“READING THE FUTURE." Synopsis—The man who tells this story—call him the hero, for short— is visiting his friend, John Saun- ders, British official in Nassdu, Bahama Islands. Charles Webster, & local merchant, completes the trio of friends, Conversation turn- ing upon buried treasure, Saunders produces a written document pur- porting to be the death-bad state ment of Henry P. Tobias a suc- cessful pirate, made by him in 1558 It ves two spots where two mil Hons and a hall of treasure were bur ¢ him ompanions ersat ove stranger, and his Che CHAPTER VIili—Continued. we “Mind yourself, sar,” he called cheer fly, and indeed it was a problem to get down to him without precipitating the loose earth and rock that were ready Copyright by Doubleday, Page & Company For thege, within a few yards, stood! a heavy salior’s chest, strongly bound around with iron. Its lid was thrown | back and a few coins lay scattered at the bottom, while a few lay about on | the floor. I picked them up. i They were pieces of eight! Meanwhile Tom had stopped jabber ing and had come nearer, looking on! in awed silence, 1 showed him the | pleces of eight, “lI guess these are all we'll see of one John P. Tobias’ treasure, Tom," I said. And It looks as if these poor fellows saw as little of it as ourselves, with it perhaps playing Can't you Imagine them there fit thelr ide it on a gamble, and fhe feet to di- Book IL. CHAPTER L gery. Need I say that it was agreat occa gion when I was once more back safe perhaps bury him forever. But, looking about, I found another natural tunnel in the side of the hill and in the dim light found the old man and put my flask to his lips. “Anything broken, do you think? Tom didn't think so. He had evi dently been stunned by his fall, and another pull at my flask set him on his feet. But as I helped him up, and, striking a light, we began to look around the hole he had tumbled into, he gave a piercing shriek and fell on his knees, jabbering with fear. “The ghosts! the ghosts screamed. And the sight that met our eyes was certainly one to try the nerves. Two figures sat at a table-—one with his hat tilted slightly and one leaning side- ways in his chair in a careless sort of attitude. They seeemed to be playing cards, and they were strangely white— for they were skeletons. I stood hushed, while Tom's teeth rattled at my side. The fantastic awe of the thing was beyond telling. And then, not without a qualm or two, which I would be a lar to deny, I went and stood nearer to them. Nearly all tm he | Waited a Minute to Replace the Hat on the Rakish One's Head. their clothes had fallen away, hanging but in shreds here and there. That the hat had so jauntily kept its place was one of those grim touches Death, that terrible humorist, loves to add to his jests. The cards which had ap parently just been dealt, had suffered scarcely from decay—only a little dirt had sifted down upon them, as it had into the rum glasses that stood, too, at each man's side. And as I looked at the skdleton jauntily facing me, I noticed that a bullet hole had been made as clean as if by a drill in hin to two friends, John and Charlie Webster, all just as if I had never stirred from my easy chair, in- stead of having spent an exciting! month or go among sharks, dead men, blood-lapping ghosts, card-playing skeletons and such like? i My friends listened to my yarn in| characteristic fashion, John Saunders’ | eves like mice peeping out of a cup board, and Charlie Webster's huge | bulk poised almost threatening, as it were, with the keennesa of his atten tion. His deep-set kind brown eyes glowed like a boy's as I went on, but | by thelr dangerous kindling at certain | points of the story, those dealing with | our pockmarked friend, Henry P. To bias, Jr., I soon realized where, fori him, the chief interest of the story lay. “The rebel!” he roared out once or twice, using an adjective pe cullarly English, my Im) -=the treason of Henry P. Toblas, Jr. The treasure might as well have had cerned, and the grim climax cave drew nothing from him but a pre- occupied nod. And John Saunders was little more satisfactory. Both of them allowed me to end in silence. They both seemed to be thinking deeply. “1 must say you two are a great au- sald presently, perhaps rather childishly nettled, “It's a very serious matter,” said at Charlie Webster, almost as if for getting me. done about it, eh, Charlie?” he con- tinued. more employing that British adjective, And then he turned to me: “Look here, old pal, I'll make a bar- gain with you, If you like. I suppose you're keen for that other treasure now, eh?" “I any said I, rather stiffly, “Well, then, I'll go after it with afternoon. Whafever were you doing to miss him?” “I proposed to myself the satisfac tion of making good that mistake,” I said, “on our next meeting. 