The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 1, 1901, Page 1

(Copyright 151, by K. C. Kirk) ECENTLY there stopped at the ngton Hotel, liolle, & man verse in no ascer- ge, baffing all at- ain his name and ne after he had gone ing swiftly befors the st mopsoon along . the coast of Guimaras Island, In the direction of Tioflo. was a well constructéd vessel of its class, with outralls and & sherpP Prow, ch split the ruffied water into ribbons ©f foem and decorated the surface many rods wakew th fiecks and patches of nt white. ere were eight occupants, five sallors and three passengers, the former engaged handling praoc and the latter seated in the shadow of the sall near the stern. One of these wes a beard: young man, not ebove 25 years of age, of swarthy Caucasian type, wearing & much-faded jacket, trousers of Persian pattern and red fex. Another of about the same age was dressed in ordinary Visayan garb, his countenance evincing more than the or- €inary native intelligence. The third, a man much eolder than the other two, wore & turban, & tob or sack-shaped gown and baggy trousers, all of which had srobably been white &t some time, but now present- ed an appearance of dirty brown, mottied with yellow and black blotches. ssed the Filipino in the Malay tongue apparently, speaking slowly, as It for the purpose of being the more readily y hours now to Ilolle?™ an thirty minutes.” much farther to the wreck?’ t an hour, if the monsoon does not vou know the exact location?” you are sure it could not have y the cyclone? 1 edged In er: it lies s you, at the sea's bottom, ess than an earthquake ow about the from the port?” t y will be required, tafned.” Hassan,” he con- er of the fes papers , ““do you feel X o m “then if this eived us we shalt re- nes here. hall get a y old age and you enough marry the maid of Laris- ler water een found This dis- ely watched of secreting peatls, his t He an who had ir, impelled sure of the girl of his t Wad something acts the case, undoubtedly at- ce of Mahmoud, accompanied the had come to re- g. It was Mah- ations and ges- the sharks away from 1 they descended beneath nd were engaged in their Indeed at times Mah- nge into the waves, for wimmer, and, accord- ccount. send these mon- (Seurrylng far away in the human mind understood, vable that some of these men ich they had no rate Hassan utmost confidence in Mahmoud, and so when gested to Hassan con- y one day that he should conceal valuable findings for a time. »f comscience the diver rly all his acquisitions re he arose to the sur- face. in s which Mahmoud previous. 1y me: to him. The day of the dis- covery Mahmoud made a prediction based on his occult power that a pearl of value would be found in a post Jocated at a cer- tain point in the fishing ground. This was imparicd secretly to the boat agent or super: who, possessing his own share of superstition, was profoundly im- ressed with the discovery. Subsequent. , Mahmoud thinking it over, decided 1het the general superintendent, an Eng- lishman, might not view -the .xpatter in d. Mahmoud s0ld his boat and the two took passage from Colombo to Sif pore. and thence ta Jolo,* where ~Mah- moud was favorably received by the’Sul- tan, and they worked for a time—or, more exactly, Hassan worked in the na- tive fisheries south of the Sulu Island. Shark-charmers were not employed there, -and* Hassan observed with some surprise that the divers returned quite as safely. when no mysilc charmer accom- ey only knew one kind of business and panied the party. Hassan's awe for Mah- \that was fishing for pearls. Ceylon was moud was beginning to lessen. 1In fact reached just as -the pearl-fishing season: the latter was coming to .entertaln a the same Nght: and hers occurred, too, a slight weakening of Hassan's confidence in Mahmoud. Hassan could not’. under- stand -why Mahmoud should suggest to him as he did quietly that morning, the plan of swimming away from the boat with his next find and thus running the risk of being shot by the agent. As the water happened to be rough, he com- plied with the suggestion by swimming as far as possible under water from the moment of making his last descent, keej ing in the hollow of the waves as he ros. 0. breathe.. When he did -not &ppear, Mahmoud declared In a) orror t the startied inmates of the the diver had been devoured .by a 'shark, Just’ retribution’ ‘for some criims h probably committed. tin-iad That night Mahmoud in a little gailing eraft took Hassan :from a place of con- cealment on shore and the palr started upon a long, and-to most people, danger- ous voyage, How they subsisted, what rils they passed, need not be recounted. 