Evening Star Newspaper, December 6, 1925, Page 98

SU The Mystery of Captain Knott BY H. De VERE STACPOOLE THE NDAY STAR, WASHINGTO Somewhere on the Island There Was Buried Treasure. old Chile they used to have ravo- lutions between _earthquakes; sometimes they coincided, as in the great earthquake revolution ar when Don Carlos Aranzas Alonzo Bolivar made his scoop. H real mame was Smith and he came | from Hoboken, and he scooped five | million dollars in gold coin and bars, | the property of the acting Chilean | government, just before it died | Bolivar Smith could talk Spanish ' like a native, play on the guitar, roll cigarette with one hand and smell of garlic. He dropped into Valparaiso | Jrom somewhere in Peru, with plenty | of money at his command. stolen, no | doubt, and .before he had been a month in the place things began to move; at the end of two months a | revolution was well under way, with | Bolivar as chief designer and engi- neer. On the eve of the burst-up the | acting president, under the suasion of | Bolivar, had all the gold coin and | bullion ‘bars removed from the bank for safety and placed on board the Teonora, a 400-ton brig capta an American by name of The shipment was done by night with secrecy and dispatch, and at dawn the Leonora put out under a forged order to the port authorities done by | Bolivar, who was on board as super- | cargo. The earthquake and the revo- | lution came along a few hours later, | when the Leonora was far at sea. | Nothing more was heard of her till | ears later, somewhere in the §0s, hen an old salt dying on board the Kermadec made confession to Capt. Jim Lubbock, owning to the fact that he had been bo'sun of the Leonora, and stating t she had been lost at sea after caching the treasure on Farragut Tsland. Farragut or South Island lies south of Naumoo in the quadrilateral Lounded by 10 and no degrees south jatitude, and longitudes 120°-130°. North of Naumoo lies Farallone or North Island, the three islands equal- 1y spaced and in a line as straight as the line that holds the belt stars of | Orion. Dowsett was the name of the old salt, and he gave explicit direc- tions to Capt. Lubbock as to the exact position of the cache: then he died. having done his mischief, and the hunt began. Tt broke Lubbock, who put all his savings and all he could borrow into an expedition. Jarvis was the next man on the job. and it broke him. Then in_the passing years came others. They turned Farragut Island upside down and shook it, but not a coin escaped. Then the thing died down for 10 vears or so, and woke to | tragic life again with the Knott expe- | tion in 1992, The story of that expe- | dition has never been told till now. Tt was given to me by Chandler, master of the Brunhilde, a steam vacht owned by Burton Wiillams of San Francisco i “Burt was the name he went by.” said Chandler. *He'd made his money in phosphates—a big red-faced man with an open manner and a breeze about him better'n an electric fan in hot weather. I've never seen that chap down in the mouth or complain- ing: always in good spirits and up to any game, from deck quoits to poker. “He didn’t look to have brains, much, nor to be a noticing chap, but T reckon what Burt didn't see wasn't worth seeing and what he didn’t know \wasn't worth knowing. “T was out of a job. 1 been 10 vears on the Emperor Line and was working up to commodore ‘when the Emperor of Japan, my boat, got ram med into Frisco Bay by a Shireman freighter that smashed her bow plates and flooded her fore hold and left her off the Presidio with her nose down like a diving duck and her propellers beating the air, $20,000 worth of dam- age done in 15 seconds. and all through a tomfool of a first officer who'd made a misjudgment of speed and distance. I took the blame and, having a temper of my own, managed to get fired instead of suspended. Then I met in with Burton Williams. He knew all about the business, but being a man who knew men, it didn't worry him. 1 was engaged after 15 | minutes’ talk, and a week later I was | sailing his boat out of Frisco. It was a business and pleasure cruise, for | Burt had an idea to look into the island trades. He didn't want money. but he wanted to make it. Work wa Burt’s idea of fun. | Gilberts, Marques touched at Honolulu and| then came along down to the | then right across to the s, taking St. Augustine and Penrhyn on the way. After that we struck Farallone Island. which is north of Naumoo. which is north of Farragut. Those three islands are | spaced about equal distance from each other. Farallone is the biggest. We raised it one morning about an hour after sun-up: it's clean surrounded by a reef with a break to the west, and when we got into the lagoon a white chap came out in a boat manned by Kanakas to give us the best anchor- age. He was the trader of the place, Carstairs by name, an_Englishman from Devonshire, and back of the beach he had his house with a big garden, the best I've seen for its size | in the Pacific. The native village laj beyond, along a road where the palm trees stood like soldiers. We sat on the veranda and had drinks, and | Carstairs gave us news of