1 feel I owe it to the poor old captain.” “Never mind; hand the captain's rights over to mé—and I'll help you all I know with your treasure. Bee sides, Toblas is a job for an English man--eh, John? It's a matter of ‘king and country’ with me. With you it would be mere private vengeance, With me it will be an execution; with you it would be an murder. Isn't that go, John?" “Exactly,” John nodded. “Since you were away,” Charlie be- gan again, “I've bought the prettiest yawl you ever set eyes on--the Fla. mingo-forty-five over all, and this time the very fastest boat in the har. bor. Yes! she's faster even than the Susan B. Now I've a holiday due me in about a fortnight. Say the word, and the Flamingos yours for a couple of months, and her eaptain too. I make only that one condition” yours.” | Whereat Charlie paw like shot out a huge a shoulder of mutton and be sald, the best to the last. To me, as a layman, it was not neariy so ate tractive as other things he had shown me--littie more to my eye than a rath. er commonplace though pretty shell; but he explained that it was found, or had so far been found, only in one spot In the islands, a lovely, seldom. visited cay several miles to the norths east of Andros island. “What is It called?” I asked, for it was part of our plan for Charlie to do a little duck shooting on Andros, be- fore we tackled the business of Tobias and the treasure, “It's culled ~ Cay nowadays,” he answered, “but it used to be called Short Bhrift island.” “Short Shrift island!” I cried In aus though [ had saved his life or done him some other unimaginable kind- ness. And as he did his broad, sweet smile came back ggain, He was thinking of Tobias, : While Charlie Webster was arrane- ing his that he might able to take his holiday with a free mind I busied myself ing the Flamingo, and in casually cha ting with one and water BO affairs so with provision- another along t front, » of gathering hint that might zuid coming expedition, thought gible, bring me got some J too FOCen bo them ros 10 my puri One afternoon in the rather fruitless if inter gations among the yards of Bay farther along than is customary with ¢ alone w sea, oxcept for a few count here and there among the surrounding caught to my was a little store that strayed away from the others—a timber in blue white with a sort of sea-wildness and loneliness it, and with lettering across its lintel nouncing itself ax an think that was the word) Curlosities” eye seemed have small erection painted shout nr er * “of I pushed open the door. no one there. The evidently left to take care of itself, little store i | at my lack of presence of mind. “Certainly,” he rejoined, looking a little surprised but evidently without suspicion. He was too simple and too taken up with his shell, “It is such teyihg to recover myself “You! old po tainly did think mest name an odd name 4 3 those irate chang of the sea, every available gpace, rough tables and and hung with the queer and lovely brica-brac of the sea. Presently a tiny girl came In, as ii seemed, from nowhere and said she would fetch her father. In a moment or two he came, a tall, sallor type, brown lonely blue eyes, “You don’t seem afraid of thieves” I remarked. “It ain't a jewelry store” inch of and lean, he said, | tion of the Nassau “conch.” was" I sald. at unexpected understanding in a stranger. "Of course there are some that feel that way, but they're few and far between.” “Not enough to make a fortune out of 7’ mustn't complain, thing, you see, this. you know, too.” I looked at him In some surprise, I had met something even rarer than i the things he traded In. I had met a merchant of dreams, to whom the mere handling of his merchandise seemed sufficient profit: “There's going after the things, you know. One's got to count that in too” Naturally we were neck-deep in talk in a moment. I wanted to hear all he | cared to tell me about “going after | the things"—such “things !"<and he { was nothing loth, as he took up one strange or beautiful object after an- other, his face aglow, and he quite evidently without a thought of doing business, and told me all about them how and where he got them, and so forth, “But.” he sald presently, encouraged by my unfeigned interest, “I should like to show you a few rarer things 1 have in the house, and which 1 wouldn't sell, or even show to every- one. If you'd honor me by taking a cup of tea we might look them over” So we left the little store, with its door unlocked as I had found it, and a few steps brought us to a little house I had not before noticed, with a neat garden in front of it, all the garden beds symmetrically bordered with conch shells. Shells were