3 ' ‘on their trip species of fear for his former 4 On et Fiassan had relsed The ques tion as to what had become of all the pearls, some of them apparently very valuable, which he had secreted at Mahmoud’s suggestion. The _latter easily . parried the query by ob- serving that If not washed away they were probably in their various places still; but he sincerely thought it a great misfortune that Hassan had not been shot.by the agent or drowned on their trip. e was too godd a Mussulman to deliberately murder a believer in the :m. faith without where his own safety seemed to him of the highest order of morality. oughly disillusioned he might tell all the facts to the authorities, when the Orient should become too sinall a place to con- tain even so estimable a person as Mah- moud. A change seemed imperative, es- great provocati but it Providence in its ends, u&ull Was Conoern Bhould Hassan become thor- pecially as the work in the lustrous nacre of Jolo was chlefly In mother-of-pearl and afforded him little pront. § Accordingly when a Visayan diver hap- pened to tell him of a Chinese craft which had gathered pearis off the coast of Negros and had been sunk in a storm not far from the fishing ground, Mahmoud at once projected a trip to the wreck. As the result of fifty years of avarice he was not without means, and his bank was contained in the capacious pockets of his tob and in his bamboo cane. Before the “'Siete Pecados’ (Seven St were . reached, Max, the Visayan, h: gone over in detail the circumstances of Y 'MAGAZINE * JECTION 7 JEPT.1.1901 the wreck. e explained to Mahmoud how, after some four weeks' toll off the coast of Manapla, the Chinese craft had gathered quite & large quantity of uc: including a few pearis thought to be great value. “In what part of the vesssl were they placed?” said his listener. “The hollow bamboos containing them were all_put Into the locker of the little cabin. The day had been as fair as this and we had anchored around the peint for the night, when about 7 o'clock & terrible storm of wind and rain came up. Starting froi he northeast, it seemed to shitt dlrection rapidly to dvery < of the heavens; a form of inky blackness shaped like a monster bat sprang up in the sky and spread its threatening over us, while the water, which bad sullen as death, suddenly seemed to rise mountain masses and roil its glant billows to the shore. The anchor up, with fore- sail only we strove to make the Holla ; but no craft could have with- stood the violence of the storm king. ‘When nearly across we struck somet! our foremast snapped, wrenching & . in the bottom. The water pou acToss our bow and all was over. The Pecados light was visible, and I knew the Very bottom of the sea at that point. Aboud 100 yards north of the light & spear- shaped rock ch rises from & depth of sixty feet to wi & fow fest of the sur- face, against which a half-dozen v have been wrecked. At the bottom & hulk lies pitched over from the rock, bedded in sand, thus forming & 3 and in this cradle our junk was firmiy wedged. Foreseeing all, two Chinos and myself had lashed ourselves to a diver's raft, and though sucked down we rose again and floated. The tempest “'tg"“ us and drove us we knew not whither through the black night. Morning found us north of Panay, one man dead and two others nearly so. At dusk we lrc were picked up by a coaster bound foe Jolo, and you know the rest. = o They passed Agupaog, the north po of Guimaras Island, about 4 o’clock, and veering to the east at the direction of Max, anchored north of the Pecados, some three miles from Napolas, where the tip of & spar was apparent beneath waves. As the best naked diver cannot remain water abovs & minute aad uflafi it arranged that Max should & first, locate the junk and fix upon the exact position of the treasure, and rising as nearly as possible at that point, ‘en= ablé Hassan to securs it. Two strong lines wers fastened te the near outrall; a sinking stone of about fifty pounds’ weight attached to ome and shel! to the other. Max thrust his left foot into the lcop above the stoms, snapped the rope of the shell-bag iato & pulley-loop attached to & beit about his waist, compressed his nostrils with his left hand, raised his body to its utmost height, kicked off the welght f the outrail and was down in an instant. moud squatted on the rail, helding signal line with one hand and "‘"‘\'3.