trade. | which wasn't flourishing any too much just then, and after we'd had a | | ! bit of dinner we put back to the ship and let out for Naumoo, whacking up the engines to 15 knots. Burt, who was standing by me on the bridge. | asked me what I thought of Farallone. | T said what was in my mind—that it was as pretty as a picture, but a week of it alone like Carstairs would drive me clean bughouse: and he agreed. Then he hung silent a bit, till he begins talking of copra and allowing there was little trade to be done now- | adays, since the best pitches were | collared by the soap companies. That brought him up to the subject of the treasure that was supposed to be hid- den on Farragut, the next island “I'd heard some- thing about it and the expeditions that had started after it vears ago. and lit- tle thinking how close we were to put- ting our hand on it. I suggested to Burt that we should go and have a tryv. 1 was joking, of course, and then we forgot the thing, watching Nau- ! moo rising out of the sea with its two lumpy hills cut on the sky and the sea-gulls banked like a cloud rising and falling over the western reef | apurs. “In all the seas, I've never struck an island so lonesome-looking as Naumoo. Black rocks and cliffs, bhroken reef and gulls, and something, I don't know what, that seemed to shout, ‘Get away! The nearer we | got, the worse it looked, and it's the living truth that Burt was going to put the ship about and run for Val- paraiso, our mext port of-call, when Providence came on deck in the shape of McCall, our chief engineer. | “He didn't look like Providence— | more like a Scotch terrier in slacks— | and he came along up to the bridge | to tell us that the engines had de-| veloped a defect that would lay us up for a day or two; the steam had fallen by pounds in the last 10 minutes, and | there was nothing for it but to keep | on for Naumoo, which we did, reach- | ing there before sundown and drop- | ping our anchor in six-fathom water | inside the easternmost line of reef. Next morning we went ashore, leaving McCall to tinker at the en- gine, and once we were on the beach the place didn't seem so bad. The wees were few compared 19 Farallons, | New Yo | with the paper in hi | the chair and the rocks were biack where they showed through the growth, but the groves went inland up two valley: where the tree-ferns stood twice the height of a man and where there \a wild pig to be found, the fine: fruit we'd struck vet in the Pacific. “There was tribe of Kanakas 1i Ing in the place, but no whites, not enough cocoanut trees and nothing doing in the way of shell or turtlh It was a poor iskand. but the Kanaks were ahout the decentest lot I've eve met. There were only 30 or 0 them, and they told us the population had been preity much the same for vears: you see, when they wanted wives in that island they always went to either of the other two islands for them, then they’'d emigrate, and any how, it came about that the popul tion always kept pretty steady an pretty healthy. Then we found a queer thing about them: they kept up a sort of post with their friends and relations on the other two islands by !means of using frigate birds as ¢ rier pigeons. It's done in several island groups, but it was new to us and when we came to poke into the thing it turned out as intricate as the K telephone system, for there were birds that went between North | and South Island without touching at umoo, and birds that went (rom North and South Island to Naumoo and back and never further. Sru put us wise on it. He was the chief of the Naumooites, and nearly a hun. dred, and postmaster general as well. | S came on board with something in his hand. Seems he had gone to the tree where the messenger frigate came to roost—sort of post office and found a South Island bird, one | that wasn’t due to stop at Naumoo but to go right over to North Island. | It had a folded paper with a message | tled to its leg, and Sru took the mes- age off but could make nothing of it, it was written in English. Before | he could restore it, the bird flew off | and there was Sru left with the paper | in_his hand. | Now the bird had come from South | Island. It was flying. evidently, for | North Island, when for some reason | it dropped on Naumoo. Sru put these | facts together in his woolly head and then he added another one. The mes sage was evidently intended for the | trader on North Island, since it was | written in the language of the white | man. But there were no white men on South Tsland. That got him so bad that he came right down to the beach < hand and pushed | off for the yacht. Burt and I were on | deck under a_douhle awning when Sru came over the side. Jurt took the handed to him and read | s on it, then he handed it to me. It was a piece of paper ruled | with red lines and torn out of a note- book, and the message on it, done with ink and evidently with a foun- | tain pen, was just five words. ‘Struck it today.