and again some one might carry away the flagstaff, but no one who was not a landlubber would seriously consider that it was practicable to try and hit a staff well over a mile distant. He wound up with the suggestion that he. would leave that sort of shooting to the American Navy.

The bait was swallowed instantly.

been set for two thousand. As soon as it was permissible to fire, the bugle would sound the "Commence."

It is a crime of the worst character to anticipate the bugle.

Suddenly a shot pierced the silence.

"Who

the devil is that man Take his name!" came in furious accents from the

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Garn! I suppose you'll be showin' us the way to do it. Like to have a try? You've told us a good deal about the way you can handle a sixshooter. Let's see the stuff you're made of when we go to general quarters."

In less than no time the thing was done. Our friend found himself in the position of having greatness thrust upon him. He was not one whit dismayed. On the contrary, he liked it.

"Sure, what's all th' excitement? Guess you boys is not used to a bit 'v straight gunnin'."

Talk about brass! This fellow was the absolute limit. Well, he would have full licence to go and make a fool of himself.

"Call 't th' bluddy ace, anyway.' The slow drawl was unmistakable.

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"Oh, that damned feller, is it?" muttered the captain. 'Tell the gunnery lieutenant to keep his eye upon him. No, don't let him fire again until after we have finished. I'll give him a run before we hoist the target in. I want him to make a darned fool of himself in front of the ship's company. He can do it all by himself. Sound the 'Commence' and the 'Carry on.'

The Yank was replaced by the proper gunlayer, or captain of the gun, as we called him then.

The delay was only a momentary one, and the bugle rang out the " Carry on.

Not a gun spoke! Where on earth was the target?

The upper bridge was busy with binoculars. The little red flag had disappeared.

Incredible as it may seem, Providence had favoured the boaster. The red flag had apparently been shot away. Half an hour was wasted before some one spotted it. By that

time we knew the target must be somewhere close alongside, and when we ranged up close to it there was no hiding the melancholy truth. The staff had been broken off short; it had been shot clean through. There was a burst of enthusiastic applause from the ship's company. The bluejacket is ever ready to acknowledge a downfall if, in his judgment, it is the result of fair play.

The Yank had scored once again.

Early in the morning of the second day out from Costa Rica many of us were roused by the sudden slowing down of the engines in response to the engine-room telegraph gong. The officer of the watch had sighted a small boat in the distance, and there appeared to be a single man in it.

The captain was on the bridge in two minutes, and we altered our course in the direction of this lonely speck on the ocean. As we neared it we were able to see that it was a dug-out canoe. What had been taken for a man's head and arms was a large sea - bird perched on the gunwale in the stern. We could make out one or two other birds, and were prepared to find evidences of a tragedy. However, when we got alongside, it turned out that the canoe was empty. There were a few sea-birds sitting in the bottom, which appeared to be quite dry, and it was a mystery how a small dug-out canoe could have got here in the condition she was in.

It is probable that her occupant had been picked up quite recently by some passing ship, but it seemed curious that the canoe should have been left to float about deserted.

The Yank was quite sure that it was a dug-out from the island. There were three people on the island when he left-a married couple and a single man who lived by himself. They also were after the treasure. He told us that they were working on a single bearing supposed to have been taken by the pirate's mate. Whether the mate was supposed to have deserted before the ship was captured, I do not remember; but one wonders how these other bearings came to see the light. Those on the island had to replenish their stores by taking a trip in a small boat to the mainland, single-handed, a matter of about three hundred miles. The Pacific Ocean has rightly earned its name in these parts. Imagine the prospect of trusting oneself in an open boat for that sort of a journey!

When we arrived at the island we found the good lady in charge. Her husband had set out for the mainland in just such an open canoe a few days previous. She greeted us by hoisting the Dutch flag.

Things were exactly as our American friend had described them: his own hut, now derelict and neglected; another hut a few hundred yards distant, with its lonely male occu

pant down with fever and in pretty bad condition; and about half or three-quarters of a mile from them a fairly respectable bungalow, in which dwelt the woman.

As far as I could make out, these three establishments were in a perpetual state of enmity. At any rate, there appeared to be no love lost between the two solitary inhabitants when we got there. The sick man lay in his cabin too weak to get up and procure food for himself, and with his pistol within easy reach of his arm.

The woman lived within hail of him almost, and in comparative luxury. Think of these two beings alone on an uninhabited island, nothing of civilisation within hundreds of miles of them, and yet in a worse state than not on speaking terms ! This apparently was the influence of gold, treasure that if it could be found was sufficient to enrich a company; and yet there they were, unable to join forces and work together sensibly. Surely it must have been clear to each of them that, if one happened to strike it, there could be no chance of keeping the find to himself alone.

The first sight we had of Cocos Island was magnificent. Our anchorage turned out to be a fine harbour marked on the chart as Wafer Bay. The high land, rising in most places sheer out of the water, is clothed with the richest kind of tropical vegetation, and over the cliffs hang great pendants

of green foliage trailing down to the water's edge.