evidently the simplehearted fellow's mania, his revelation of the beauty of the world Here in a neat parlor, also much dee. orated with shells, tes was served to us by the little girl I had first seen an elder sister, who, 1 gathered, made all the lonely dreamer’s family. ly pressing on me a cigar, he show me the promised treas- ¢ also told me more of his of finding them, and of the long trips which he had to take In them, to out-of-the-way cays in dangerous waters, was showing me the last and in a business i “All right, Charlie,” I agreed; “he's * rarest of his specimens. He Lad kept, fi 7 bo | few Aron thera up for you" nd fo your cay and pick a they re exactly" the description of while all the time } cager to rush off to Charlie Web. and John S and shout heir ears- later 1 did at the { firat possible that evening: *T've found o cay! Short Shrift island is ——" (1 mentioned the name oc a cay, which, in the ease of “Dead Man's Shoes,” 1 am un able to divaige “Maybe!™ sald Charlie, “maybe! We ean try it. But” he added, “did you find out anything about Tobias? CHAPTER IL. In Which | Am Afforded Glimpses Into Futurfy-—Possibly Useful, Two or three evenings before we were due to sail, at one of our snug. gery conclaves, 1 put the question whether anyone had ever tried the di vining rod for treasure in the islands, Old John nodded and said he kpew the man I wanted, a half-crazy old nev gro back there in Grant's Town—the negro quarter spreading out into the not easy to find into minutest of { habit i was { ster | nto | | aunders as moment » ur inissing ns town of Nassau proper is built, “He calls himself a ‘king'’’ he added, “and the natives do. 1 believe, regard him as the head of a certain tribe. The lads call him ‘Old King Coffee’—a memory 1 suppose of the Ashantee war. Anyone will tell you where he lives, He has 8 name as a preacher—among the Holy Jumpers le but he's getting too old to do much preaching sowadays., Go and see him for fun anyway.” 80 next morning I went. I had hardly been prepared for the plunge into “Darkest Africa” which 1 found myself taking, as, leaving Gov. ernment house behind, perched on the crest of its white ridge, I walked a few yards inland and entered a region which, for ail its green palms, made a similar sudden Impression of pervad. ing blackness on the mind which one geis on suddenly entering a coal wmin- ing district after traveling through fields and meadows, A “Old King Coffee” predicts an interesting future forthe i ‘ALL D RE GC a AAR I AA I 5 AFA. 05 AAO AN BNA One-piece dresses, to be worn in place of suits in and out of doors, re- ceived a great boost during the war. When tailors became scarce and the work of making street clothes went into the hands of dressmakers in Paris, the one-plece “all«day” dress began to replace suits, With the approval of Paris upon it, this style of street dress made great headway in America and appears to have esuablished itself. The all-day dress, as it is called, ap. pears, together with new sults, in the early showings of fall styles, some- times having much the appearance of a suit and sometimes wholly different from one. These two types are shown together in the picture above. These dresses unre made up In the enme quiet colors and of the same ma- terinls as suits, although colors cover a wider range than are usually pre sented In suits, and there 8 more lath tude in the matter of decorations, The dress at the left of the picture simuintes a sult so closely that it is misleading. It will Interest the gil who must soon be outfitted for col lege, because it is a youthful model that will see her through the fail with. out a wrap and prove comfortable in cold weather with the aid of au coal it has the appearance of a sull with skirt and short box cost belted In. But the coat turns out to be only a bodice, with fronts lengthened below the nar row belt and disappearing at the sides under a seam in the skirt. It has & satin vest, prettily embroidered, and a few very lage bone buttons emphasize its novel features. They are set along the side seams In which the jacket fronts lost themselves and on the odd iajpels into which the collar lengthens. Wool velour is an ideal material for n dress of this kind. The girl who aspires to look tall and slender should consider the long lines and simple composition of the dress at the right. The picture portrays it with #o much fidelity that there is tht needs to be said about It. An une derskirt of slik, with border of cloth, has the effect of a separate skirt, but the allday dress is, shove all things, merely the lower part of a foundat that supports the dress. Any of familiar and reliable wool suitings serve to make these dresses,
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