—Old Chum.’ t “*Nothing very exciting in that, was there? i “Then Sru begins his talk in Beche | de Mer, explaining how he'd taken | the thing off the bird and so on, and | Burt leads him out to the end and then tells him that the message is evidently meant for Carstairs on | North Island, but that it's not im- | portant, and sends him off the ship | with a glass of gin inside him. “1 was sitting there in the deck chair under the awning, smoking and | watching Burt whilst Sru was pad- | dling ashore. Burt held the paper. looking at it back and front, and read. ing it again; then he stuck it in his | pocketbook. | He goes to the rail and looks over and then he comes to where I was sitting and asks me what I make out | of that paper. Then without waiting | for an answer he sayi ‘There are no whites living on | South Island, and South Island is the | only place that message can have ! come from—get me? Well. since that's so, some ship must have put in there and the chap on board must have struck something worth making a song about—what? Turtle—Beche | de Mer—copra—no, sir; treasure. | Some expedition has started to hunt for that cache where the Spanish gold | was supposed to be hid, and found it. | “The thing was plain enough, and | only for the hot weather making my | intellects work slow, I'd have seen it | as_quick as him. It hit me now like | a belt on the head, and I jumped off | like as if I'd been kicked. | Gold’s a powerful thing. beats strychnine as a tonic, and so I stood there with my back to the rail look- ing at Burt, I had all my starch back for anything. ‘The bother is,” Burt goes on, | ‘what in the nation did they send that message for? There's only one man it could have reached, and that’s Car- stajrs. It's a thing they'd want to §)AY before we were due out, .\'ru‘ | of | without moving it and if by any man- ner of chance 1 come on the location { by my own instincts—well, there's no | saying.” “With that he sent a quartermaster for MeCall, who comes along and gives news that the repairs were all but fin- ished and we could put out at sun up next morning “1 didn't sleep much that night. zot the gold fever and got it When I did get gold by the barrelful into baskets without any bottoms te them. and frigate birds were coming all the time with messages to hurry up, as the | Spaniards were in sight. Then when 1 got on deck I found Burt there before me. It wanted half an hour to sun up, and McCall had nearly got steam on her. ra bad. | 4 ALK .an hour after sun H were beyond the reef and mak- ling for South Island. taking it easy |at 10 knots, the current being against {us. and oning to reach there | under five hours. “We hud breakfast, and coming up after, there she was 15 miles off and chewinz well, though not near so high as Naumoo. “As we closed up Burt handed me the glusses he'd been using and I | picked out bevond the north reef the spars of a schooner against the trees. The reefs here are pretty tricky, the only safe break being a bit to the st: we made that, and coming round, found a big stretch of water running west where you might have anchored the Atlantic fleet. Along there and close to the shore lay the schooner, swinging to the tide as innocent lool |ing as pie. and with nothing to show of treasure-hunting or hustle about her more than a chap who was fish- ing over the afterrail. He was a Chink. There were several mor Chinks about, and, as we dropped our hook, a cable length away from her, 2 white man came on deck and had a look at us. “\Wel).” says Bu think of that, Cap? were wrong. don't it? treasure-hunting with a Chow crew unless they've. got a biz after guard and there’s no sign of that they’re ashore. Well, we'll see Look. the chap's coming off." “The white man got into a boat that was Iying alongside the schooner and two of the Chink: He was a big red-bearded chap, and, as he came aboard, light as a cat, for | his size. 1 took a lking to him ght away: he'd got the pleaxantest face on him T'd seen in years. and when he spoke his voice didn't hit his face any “‘Capt. Knott of the Tennessee.' says he. introducing himself, and T zave onr names. and prett m we were all under the awning with iced drinks in our fists talking United States politics and the price of stock. Knott said he'd put in for water, and it flamed up in my intelligence that he'd had plenty of time to water his ship, seeing her size, if he was the n that sent that message by the frigate bird: then he went on to say that he was owner of the Tennessee and that she was in ballast making somewhere for u cargo of copra. Then Burt, fresh from his clack with C: stairs and pretending ignorance, asked him how copra prices were ranging, and without the wink of an eye he gives the prices, all wrong—dollars out. That gave me a turn, the way he told that lie as ready as if he were quoting from a price list. Then I re- rt, | membered the treasure business and the fact that he naturally would lie to strungers over it. “Then Burt asked him plump out if it was true that the natives of | South Island had trained frigate birds ame as the natives of Naumoo, and he said ves, that was so: that only last | week he'd seen several birds arrive {and put off, and that the natives there were always sending messages to their friends and relations over at North. | T was thinking of asking him whether he was watering his ship last week as well, but didn't. Then giving us a good-day, off he put, and Burt said fo me that if he had 21 guns on board he’d have given that chap a salute as the king of all liars. “CWell,” I said to ¥ going to do”" ‘Nothing.” he says. ‘If he's col lared the stuff and got it on board the Tenne: e, it’'s no business of mine, but I'm going ashore to have a look There'll be evidence of digging, may be; anyhow, 1 feel interested enough to get ashore and poke round.’ « an hour a boat out and shore. We weren't afraid of Knott suspecting us, for the Brunhilde— that was the name of the vacht—isn't the sort of craft Knott would bother about. “There w him, ‘what are ALF er he ordered a half a dozen Kanakas ND READ WHAT WAS ON IT. ‘STRUCK IT TODAY, OLD CHUM.” keep secret, and if Carstairs was in the know about the expedition they'd easy have told him by word of mouth, for it wouldn't have taken them any time to put in to North Island on their way back.’ ““That’s so,’ said I. ‘but there's no accounting for how men may act; an; how, the fact’s pretty plain, they've struck the stuff. What do you pro- pose to do?’ ¢ *‘Nothing,’ says Burt. ‘That's to say, if they've collared the stuff and got it on board their hooker. I'm not the man to cut in and claim shares, which would be blackmail. but.’ Le, ‘U tbey've vuly lecated. the stull says | off 1 was shovelling | up we | unless | rowed him off to us. | “‘I've got it in my head,’ he says, ‘that T was right. Knott’s got the Stuff, but I'm thinking he hasn't ship- ped it, for the very good reason that that message was sent off, 10 to 1, as | soon as he'd located the cache. He wouldn't have had time to ship it. That message must have been sent off | yesterday morning. Of course it may Ibe that he sent it off after he'd got | [ the stuff on board, but it's unlikely. | Carstairs 18 a friend of, his, most llkely | { partner, and in the flush of the strike | [he sent him news of it right off.| That's my reading of It. It's most | {likely he’s been here months on the | business and keeping up correspond- ence with the chap. Well, now, what | we've got to do is plain enough. If | Knott had treated me fair and told the truth, I'd do nothing, whereas now | I'm just going to develop engine trou- | ble and lay here till the Brunhilde | rots or that chap gets out, and, mean- | while, I'm going to hunt the woods on | my own, day after day, with you and 1 the first ofiicer to help me. There's I sure to he some sign somewhere of digging having been done.’ | | ““Right,’ I said, and then we came | down and’ put off for the Brunhilde. *“No sooner had we got on the be: {than the clank of windlass pawls beian to come over the water, an we saw that the Tennessee had got | her canvas on her. She was going to | | put out. taking advantage of a wind {that had sprung up, and Burt, as we shoved off, gave a laugh as much as |to suy, “That’s one for me.’ Then he | hung silent whilst we got on board, nd by then the Tennessee's anchor was up and she was passing us for the break, with Knott by the steers- |man waving his hand to us. “Burt waved back and we dipped lour flag to her. T felt pretty much flattened out and I didn't like to think of what Burt must be feellng with all bis deductions gone wrong, but I didn't know Burt. He stood there | watching till the Tennessee was bevond the reef, then he gave orders {for all hands to be piped aft | “He lit a cigar whilst the | erowding up, then, when they were alt in a bunch, Burt takes the cigar from | hts mouth. ‘“‘Men,’ says he, ‘I've reason to be- lieve there’s money hid on that island. Maybe I'm wrong or maybe I'm right: lanyhow, I'm_ going to have a try to | et it. and t's half shares for me and half shares for the crew to be divided equal if we hit it; and if we don't it will be a week's extra_ pay for the trouble vou'll take. I'm going to comb those woods for signs of digging having been done in them. and every man jack of you's got to join in the hunt ‘except Mr. McCall and twe of the crew, who'll keep ship. Mr. Jame. son. pipe the boats away; we'll start right off.’ ““The chaps let a cheer out of them, and five minutes after they were crowding into the boats wild as school- | boys to get at the business “They spread through the woods under direction of the first officer and they hunted till dark. “Next day was the same. and by noon we'd scoured that island without finding a dropped toothpick for evi. dence of treasure lifting. I came off to the Brunhilde with the news and | found Burt under the awning reading |4 novel. He dropped the book on the | deck and nursed his knee whilst I tola him. Then he says: ‘The stuff's there, all the same, but I'm thinking of something else more important than gold, Cap.’ he says. ‘We've been fools: we shouldn't have let Knott | clear out.’ ‘ “I couldn’t take his meaning and said nothing. The lads were coming | back to the ship and he stood up and | watched them come on board. Then | he gave orders for steam to be got up, | and two hours after we were clearing the break: outside he gave orders to | put back to North Island. | “I watched him as he stood there on the bridge and I couldnt make | him out at all: he was a different mar, from the Burton Willlams I'd left that morning when we started for the treasure hunting, manner quite differ- ent. brooding and quiet, and scarce u word out of him. whereas he’'d always been full of chat as a magpie. “It was pretty much the same at | dinner that night. so much =o that 1 opened right out and asked him what | was wrong and whether 1'd done any- thing to displease him. ‘Not a bit, says he, ‘but I've got something on ! my mind, that’s all, and I'm not going | to speak about it. if it’s all the same [to you; it's one of the stiffest propo | sitions I've ever struck, and I've |always worked better with a shut | head.’ | ““Then we played ecarte for beans | land he turned in, whilst [ went on deck 1o look after the weather. next PPN [ ]W s raised North Tsland whilst Burt went ashore. I saw Car- | morning and put_ right | on the beach, pretty much like the chaps at Naumoo, but we didn't stairs meet him on the beach and then the two went off to the house, leaving | day |done a lot of distance under sail, | It has been the center | increasing | from the city to escape arrest. 6. “*MEN.’ HE SAID, ‘I'VE REASON TO BELIEVE THERE'S MONEY HID ON THIS ISLAND. " ‘At dinner he didn't say one word ! about Carstairs and what they'd been talking about or the message or the treasure; you'd have thought, by the way of him, that nothing had hap pened eut of the ordinary, and I said so blam right out as we were sitting over our coffee. Burt, he cocks his eye at me. “‘Lots of things have happened,’ he says, ‘but if you can't guess it's not for me to talk. I work best with a shut head, as I've told you before, and g0 we'll leave it at that. Some maybe you'll find out all about Knott and his doings.’ “We'd bunkered at Penrhyn and s0 we weren't bad off for coal, but we had to take it slow all the same, using the canvas as much as we couid, and it was a pretty slow run to ‘Frisco giving me plenty of time to turn the business over in my mind. But turn it over as much as I could, there was nothing in it to clutch hold of or to account for the way Burt was carry ing on. “At ‘Frisco 1 looked for my dis. charge, but Burt, as soon as we'd docked, told me he was going to keep me on, fuil pay and nothing to do except to keep myself handy if 1 wis wanted, and report myself his house on Pacific avenue ever eve- ning at 6. “I began to have suspicions that a bug had got in old man Burt's bon- net, but it was a gold bug for me, and every evening I had a cigar and g of wine served by the butler with the news that there was no message vet for me, till one day Burt himself pop- ped into the room and shut the door and took his seat, and, ‘Well, Cap.’ h says. ‘there’s something doing ai lust. Knott has sold his ship at Valparaiso and he's coming to ‘Fr 0 by mail- boat.” “Then it came out that he'd been warming the wires all down the coast, and his agents had been on the look out at likely ports; he'd dragged the Havens detectives people in, and be- tween the lot of them old man Knott had been like a fly under a micro scope. He'd not only sold his ship but changed his name, and was com ing to ‘Frisco under the alias of Kellerman. *‘But look here,’ I says, ‘what's he coming for and why in the nation-has he changed his name” T tell you,” sa of all we've frightened in as we did. The stuff’s on the island right enough. Second. he wanted to do his partners out of their share: and third—but 1 won't tell you that, not Ii]l.l get the guy face to face with me. Was Carstair partner?’ 1 asks. ‘He was," says Burt. ‘And who was the other Birt. ‘First him putting partner? ‘James Bowie.' he replies. ‘The same Bowie that struck it rich on the Aransas Claim—and L'l tell you what Knott's going to do soon as he gets back here: he's going to pick up small boat of some sort and post back for Farragut with a couple of hands—Kanakas, most like—and col lar the boodle, and do Bowie and | Carstairs out of their share.’ 1925— PART 5. | “‘But see here’ I says, ‘if he's so busy about hiding things up, what in the nation did he send that message for?' “*You'll know that,’ says Burt, ‘when I confront him with Bowie.’ showing me out, a big man was knocking at the doo; | | ““Hullo, Bowie,” says Burt; ‘glad to &ee vou. This is Capt. Chandler I was telling you of, the chap who was down at Farragut with me. “Bowie holds out his hand for a shake” and 1 go off, scratching my head all - down Pacific avenue. ouldn’t sleep that night thinking over the tangle. The thing was clear enough up to a point, and there it broke down. There were only thre «1en in the know over that busine Knott, Carstairs and Bowie. think out - yourself, and you'li maybe e awake 1 did: and I'll make the proposition clearer for vou by stating right now that that mes sage we took off the frigate bird was sent to Carstairs. and it could only have been written by a white man, and there was no white man in the ,know ahout the treasure only those three, Knott, Bowie and Carstairs “I knew Bowie hadn’t been on the island. I knew Carstairs was away up an North 1sland, so it could only have Leen written by Knott—K