The Book of Buried Treasure Part 24

[Ill.u.s.tration: Treasure-seekers digging on Cocos Island.]

Christian Cruse, the hermit treasure-seeker of Cocos Island.

There the brace of adventurers were rowed ash.o.r.e, leaving the vessel in charge of the mate. Captain Thompson's directions were found to be accurate, and a cave was discovered and in it a dazzling store of treasure to make an honest sailor-man rub his eyes and stagger in his tracks. Keating and Bogue decided that the secret must be withheld from the crew at all hazards, but their excitement betrayed them and all hands clamored that they must be given shares of the booty.

Keating protested that a division should not be made until they had returned to their home port and the owner of the s.h.i.+p had been given the greater part which belonged to him by rights.

A mutiny flared up, and the mate and the men went ash.o.r.e, leaving Keating and Bogue marooned on board, but the search was bootless for lack of directions. They returned to the s.h.i.+p in a very savage temper indeed and swore to kill the two leaders unless they should tell them how to find the cave. Promising to show the way on the morrow, Keating and Bogue slipped ash.o.r.e in a whale-boat that night, planning to take all the treasure they could carry and hoping to find opportunity to secrete it on s.h.i.+pboard.

This program was spoiled by a tragedy. While trying to get back to the s.h.i.+p through the heavy surf that roared on the beach, the boat was upset. Bogue, heavily ballasted with treasure, went to the bottom like a plummet and was seen no more. Keating clung to the water-logged boat which was caught in a current and carried to sea. Two days later he was picked up, exhausted almost unto death, by a Spanish schooner which put him ash.o.r.e on the coast of Costa Rica. Thence he made his way overland to the Atlantic, and worked his pa.s.sage home to Newfoundland in a trading vessel. His s.h.i.+p returned with never a doubloon among the mutinous crew.

This experience seemed to have snuffed out the ardor of Keating for treasure-seeking, and it was as much as twenty years later that he confided the tale to a townsman named Nicholas Fitzgerald. They talked about fitting out another s.h.i.+p, but Keating up and died in the midst of the scheming. He had married a very young wife, and she set great store by the chart and directions preserved as a heritage from Captain Thompson. In 1894 she struck a partners.h.i.+p with a Captain Hackett and they organized an expedition which sailed for Cocos Island in a small brig called the _Aurora_. This adventure amounted to nothing. There was dissension on board, the voyage was longer than expected, provisions fell short, and the _Aurora_ jogged homeward without sighting the treasure island.

Meanwhile other explorers had been busy. A German, Von Bremer, spent several thousand dollars in excavating and tunneling, but found no reward. The tales of treasure also fired the brain of a remarkable person named Gissler, who took up his solitary residence on Cocos Island more than twenty years ago where he has since reigned with the t.i.tle and authority of governor of the same, by virtue of a commission duly signed, sealed, and delivered by the republic of Costa Rica. As a persistent and industrious treasure-hunter, this tropical hermit is unique.

He was visited in 1896 by Captain Shrapnel of H.M.S. _Haughty_ who had heard the stories of Thompson and Benito Bonito along the coastwise ports. By way of giving his blue-jackets something to do, he landed a party three hundred strong on Cocos Island whose landscape they vainly blasted and otherwise disarranged for several days, but without success. The Admiralty lacked imagination and reprimanded Captain Shrapnel for his enterprising break in the dull routine of duty. It was decreed that no more naval vessels were to touch at Cocos Island on any pretext whatever.

This by no means discouraged Captain Shrapnel who waited until it was permissible for him to apply for leave of absence. In England he found gentlemen adventurers sufficient to finance an expedition which sailed in the _Lytton_ in 1903. Of this party was Hervey de Montmorency, whose account of the venture includes the following information:

"On the ninth of August, at four o'clock in the morning, every treasure-seeker was on deck straining his eyes to penetrate the mist and darkness; then as the sun rose, the gray ma.s.s on the horizon turned to green, and Cocos Island, with its lofty wooded peak, its abrupt, cliff-like sh.o.r.es, its innumerable cascades of sparkling water, was displayed to eager and admiring eyes.

"The anchor was dropped in the little bay, and at the splash, flocks of birds rose screaming and circling overhead. The sandy beach on which the seekers landed is strewn with boulders, on each of which is carved the name and business of some vessel which has called at Cocos. Some of the dates carry one back to Nelson's time; and all sorts of s.h.i.+ps seem to have visited the lonely little island, while many a boulder testified to blighted hopes and fruitless errands after treasure.

"Captain Shrapnel's party set to work with the highest expectation. No previous expedition had been so well furnished with clues. Once on the right track, it seemed impossible that they should fail. They searched for ten days, encouraged now by the finding of the broken arm of a battered cross brought from some Peruvian church, again by a glimpse into what promised falsely to be a treasure cave; but all blasting, digging, and damming of streams proved useless. Captain Shrapnel at last called a council of war, and declared his opinion that the search was hopeless; landslips, previous excavations, and the torrential rains of this tropical region had so entirely altered the face of the island that clues and directions were of little avail, nor did their agreement with the owners of the _Lytton_ permit of a longer stay on Cocos.

