-five pounds at any submer- sion depth, the weight equalization being due to the density of the water. Indeed, he will have to exert upon the surrounding water a body pressure of twenty pounds in order to bend forward from the walist. * % % % HE ‘will be lowered and raised by a seven-sixteenth-inch flexible ca- ble of plow steel. It is tested to lift ten tons, is non-twisting, contains in its core the dlver's telephone wire, and consumed three years in perfect- ing. The Blakely'’s eargo boom, shipped at New York on the passage out, is of skeleton construction and capable of handling a weight of fifty tons. No one other constructional part of the bronze suit promises the diver x=uch immunity of accident as the at- tachment of oxygen and soda tanks, because they do away entirely with the ever-dangerous and frequently fatal air hose feed on which he has had to depend for breath. Its en- tanglement has menaced many lives, its severing or pinch stoppage has caused many deaths. Second in safety to the tanks is the protected tale- phone communication. The diver who does not continuously talk with the deck will be hauled up without re- quest and against his protest. * k% % DYNAMITE, Mr. Leavitt said, can- not be used successfully at the Lusitania’s or any other considerable depth. It disintegrates. Hence the Blakely on her way out touched at the du Pont plant, opposite Wilming- ton, Del, and took on 160 quarts of nitroglycerin, sufficient for eight sub- marine blasts. Asked whether he would undertake an exploration of the Lusitania to determine the charges made and offi- elally denied that the Cunarder car- ried copntrabaund of war in the form THIS PHOTO SHOWS MR. FROM THE SALVAGE SHIP of guns and ammunition, a claim set up by Germany In defense of the mur- der, Mr. Leavitt replied that his one business in the vessel's hull is to sal- vage the $6,000,000 of treasure, and he did not propose even to explore staterooms for valuables which may have been there instead of In the pur- ser's keep when the ship went down twenty minutes after being torpedoed. He expected, however, to encounter in the dim passages of the seven-vear casket the bodies, or parts of the Transiated From the Fremch BY WILLIAM L. McPHERSON. T WAS in Tunis, in the Maltese quarter, near the sea gate. A family from Malta, like so many others. lived there in a dingy lodging, amid poverty, dirt and squawlings. Through the door, al- ways open on the narrow, crowded street, one could see the comings and goings of the peddlers of fruits and vegetables, the stalls in which so many things are cooked in ofl, the gayly painted Arab carriages, the jumble of Mussulmans in soft-colored gandouralis and of the Maltese resi- dents, men with fur caps on at 90 degrees in the- shade and women dressed in heavy black, as foul and unsightly as beggars. Smells likewise penetrated into the house, the pungent odors of Italian cooking, Arab musk and whiffs of ‘lowers. The indigo sky, a soft ser- pent blue, followed above the roofs the course of the straight, narrow street. When they didn’t quabble or fight the members of the family—father. mother and six children—engaged in those confusing calculations which are the rage in that part of the world. * % % % +0 people could be more supersti- tious or fanatical than the Mal- tese—even the Sicillans. In the pro- cestions in which they take out the statue of the virgin one sees them running to throw on the platform on which the madonna is carried all that they have at home in the way of val- uables, and especially of jewelry—the mothers little gold chain, the father's watch, and so forth. But when the procession is over each one takes back his property, for it was a ques- tion of loans, not of gifts. As to the calculations in question: One of the children falls down while playing. At once the whole family ex- claims. “No. 34!" The mother raises her arms to heaven. All voices cry: - For each event and each ges- ture represents a number which all the world knows by heart. At the | end of the day they add the figures, and then by a series of difficult oper. tions, combining the day's total with the totals of preceding days, they obtain & number which forecasts the winning number of one knows not what lottery, always running in this quarter of Tunis. This form of collective neurasthenia is met with everywhere in the colony. It explains how there can happen an adventure, like the one, absolutely authentic, of which the above men- tioned family was the victim. One morning they saw entering through the open door, murming cere- monies salutations, a Maugrabin— that is to say, an Arab from Morocco— wearing a white robe under a black cloak with a cowl, with features straight and strongly marked, eyes close together and a look which held and dominatad you. Morocco is pre-eminently & land of sorcery: The Maltese know this, as everybodys else does. So the Maugra- bin's appearance impressed the fam- 1ly even to the point of silencing the daily disputation. “Close the door!” the sorcerer or- dered. The father ran and closed it. “The children must go outside.” ‘When only the father and mother were left he said: x ok k% ((I CAME to hunt you up bedause 1y art has revealed to me that there I8 a treasure concealed in your house. 