the p who was wanting to keep things dark It bothered me for days, till I gave it up and bought a jigsaw puzzle to amuse myself evenings and keep | those three hooligans and their doings out of my head. But it was pleasant enough to think of Knott coming to risco under the name of Kellerman unknowing that Burt was waiting to receive him, and it was pleasant enough to think of what he'd say when Burt brought him face to face with Bowie. You it * oxox o | ¢()NE evening a brisht me and I said to Burt, ‘See here. we're wasting time: Bowie and Carstairs must know where Knott ex- pected to hit the cache: let's start out ter it right a you and I, and ve Bowie to face Knott.' o use,’ says he, ‘Knott was the man who knew the likely local- ity: the other ginks only put money into it. trusting him on his face— you remember the blighter's face. a smiles and affability. Lord, Cap. when nature puts a face-piece like that on a man. she’'s just fitting him out for crime. and he generally helps her in_intentions, and don’t you for- get it “I haven't bluff nd smiling generally feel for my bank roll to make sure it don't jump out of my pocket. But that's getting outside my story. Xt day after the t the Alphonso the First put in from | Valparaiso. I was on the wharf to meet her with one of Haven's best de- tectives. idea took i only 1 see mug nowadays 1 and whenever a k with Burt “I watched the passengers a me ashore and as they stood crowid- & the deck. I was half hid so that Knott wouldn't see me, and had a big Lroad-brimmed hat on to help, and as I stood there 1 couldn't see a single hearded mug on all that crowd, and said Ko. ““Gosh,’ says tec., ‘where's vour intellects? The chap will be Clean shaved, and as he sald the words Knott jumped into my eve. 1 spotted him by his size; clean shaved he was. but it was Knott. Same old walk like a_cat in a larder as he c: swn the plank. ‘That's him.' I s the ¥ ** ‘Right,’ “vou needn't bother any more: it's my job now.’ “Then I went off to get some lunch con and left:things to work theu selves, “T called at Ps ning at 6 as per Burt in his library. things were golng fin and that Knott had heen located at e hotel he was and notified that if he'd cific avenue, quarter after . he'd find an old fiiend walting him “CWill he come?” T asked. Sure,’ says Burton, ‘and doesn’t hell ‘be fet-hed. Oh, come on his own; trust Haven's men for liming the twig properly.’ And sure enough, just hefore the clock struck six there was a knock at the door. “‘Burt shoved me henind a big screen and told me to sit there and count my fingers till 1 was wanted. Then heard the door oper and Knott come in. ivenue that eve: usual and found He told me that fic Good Burt. Good evening . the deuce—* says Knott. “ ‘Remember me down at Farragut apt. Knott” says Burt. 'l see you've shaved your beard. Hot weather, 1 suppose. Chandler, will step foru “I steppe t had taken his seat on a chair. le <at for & moment looking from one to the other of us Then he laughed Well, I'm damned!” savs he. * ‘You sure are.” says Burt. ‘You'v robbed your two partners, or tried to and now you're in front of justice Do you recognize tlat. Capt. Knott” NOTT laughed ‘Well, “ K t's true enough. I haven't run straight as a mail train with them zinks, but the whole thing was illegal. anyway, seeing that the Chili govern ment_owns the stuf we were after and 1 reckon justice has no more 1o o with the business than the King of Siam. How's the law to touch me? Now. you listen.’ savs Burt ‘Carstairs and Bowie were traders on North Island: yvou blew in as mate of a copra schooner. You had the knowledge of that cache in vour head evening, Mr. Kellerman why, what he s me | | somewhere vou picked up from a rogue that had been on Jarvis' expedition. You told your story and Carstairs and Bowie | the money for an ¢ went_with you to 'k bought the Tennesser “iYes Knott cht in my na llaw to touch me “‘One moment bought her and you and | stralght for I treasure. What | He wasn't wit} Bowle wen in savs overt the said i and rings bell butler open - ie on th | & s B “Knot 1 1'd secn e doorste whe zave a a ountains had be . and sits quiet swie came and stood before I you villain Bowie what have you done with my brothe ¥ with vou o betraved Knott | he saw reat ! the Rocky off his c} im an who sailec the n vou ite himselif a these gentlemen them > says your her squall hefore re: Bu. sea ragut.” said Well, then, lost before r did he send bird—unknown be [ villain—t rst and he took | of the frigate bir desk and hande it ! his writing." finishes bankers will prove. Struck it today—Old Chu Knott out loud in & ve e that to come over sandpape “*You murd 5 killed him cache. that same ‘Knott didn't His face was berry. Then he stood up and if he was pole-axed. « “Worst was. he knowledge of where his head. “I've said Burt Lthough he didn roused his suspicions fir veading a lLook on whilst we were o rtne raph from his v Knott. ‘It's F eveni; szt was the cacl i on dey huntir fact that Kn there with a Chow crew and no explanation: for it's the | every Chow-manned ship la white mate. 1 never that, but then I'm was I'd be worth a out of phosphates