"We did not leave the island, however, without paying a visit to its governor, Gissler, whose little settlement is on Wafer Bay. Rounding the headland from Chatham Bay, we came into the quiet little nook where he has made his home, and he at once waded out in the surf to greet the visitors,--a tall, bronzed man, with a long, gray heard reaching below his waist, and deep-set eyes which gazed with obvious suspicion.

Gissler had learned to distrust the coming of strangers, who have paid small regard to his rights, pillaging his crops, killing his livestock, and even making free with his home.

"Rea.s.sured by Captain Shrapnel's party that he had nothing to fear from them, he invited them to his house and clearing, and told them of his long and lonely hunt for the pirate's treasure. When he first went to live on Cocos, he found many traces of the freebooters. There were traces of their old camps, with thirty-two stone steps leading to a cave, old fire-places, rusty pots and arms, and empty bottles to mark the scene of their carousing. He had found only one gold coin, a doubloon of the time of Charles III of Spain, bearing the date of 1788."

In 1901, a company was formed in Vancouver, with a capital of $10,000, to fit out an expedition for Cocos Island. Gissler got wind of this project and formally addressed the government of Costa Rica in these written words:

"Allow me to inform you that no company with any such intent would have the right to land on Cocos Island, as I hold a concession from the authorities of Costa Rica in regard to the said treasure, in which concession the Costa Rica government has an interest. Certainly anything that might be undertaken by such a company from Vancouver would amount to naught without my consent."

This protest was paid due heed, but two years later, an Englishman, Claude Robert Guiness, persuaded the officials of Costa Rica to listen kindly to his plea, and he was granted the right to explore the island for two years. Gissler stood by his guns, drew up a list of grievances, and sailed for the mainland in a small boat to a.s.sert his rights to his kingdom. At that time, a wealthy British naval officer, Lord Fitzwilliam, was bound out to Cocos Island in his own steam yacht with a costly equipment of machinery and a heavy crew to find the treasure. He found poor Gissler in a Costa Rican port, became interested in his wrongs, and promptly supported his claims. An English n.o.bleman with surplus wealth is a person to wield influence in the councils of a Central American republic and Gissler was pacified and given a renewal of his doc.u.mentary rights as governor and population of Cocos Island.

Lord Fitzwilliam took him on board the yacht and in this dignified fas.h.i.+on Gissler returned to this kingdom. He earned his pa.s.sage by telling his own version of the treasure, as he had culled and revised it from various sources, and his bill of particulars was something to gloat over, including as it did such dazzling bits of narrative as this:

"Besides the treasure buried by Captain Thompson, there was vast wealth left on Cocos by Benito Bonito himself. He captured a treasure galleon off the coast of Peru and took two other vessels laden with riches sent out from Mexico at the outbreak of the revolution against the Spaniards. On Cocos he buried three hundred thousand pounds' weight of silver and silver dollars, in a sandstone cave in the side of the mountain. Then he laid kegs of powder on top of the cave and blew away the face of the cliff. In another excavation he placed gold bricks, 733 of them, four by three inches in size, and two inches thick, and 273 gold-hilted swords, inlaid with jewels. On a bit of land in the little river, he buried several iron kettles filled with gold coin."

Lord Fitzwilliam and his yacht arrived at Cocos in December of 1904, and the party of laborers fell to with prodigious zest. While they were making the dirt fly, another English expedition, commanded by Arnold Gray, hove in sight, and proceeded to begin excavating at inconveniently close range. In fact, both parties were c.o.c.ksure that the lost cave was located in one spot beneath a great ma.s.s of debris that had tumbled down from the overhanging height. The inevitable result was that a pretty quarrel arose. Neither force would yield its ground. Inasmuch as both were using dynamite rather lavishly, treasure hunting became as dangerous as war. When the rival expeditions were not dodging the rocks that were sent hurtling by the blasting, they were using bad language, the one accusing the other of effacing its landmarks and playing hob with its clues.

The climax was a pitched battle in which heads were broken and considerable blood spilt. It is almost needless to observe that no treasure was found. Lord Fitzwilliam sailed home in his yacht and found that the news of his escapade had aroused the displeasure of the naval authorities, after which he lost all zest for finding buried treasure.

Since then, hardly a year has pa.s.sed but an expedition or two for Cocos Island has been in the wind. In 1906, a company organized in Seattle issued an elaborate printed prospectus, offering shares in a venture to sail in a retired pilot schooner, and recounting all the old tales of Captain Thompson, Benito Bonito, and Keating. At about the same time, a wealthy woman of Boston, after a summer visit to Newfoundland, was seized with enthusiasm for a romantic speculation and talked of finding a s.h.i.+p and crew. San Francisco has beheld more than one schooner slide out through the Golden Gate in quest of Cocos Island.