‘ er and gshouting strange phrases. denly, befors a minute had l?lllfl‘ he ceased talking and began pulling on the line. Max shot up out of the water clambered. into the-boat, breathing heav- fly, but with a satisfled expression U his face. He had found a passage the cabin of the junk. It would require & strong effort to wrench open the looker, treasure was evidently there rojecting crag of shape was poised directly over the k and thet care must be exercised & “3:‘.‘_ L4 dislodging it lest it crush the diver. san, !ho‘ was ready to deseefih stood not & word of this, but eyes took on & curious expression. placed an h:‘n bl.;‘ mlbth.l diver’s hani and explain to him jout pi the locker, but sald nothing as = overhanging bowlder. Straight and lithe Hassan stoed upom the outrail, a perfect specimen of cal manhood. He had listened moud’s instructions, and knew 3 utmost power as a diver would be tried, for the naked diver can exert but little physical force under the water, and that at the risk of rupturing a blood vessel Sufocation. But not & tremor of fear 4id he show or a quiver of his pliant body‘: he disdppeared into the WwWave-cres water. Mahmoud, squatting om the outrail egain, wrenewed his incantations and ges~ ticulations with greater vehemence than before. Max held the shell Ii now, awaiting Hassan's signal, so the old mys~ tic had naught to do but exert his ocoult ower in voice and movements, which he id much to the astonishment of the Moro sallors stationed about balancing the swaying, rocking motion of the proa. A minute passed and Max m no sign from the man below. M ceased his antics and began counting the seconds. Thirty—forty—Afty—two minutes eand no signal. Hassan must be drowned. Mahmoud directed Max to pull him up The line was unweighted—attachs® te nothing, with the end freshly broken. Mahmoud’'s eyes glittered with exolite- ment. He quickly divested himself of his tob and trousers, with his cane, to Max. hs had a stiff, flap-covered p tached to a belt about his wa placed his foot in and snapped the guide line in its place, and his face exhibited an exultant, deters mined look as he di ared. He must have thought was crushed by the bowlder or suffocated from ovefs exertion; and inust have entered the nare Fow cabin, believing there would be one less to share t asure. 1s there a ba ing principle in Nature that measures and Jgts men to thelr deeds and motives as sts the waves to the wind and tide? The shark-charmer had reckoned on all ¢ xcept the intrusting them, It was observed that at- cket one he should have knmown m about. He observed with slight surprise as he entered the junk that the bowlder was in place, the locker was open and no signs of Hassan's body. As he thrust his hand into the ape coveted treasure, person, and tur eyes, above, below re to secure the saw a dozen flery 1 around him, bulge ing from the Swaying ted ‘bodies of those lithe-finned bloedhounds of the deep, tiger-sharks, which infest the wa- Sers of the Pecados; and in another in- stant he was an insensate mass staining that water with his gore. Mahmoud had forgotten that though sharks seldom attack living men, they are swift to devour the defenseless drowning, and that long after the -corpses of a wieck are consumed they are wont ta re- vi§it the places; of their feasts and are sufe to be atiyffcted there by the presence of ltving me: Thus it came about that Max the dtver, whose home Is in the pretty little town of lsabela de Misamis, has suddenly ac- quired wealth, and thus is explained the recent vresence of a man ‘in Ilollo whe ake Do language that could be under- stood. Just prior to making his descent the truth flashed upon Hassan, a sort of intuition as to Mahmoud’s motives, and he resolved to use his skill for his own advantage. Wrenching open .the Iid of the locker, he grasped the cangs, secured them to his belt in an instant, and swam out. rising some distance from the prao in the hollow of a wave, Whence another dive brought him to the nearest of the Pecados; and none too soon the sharks had caught the scent of human fiesh. That he secured pearls emough to enable him to return to Kahmir and i satisfae~ marry the mald of Laristan tory style is guite probable, Tioilo, P. L,