made say. natural cleverness. (Copyr: was ca yusht « urt—if 1 million dollars to First English Version of Testament BY GEORGE PORTER. ECAUSE of the Dayton evolu tion trial and similar inci cidents, the Bible has received an unprecedented amount of publicity during the past vear. oi an ever- modernist-fundamentalist controversy. Vet there is another item that gives the Bible a further claim to public attention, and has been almost entirely overlooked in the concentrated interest in the sensa- tional Scripture.science discussions. The year 1925 is the 400th anniver- sary of the Bible as an English book. It was in 1525 that William Tyndale succeeded, after a long series of diffi- culties and_discouragements, in pub- lishing the first translation of the New Testament into plain English *“that every plowman could understand.” Oddly enough, the first English Bible was not printed in England, but on the continent, within the city of Cologne, The contract for the first | edition called for 3,000 copies, but be- fore they could be printed Tyndale and his fellow workers were forced to fiee uck- ily a single copy. almost complete. of this Cologne edition has been pre. served. It was bequeathed to the Brit- ish Museum by Thomas Grenville, and is now one of the most highly prized treasures of that institution. Tyndale’s Bible, including later ad- ditions from the Old Testament, is called the “first” English Bible, in spite of the fact that other transla- tions—notably one by John Wycliffe— had previously been made. But those which preceded Tyndale's were based upon the Latin Vulgate rather than the original Greek and Hebrew texts. In addition they were written in “scholarly” English, which the masses ald not understand, and, mot being printed, were costly affairs. It was Tyndale’s belief that his countrymen would be benefited by a “popular” edition of the Bible, and, {bother about thém, just struck in|the boat's crew chattering with the | accordingly, he set out to make one. {among the trees past the village and |went wandering. taking the rise of | round as a direction till we'd reached the hump of ground that stood for a hilltop. “We saw nothing of any digging marks on the way, and from the hill- top we took notice of the trees; few {palms, but plenty of others, such as screw pine and breadfruit, and an undergrowth thicker than ordinary. Then we sat down in a-shady place to cool ourselves. and Burton Williams vpened Lis wind, ~ Kanakas. {hour after hour, whilst T kicked my | heels, wondering what in the nation | those two could find to clack about all that while, and wishing the chaps that buried that treasure had been forced to help in the hunting for it and made Then the time went by, | His effort necessitated 12 years’ exile | and eventually cost him his life. He | was not destined quite to succeed in | translating all of the Scriptures, but I of the portions which he finished it is estimated that our modern Bibles retain 85 per cent of Tyndale’s work. to dig with their noses. “Presently, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, off he comes, leaving Car- stairs on the beach, and as soon as he was on board he goes down to his cabin after giving orders to put out aud lay a coyrse for ‘Frisco, Because of this he is frequently term- ed “tpe true father of our present English Bible.” Tyndale’s career was brief but eventful. to our own, in-that it was marked by religlous controversy and material progress. It was the age’ of the| | renaissance, or new learning, ihat had | produced an _intellectual revolution | {and was producing a spiritual one.| It was the time of Luther and F mus and Wolsey and Cromwell and Calvin, with all scenes | that those names e * OA of the most outstanding ma- terial achievements of the period, | | withdut which Tyndale's work would | have been impossible, was the inven- ! tion of printing. Howev the possi. bilitles of this new art were definitely limited because, in Englard at leust, there was no such thing as a “free | press.” As far as the publication of | Bibles was_concerned, it was decreed | by Henry VIIIL, in 1521, that ‘untrue | (which meant unauthorized) transla. tions shall be burnt, with sharp cor- rection and punishment against keep- ers and readers of th: same.” | Hence, after having decided to de- | vote his life to translating the Bible. William Tyndale, promptly applied to the Bishop of ! London for official | sanction of his projected work. As a translator he was well qualified for | his undertaking. He was *'so skilled | in seven languages—Hebrew, Greek, | | Latin, Italian, French. Spanish and | | English—that whichever he spok |you would suppose it his native | tongue.” He had studied and Cambridge and been a private chaplain for one of the nobility. The bishop, Cuthbert Tunstall, how- ever, was not impressed by Tyndale and ‘told him there was no room in his house for a transiator. ‘vhe young man shortly afterward found, as he himself bitterly said, “that not only was _there no room fn the bishop's London palace to translat: the New Testament, but also that there was no place to do it in all England.” At the time of such disheartening