Dear Captain Cary:I send you my joyful congratulations on your marriage to Teresa Fernandez whom I have always loved like my own daughter. Your report was received, informing me that both the ship and poor Ramon Bazán were no more. It will interest you to know that on the day before he sailed from Cartagena he made a will, properly executed, leaving everything he possessed to his niece. There had been other wills like this, but he had torn them up in fits of temper.Your report was confirmed in all respects by the officers and crew of theValkyriewho, as you know, were landed at Corinto by the Italian steamerGiuseppe Baldernowhich sank your vessel in collision. They made their way back to Panama, arriving there soon after you sailed for New York. My agent interviewed them in behalf of the estate of the deceased owner. They proposed chartering a sailing vessel in all haste and returning to Cocos Island. This information was confidentially imparted.The insurance underwriters have accepted the evidence of total loss, with no negligence on the part of the masters and crew of theValkyrie. I am therefore remitting, as per draft enclosed to the order of Señora Teresa Cary, the sum of thirty thousand dollars in settlement of the marine policies issued against the vessel. I am also writing Teresa regarding the house and contents and such other property as belonged to her departed uncle. Peace to his soul! My cordial salutations to a gallant shipmaster who deserves better fortune on his next voyage. Placing myself at your disposal, I amFaithfully yoursAlonzo de Mello
Dear Captain Cary:
I send you my joyful congratulations on your marriage to Teresa Fernandez whom I have always loved like my own daughter. Your report was received, informing me that both the ship and poor Ramon Bazán were no more. It will interest you to know that on the day before he sailed from Cartagena he made a will, properly executed, leaving everything he possessed to his niece. There had been other wills like this, but he had torn them up in fits of temper.
Your report was confirmed in all respects by the officers and crew of theValkyriewho, as you know, were landed at Corinto by the Italian steamerGiuseppe Baldernowhich sank your vessel in collision. They made their way back to Panama, arriving there soon after you sailed for New York. My agent interviewed them in behalf of the estate of the deceased owner. They proposed chartering a sailing vessel in all haste and returning to Cocos Island. This information was confidentially imparted.
The insurance underwriters have accepted the evidence of total loss, with no negligence on the part of the masters and crew of theValkyrie. I am therefore remitting, as per draft enclosed to the order of Señora Teresa Cary, the sum of thirty thousand dollars in settlement of the marine policies issued against the vessel. I am also writing Teresa regarding the house and contents and such other property as belonged to her departed uncle. Peace to his soul! My cordial salutations to a gallant shipmaster who deserves better fortune on his next voyage. Placing myself at your disposal, I am
Faithfully yours
Alonzo de Mello
Richard Cary’s mother was tremulous with excitement as she gasped: “Why, Teresa is an heiress—thirty thousand dollarsright in her hands, and other property besides. And she never so much as hinted that she might be a rich woman!”
“Teresa didn’t know,” explained Richard. “There was no putting your finger on poor Ramon Bazán. He was very flighty. Here comes Teresa now. This ought to please her.”
“If she doesn’t get all stirred up, I shall feel like shaking you both.”
The heiress gracefully descended from the antique flivver, assisted by the adoring William.
To her Richard calmly announced:
“Here is a draft for thirty thousand—insurance on theValkyrie. Uncle Ramon forgave you for all your insults.”
“And he did leave his money to me?” cried Teresa in accents of self-reproach. “And I was so awful horrid to him! It is from Señor de Mello? What does he say?”
Richard gave her the enclosure in Spanish. She read it swiftly to the end and looked up to observe:
“He even left me the little brown monkey, Ricardo. That is too much. I will send word to give that monkey to somebody that will be good to it, with a pension, eh? The house he can sell or rent, Señor de Mello says, if we do not wish to live in Cartagena. Poor Uncle Ramon! I am sad and ashamed of myself because I was not always nice to him. I guess I must cry a little.”