1 had the revelation last night and I hurried here to tell you. For Allah sends me to the poor to lift the burdens from their shoulders. This treasure is hidden under your bed. and 1 am going to show it to you, if such s your wish. With hands clasped, the miserable Py usitania’s Hold THE FACE IN THE HELMET WINDOW OF THE ARMOBED SUIT. LEAVITT INSIDE HIS ARMORED SUIT. BESIDE HIM STANDS THE DECK OPERATOR WHO ATTENDED HIM N THE PEWABIC RECOVER' bodies of many of its 1.195 victims and the bones of many others on the sea floor around about. From the Lake Huron wreck, Pe- wablc, after a lapse of half a century. Mr. Leavitt brought up for burial a man's well fleshed arm, from whose finger he wears today an emerald ring, and the unmutilated torso of a woman; aleo a Bible and a German dictionary, which. being dried. showed almost no blurring of the print. (Coprright, 1922.) THE SORCERER. By Mme. Lucie Delaru “May God preserve you," sald the husband. “We have no other wish.” “Good!" said the sorcerer. He approached the dirty couch, made mysterious signs about it, and ut- tered incantations. Then he turned brusquely to the man and the woman and fixed them alternately with a de- vouring look. “No he ordered the husband, “pull the bed out and come close to me, both of you.” The bed pulled out, a double cry of amazement filled the humble room. For a flagstone, never before seen, was found in the corner. A heavy iron ring was attached to it. “Lift the ring.” The man bent down and lifted it. A stairway, leading underground, ap- peared. “Let us go down!" Palé and trembling, the two Mal- tese followed the Moroccan. At the foot of the stairway a sudden illumi- nation came to them from something which shone in the recesses of the cellar which they entered. It was a heap of gold pieces, nine feet high and at least fifteen feet wide, guard- ed by two naked negroes, motionless and threatening, each with a bare sword in his hand. When the hus- band and wife, dumb with surprise, fear and joy, had looked at it for & time, a voice cried: “Now, we must g0 upstairs again.” After the flagstone was put in place and the bed pushed back the Maugrabin explained: “I must prepare an enchantment to get rid of the negroes who guard the treasure. The pile of gold is yours four days from now at this hour, if you give me what 1 need to work with for the four nights.” The wife, her teeth chattering, asked: What do you need?” “I need incenses, balms and many other things which I can't tell you about. Lot us say sixty douros. Give me them at once and in four da: the negroes will have disappeared. But don't spedk to any one of this affair, not even to your children. In that case all would be lost. Don't touch the bed before 1 comé back, and don’t look under it. * * % ¥ THE husband stared at his wife. Three hundred francsi—it was almost their entire capital. They had in all 350 francs, the savings of fif- teen years. “Give him the sixty douros, said, still in a dream. The Moroccan took the money with- out a look, apparently absorbed in his magic calculations. He didn't even count it, and murmured: “1 will give you a list of the pur- chases. There is no time to lose now."” At the door he made some more ceremonious salutations, while the other two kissed his hands, which he modestly drew back. “Do not thank me, O my son and my daughter! Ido it in the sight of Allsh! 1f 1 give you happiness 1 shall be rewarded beyond my deserts.” When he was gone the poor couple she fell into each other's arms and wept. They didn’t sleep for four nights. Their magnificent hopes wouldn't let them. Moreover, they were dresa- tully afraid of lying in the bed under which lived the two negroes they had seen. The morning of the fourth day they sent the children away. Fervently, with eyes dilated and twitching hands, they waited. AL They are still waiting. Vic- tims of the hypnotic power of the fmpostor. they searched for two months under the bed for the flag- stone and the ring. But they found ly dusty and broken flooting, just 25"}t Nad always been. And the wors of the a that they are no alone In this predicament, and tha ore than one case in cou Tunis deals and will deal with equale! '1y incredible phantasmagoria, p