realizations help came from an unex- pected quarter, when Humphrey Mun- mouth, a devout London merchant of | means. who had befriended Tyndale, | alded him financiall; Assisted by a | subsidy of 10 pounds. the translator anism was gaining headway, and fa- cilitles for printing were practically uncensored. t Oxford | ment was complete. and the translator went to Cologne, where the first coples were struck off. The text was divided into chapters but not verses. and con tained references, marginal notes and a prologue. But by the time the work had_progressed as far as the Gospel of St. Mark the suthorities learned through a spy of the enterprise. Tyn- dale was forced to pack up his incom- plete books and quickly feave the city. In October, 1525, Tyndule arrived at Worms with his rescued papers. There he placed the munuscripts in the hands of one Peter Schoeffer, : printer, whose father had heiped make typesetting a success in Mainz over half a century before. The Worms editfon dropped the prologue and notes and was, of course, anonymous. About 6,000 copies were printed at that time by Schoeffer, most of which found their way into England in bales of freight. * ¥ ¥ ¥ URING the next three years six . editions of Tyndale’s New Test meént, numbering about 18.000 vol- umes, were issued, vet so thorough were ‘the ecclesiastical authorities in destroving them that only ene copy of the incomplete Cologne edition and two copies of. those published at Worms have survived. The Cologne fragment is in the British Museum, as already noted. Oneof the Worms editions is pre- | served in the Library of Baptist Col- lege, Bristol, England. It is the most complete of the three. lacking only the first page. The other copy of the Worms issue, containing about four-fifths of the New Testament, is in_St. Paul's Cathedral, London. From the time of the publication of his first Testament until his death, Tyndale worked unceasingly upon other portions of the Bible and upon revision of those sections which he had already translated. He saw most of his laboriously produced Bibles zo up in smoke, an event that in no way surprised him. “In burning the Tyndale wrote in 1 New Testament,” 27, “they did none 27, ‘went to the continent, where Luther-, other than the thing I looked for; no more shall they do if they burn me also, if it be God's will it shall so be.” The effect of Tyndale's Bibles ap- | For about a year he labored in { Hamburg on his translation, using the Latin version of Erasmus and the German of Luther as aids, but work- text. By the Summer of 1525 his Testa- pearing, one edition right after an- other, is indicated in the action of the Upper House of Convocation in the province of Canterbury, which, as It covers a period similar|ing primarily from the original Greek | early as December, 1534, changed its position of resistance against the “‘heretical” books so far as to petition Was Printed by Tyndale 400 Years Ago Ithe King to h: ion of the Sc | sentiment ities of T ve an author d ve: stures printed. Such a directly due to the acti\ ndale and his successors gradually "became almost univer and led to the famous King James version of 1611 Tyndale's death was tragically dr tic. In May. 1335, he was treacl erously betrayed when he fell vietim of a well lald scheme which enticed him out of his house in Antwerp. Once bevond the lim of the city he was seized by the imperial authorities and carrled to prison in Vilvorde Cus tle. near Brussels. There he was con | fined until October 6. 1336. when 1 was strangled to death and his hody jburnt at the stake. His last words |are to have been, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes Seven separate editions of Tyndale New Testament were published durin | the year of his martyrdom, It is cor imon knowledge now that the Bib “completely overtaps .all the bes and that it has been in th class from the start is evident whe is pointed out that over 40 editions « | Tyndale’s works are known to has |been issued between 1325 and 1 | when the last dated edition was pr ed. Because many of these editions {are known to us only through one copy or fragment of a copy. it is high Iy probable that other issues of the translator’s Testaments were brou; out, but have been entirely destroyed. TR Fishes’ Radio Beacon. HE simplest and most constant sound in nature, the washing of the sea, serves as a radio beacon to warn whales, porpolses and many fishes to keep away from the shore and below the surface in rough weather, according to Dr. Austin Ii. Clark of the United States National Museum and formerly naturalist gn the scientific ship Albatross. Being high-pitched, the hissing | sound of breaking waves has a ma | ed directive quality—that is, it is easy {to locate its point of origin. Beins | unceasing, it is distressing and repel- jlent, and all the more sensitive sew creatures try to keep away from it. Whales, porpoises and dolphins and many fishes always keep well off shore, Dr. Clark stated, and they are appareptly guided by these repellent sounds, while on a windy night vari- ous other types of life which normally come up to the surface stay well be- neath it.