Presently the heiress brightened and went on to announce, with headlong ardor:
“First I will buy William a big, new, shiny automobile and give him plenty of money to go through college with. Then I will put an electric light plant in this old farmhouse, and a tiled kitchen and plenty of bathrooms and—let me see—I think I will give your heretic church in Fairfield a new organ. How much money have I got left, Ricardo?”
“Quite a package, sweetheart. Don’t stop yet. I am enjoying it.”
Mrs. Cary raised her hands in horror, shaken to the depths of her thrifty soul.
“For the land’s sake, child, keep the money for yourself. What sense is there in spending it on us? I declare you make my head spin like a top.”
“Then I will talk it over with Ricardo,” said Teresa. “He can help me find some more ways to spend it.”
These profligate intentions could not be thwarted, nor did Richard Cary attempt to do so. He realized that gratitude and affection impelled her; also that it was more than this. When alone in the world and earning a living at sea, she had been anxious to gain money and save it. Now she had a shield and a protector in her yellow-haired giant of a husband who could master all things. And there was a sense that in doing good to others she was doing penance for a certain tragic episode which the fates had darkly, inscrutably thrust upon her.
Not many weeks after this sensational shower of riches, another letter came to Captain Richard Cary. It had been mailed from a Costa Rican port. The writer was the unterrified Charlie Burnham, late chief engineer of theValkyrie.
Dear Skipper:Here we are again, on Cocos Island, and all hands sorry you aren’t bossing the outfit. Mr. Bradley Duff is still going strong and sober, and is a good old scout. He didn’t fall off the wagon even when we blew into Jerry Tobin’s dump in Panama. You sure did put the fear of God into him. Mr. Panchito, the second mate, bought a hundred dollars’ worth of fancy shirts and neckties. He is one natural-born strutter. All hands are well and still with us. You ought to have heard us yell when we learned you had not been drowned in the silly oldValkyrie. We had to give you up that night she went down. Bradley Duff punched the Italian hophead of a skipper in the jaw because he wouldn’t stick around the wreckage and hunt for you any longer.Now about the treasure! Better come back and watch us root it out. I extended Don Miguel O’Donnell’s hydraulic pipe-line and it works pretty. We have been washing for two weeks and the nozzle kicks the gravel out in great style. The dynamite that Don Miguel touched off under us mussed things up something frightful. What makes the worst trouble is the tremendous chunk of cliff that was jarred loose and spilled all over the place. The rock is soft, but hard to break up and handle.Anyhow, we have uncovered some more silver, but no gold ingots so far. What we are getting out now isn’t so scattering, but in solid lots of bullion—sometimes as much as we can load into one of Don Miguel’s two-wheel carts. You don’t see us quitting, do you? Atta boy! The agreement stands, and all hands have signed a paper to that effect. Half of what we get goes to you. Jerry Tobin told us in Panama that you had married Papa Ramon’s niece, and how the wedding was pulled off in his bungalow.Now if Señor Bazán left his property to this Miss Fernandez, as perhaps he did, you and she will have to split your fifty per cent of the treasure. That is how Bradley Duff and I dope it out. Your wife has a look-in because it was her uncle’s chart that steered us to where the treasure was buried. And you draw down your slice because if you hadn’t chased Don Miguel O’Donnell off the island, where would we be at now?This letter is sent in a Costa Rican fishing schooner that touched here for fresh water, being blown offshore. We filled the crew full of rum and kept them close to the beach so they didn’t get wise to our finding any treasure. They thought we were just another bunch of loonies that had come to rummage Cocos Island.I will send you another report as soon as I get a chance. Please tell your wife that we have built a nice stone wall around her uncle’s grave.Adios, and here’s looking at you!Sincerely yoursCharles R. BurnhamChief Engineer
Dear Skipper:
Here we are again, on Cocos Island, and all hands sorry you aren’t bossing the outfit. Mr. Bradley Duff is still going strong and sober, and is a good old scout. He didn’t fall off the wagon even when we blew into Jerry Tobin’s dump in Panama. You sure did put the fear of God into him. Mr. Panchito, the second mate, bought a hundred dollars’ worth of fancy shirts and neckties. He is one natural-born strutter. All hands are well and still with us. You ought to have heard us yell when we learned you had not been drowned in the silly oldValkyrie. We had to give you up that night she went down. Bradley Duff punched the Italian hophead of a skipper in the jaw because he wouldn’t stick around the wreckage and hunt for you any longer.