To enumerate these ventures and describe them in detail would make a tiresome catalogue of the names of vessels and adventurous men with the treasure bee in their bonnets. Charts and genuine information are no longer necessary to one of these expeditions. Cocos Island is under such a spell as has set a mult.i.tude to digging for the treasure of Captain Kidd. The gold is there, this is taken for granted, and no questions are asked. The island was long a haunt of buccaneers and pirates, this much is certain, and who ever heard of a true pirate of romance who knew his business that did not employ his spare time in "a-burying of his treasure?"

[1] Strong, or robust.

[2] _History of the Buccaneers of America_, by Captain James Burney (1816).

[3] _Voyage and Description_, etc., by Lionel Wafer, London (1699).

[4] "The Buccaneers of America," by John Esquemeling (Published, 1684).

[5] Dampier. To search for this wreck with a view to recover the treasure in her was one of the objects of an expedition from England to the South Sea a few years later than the voyage of Davis.

[6] "History of the Buccaneers of America," by Captain James Burney (1816).

[7] Colnet's "Voyage to the Pacific."

[8] Esquemeling.

[9] "On the Spanish Main," by John Masefield.

CHAPTER XI

THE MYSTERY OF THE LUTINE FRIGATE

Harbored in the stately edifice of the Royal Exchange, down in the heart of London City, is that ancient and powerful corporation known to seafaring men the world over as Lloyd's. Its chief business is the underwriting of maritime insurance risks and its word is law wherever fly the house-flags of merchant s.h.i.+pping. More than two hundred years ago, one Edward Lloyd kept a coffeehouse in Tower Street, a thoroughfare between Wapping and the Thames side of the city, and because of its convenient situation the place became a popular resort for sea captains, underwriters, and insurance brokers who discussed such important matters as arrivals in port, wrecks, missing s.h.i.+ps, and rumors of war.

In time Lloyd's coffeehouse was recognized as a sort of unofficial headquarters for this special variety of insurance speculation, and the gentlemen most active there drifted into a loosely formed organization for the purpose of making the business less hazardous. In 1773, this a.s.sociation of underwriters moved into the Royal Exchange, taking the name of Lloyd's, and later appointed a governing body or committee to control the more adventurous spirits who were fond of gambling on the chances of war, on the length of Napoleon's life, and who would undertake to insure a man against the risk of twins in his family.

From this beginning grew the vastly influential and highly organized Lloyd's of the present day which is something more than a corporation.

It is also an aggregation of individual underwriters and brokers carrying on business, each for his own personal profit and on the strength of his good name and resources. As a corporation, Lloyd's has no financial liability in the event of the failure of any of its members or subscribers.

All that Lloyd's does, in its corporate capacity, is to permit the admission only of men of stability and sound repute by means of stringent tests, and to exact a money guarantee or deposit from its members in the sum of 5000 or 6000, together with entrance fees of 400, and annual fees of twenty guineas. These payments form what may be called a reserve fund, and the individual underwriter writes his own policies. If the risk is heavier than he wishes to a.s.sume he divides it among his fellows.

There are few more interesting places in London than Lloyd's, encrusted as it is with the barnacles of conservative tradition, and hedged about with all the exclusiveness of a club. The entrance is guarded by a burly porter gorgeously arrayed in the scarlet robes and gold-banded hat of a by-gone century. Having run the gauntlet of this dragon, one is likely to seek the underwriter's room where hundreds of members and their clerks are quartered at rows of little desks or "boxes," every man of them with his hat clapped on his head as decreed by ancient custom.

There is always a crowd of them around the "Arrival Book" and the "Loss Book" in which are posted the movements of vessels in every port of the world, and the wrecks that number three thousand every year. The famous "Captains' Room" where the mariners used to gather and swap briny yarns is now used for the prosaic purposes of luncheon and for the auction sales of s.h.i.+ps.

In the two large and handsome rooms used by the secretary and by the committee of Lloyd's are many interesting relics of the earlier history of this body. Here is the oldest policy known to the annals of maritime insurance, a faded doc.u.ment issued on January 20, 1680, for 1200 on a s.h.i.+p, the _Golden Fleece_, and her cargo, on a voyage from Lisbon to Venice, at 4 per cent. premium. Hanging on these walls are also a policy written on the life of Napoleon, and an autograph letter from the Duke of Wellington as Warden of the Cinque Ports.

The most conspicuous furnis.h.i.+ngs of the Committee Room are a huge table, highly polished, of dark wood, a magnificently carved arm chair, and a s.h.i.+p's bell. The table bears a silver plate inscribed as follows:

H.B.M. s.h.i.+p _La Lutine_.

32 Gun Frigate