I knew, of course, that it is the right thing to describe such a romantic place as a pirate haven as a sort of fairy island. It happens that Cocos Island would exactly fit such a description, and it seems to me probable that many novelists have borrowed their setting from descriptions of this place. You pass into Wafer Bay through two fine headlands, a sort of gateway. Once inside, you are in a land-locked lagoon. A beautiful sandy beach stretches along the head of the bay. On either side of this, stretching to the harbour mouth, there is high land and "steep to." To the south'ard the sheer precipice, with its overfall of luxuriant vegetation, is magnificent. call to mind nothing that I have seen that will quite compare with it in its suggestion of peace and beauty.

I can

Behind the sandy beach at the head of the bay the ground rises steeply, here and there precipitously; but, between the beach and the high land at the back of it, there is a considerable space of more or less level ground. This stretches away to the south, inclining upward through the forest in an easy rise. Here, at this extremity, was the women's colony. Beneath the undergrowth one could still trace some signs of human habitation. Here, somewhere near the foot of the rise, was built the present lady inhabitant's

bungalow. The man and his wife had made a very creditable home of it. She was good enough to offer two of us, who were on the prowl, her hospitality. We noticed, and were asked to sample, some very excellent bananas. I gathered from her that there was much wild fruit and grain about, that at one time had evidently been cultivated. Some of this, I believe, the couple had been able to take advantage of. There was an old anvil which she said her husband had made use of. She pointed this out to me as one of the evidences of former population. Indeed, there were several things, such as tools, that they appeared to have found.

From this bungalow with its well-laid-out little gardens, the flat ground with a fringe of golden sand runs away to the north, ending in a bold promontory; and here, or rather just round the corner of it, is the centre of interest of the present story.

Picture to yourself a deep wedge-shaped gorge cut into the mountain-side, as if some giant with a huge pickaxe had attempted to scoop out for himself a huge throne from which he could view the harbour unobserved by any of the inhabitants of the island. At the apex of this wedge a high waterfall tumbles into a small pool before continuing its way in the form of a small stream running along the base of the northern cliff into the sea. Climbing plants and over

hanging creepers vie with the waterfall in giving the impression of great forces pouring out from their abundance overhead.

Within the chasm the earth is piled up in a manner which suggests that it has been the result of a landslide. It was here, in this tumbled mass of loose earth, that the treasure was supposed to be buried.

I will recall the scene from the diary, as far as I can tax my memory.

The women were all confined to their quarters; sentries were posted with orders to shoot any who showed signs of disobeying the order. The women's quarters were completely hidden from the scene of operations by the high cliff on the south side. The treasure was landed on the beach just below the chasm, and carried straight up to a cavern that had been dug into the bed-rock.

I may say that the rock here is of a soft kind. I should imagine it would be classed as a kind of soapstone. It is reddish in colour. Various galleries had been driven through it by prospectors who had worked at one time or another on the island. Some of these must have meant a very considerable amount of work, for they ran evidently along a line of bearing for quite a long distance. I walked along some of these galleries, and noticed various pockets in them that seemed to show where the worker had thought he was on some clue.

It was noticeable that in

to converge upon our huntingground. One gallery in particular ran very close to the point of our cross-bearings.

The bearings given in the diary were obtained from the northern headland at the gate of the harbour and the waterfall. Where these two bearings cut, was the point at which to commence digging operations.

The first thing to be found was a large stone having certain marks cut upon it. This stone we soon found. It was not exactly in the place indicated, but quite near enough to be satisfying. From this stone certain measurements had to be taken, which the diary said would give the position of a stone weighing two tons that sealed the entrance of the cavern in which lay the treasure.

At

A large cavern had been prepared by two Indians, possibly by more than two. any rate, there were two of them left to stow the treasure as it was brought up from the beach. When all was stowed, both of these Indians were slaughtered, and the great stone was placed over the mouth of the cavern.

A barrel of gunpowder was sunk to a depth of ten feet in the earth on top of the overhanging cliff, and at a certain hour on the date mentioned in the diary, with great ceremony, it was touched off by means of a fuze, blowing down a great mass of earth, and effectively burying the large stone at a considerable depth. I have

stone. I did not witness the finding of it, but I was able to get ashore a few hours later and inspect it and its marking. It certainly corresponded to what had been stated in the diary. The marking was very rudely done; as far as I remember, it was two X's. At any rate, the evidence so far was satisfactory.

The working party-volunteers, of course-were digging nobly, with nobly, with our friend the Yank cheering them on.

"Say now, boys, I give you gospel: there's a gold brick waitin' fer' th' first guy inter th' cavern. Say now th' first bonny thet opens the door steps right in and picks a gold brick. Boys, I'm speakin' fair, 'n you hears wat I'm sayin'. There's a gold brick waitin' fer some one 'r you."

He could not understand that these men were used to discipline. He was obviously peeved that he was not allowed to stand and finger a loaded