Now about the treasure! Better come back and watch us root it out. I extended Don Miguel O’Donnell’s hydraulic pipe-line and it works pretty. We have been washing for two weeks and the nozzle kicks the gravel out in great style. The dynamite that Don Miguel touched off under us mussed things up something frightful. What makes the worst trouble is the tremendous chunk of cliff that was jarred loose and spilled all over the place. The rock is soft, but hard to break up and handle.
Anyhow, we have uncovered some more silver, but no gold ingots so far. What we are getting out now isn’t so scattering, but in solid lots of bullion—sometimes as much as we can load into one of Don Miguel’s two-wheel carts. You don’t see us quitting, do you? Atta boy! The agreement stands, and all hands have signed a paper to that effect. Half of what we get goes to you. Jerry Tobin told us in Panama that you had married Papa Ramon’s niece, and how the wedding was pulled off in his bungalow.
Now if Señor Bazán left his property to this Miss Fernandez, as perhaps he did, you and she will have to split your fifty per cent of the treasure. That is how Bradley Duff and I dope it out. Your wife has a look-in because it was her uncle’s chart that steered us to where the treasure was buried. And you draw down your slice because if you hadn’t chased Don Miguel O’Donnell off the island, where would we be at now?
This letter is sent in a Costa Rican fishing schooner that touched here for fresh water, being blown offshore. We filled the crew full of rum and kept them close to the beach so they didn’t get wise to our finding any treasure. They thought we were just another bunch of loonies that had come to rummage Cocos Island.
I will send you another report as soon as I get a chance. Please tell your wife that we have built a nice stone wall around her uncle’s grave.Adios, and here’s looking at you!
Sincerely yours
Charles R. Burnham
Chief Engineer
There came a September day when summer lingered in the warm haze and the soft westerly winds. A wanton touch of frost had painted the foliage, here and there, in tints of yellow or crimson. Teresa and Ricardo motored farther than usual nor turned until they reached the seacoast, many miles from Fairfield. A small surf crooned among the weedy rocks or ran hissing up the golden sands. On the distant horizon was a sooty banner of smoke from a steamer’s funnel. A coasting schooner lifted a bit of topsail as small and white as the wing of a gull.
Hand-in-hand, the lovers climbed the nearest headland. While they stood there, the wind veered. Instead of breathing off the land, with the scents of field and woodland, it blew strongly from the eastward. It came sweeping over the salt sea, with a tang and a boisterous vigor unlike the soft airs of the summer that tarried reluctant to depart.
Cool, pungent, it seemed to Richard Cary such a wind as had whipped the Caribbean to foam and pelted the decks with spray when he had joyously faced it upon the bridge of the swingingTarragona, the wind that long ago had blown the clumsy ships of Devon across to the Spanish Main.
He sighed and brushed a hand across his eyes. Teresa stood with parted lips and face aglow. A long silence and she said:
“I feel it, too, Ricardo. Shall we go south again? Not to Cartagena, but—”
His arm swept toward the south in a gesture large and eloquent as he exclaimed:
“Nor to Cocos Island, Teresa dear. But you and I belong in those seas, somewhere. We have always belonged there. We have been at anchor long enough.”
“The wind and the sea,” she murmured. “Yes, they are calling us. We had better go.”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Illustrations have been relocated due to using a non-page layout. Page numbers have been removed due to a non-page layout.