THE POT OF GOLD
Fire Island Beach is a barrier of sand, stretching for twenty miles along the south coast of Long Island, and separating the Great South Bay from the Atlantic ocean.
To reach it, you must make a sail of from three to seven miles, and once upon it, you find it a wild, desolate, solitary spot, wind-searched and surf-pounded.
Its inner shore is covered with a growth of tide-wet sedge, with here and there a spot where dry meadow comes down to make a landing-place.
The outline of this inner shore is most irregular, curving and bending in and out and back upon itself, making coves and points and creeks and channels, and often pushing out in flats with not water enough on them at low tide to wet your ankles.
A third of the distance across the Beach, the meadow ends and sand begins. This slopes gradually up for another third of the distance, to the foot of the sand hills, which seem tumbled into their places by some mighty power, sometimes three tiers of them deep, sometimes two, and sometimes only one.
These sand hills are the most striking features of the Beach. The biggest of them are not more than sixty feet high, yet so hard a feat is it to climb to the top, and so extended is the view below you—on one side the wide Bay, on the other, the ocean stretching its restless surface to the horizon—that you feel yourself upon an elevation tenfold as high.
Through these hills the wind makes a great galloping, whirling out deep bowl-shape hollows among them, and piling the shifting sand upon their summits. Now and then you will notice a hill with its shoulder knocked off by the wind, and a ton of sand gone no one can tell where. In every storm their contour changes, and yet their general formation is so similar at all times that the change is seldom thought of. A coarse spear-like grass finds a sparse growth upon them, and does what it can to hold the sand in place; but it has a hard time of it, as its blades buried to their tips or its naked roots often testify.
But there is one part of this Beach that is ever much the same. It is a broad, shelving strip of sand between the hills and the sea, where the tide rises and falls, pounding and grinding, year in and year out—the play-ground and the battle-ground of the surf.
On a summer’s day, I have seen this surf so low and quiet that one could launch a sharpie upon it, single-handed, and come ashore again without shipping a quart of water. At other times it is a terror to look at—a steady break of waves upon the outer bar, with row after row coming in, rearing and plunging as they strike the shore. In such a sea there is no launching yawl or surf-boat, and no coming ashore.
When the tide is on the right moon and the wind has blown a gale from the southeast, the strand is entirely submerged, and people upon the main shore three miles away can see the surf breaking over the Beach hills.
Such a riot of sea and wind strews the whole extent of beach with whatever has been lost or thrown overboard, or torn out of sunken ships. Many a man has made a good week’s work in a single day by what he has found while walking along the Beach when the surf was down.
“The Captain” knew all this and had patrolled that Beach scores of times.
Ten years had passed since the first time which laid the habit of wandering along the surf-shore apparently in search of whatever the sea had cast up. Sometimes a spar, sometimes sheets of copper torn from a wreck and carried by a high surf far along the strand, sometimes a vessel’s gilded name, at other times only scattered drift-wood were the rewards of these lonely walks.
People about the neighborhood where the Captain lived, knew that at one time or another he brought these relics from the Beach; yet no one supposed that the finding of them was related to his life in any other way than mere happen so. Anyone who went upon the Bay at all was likely to land at the Beach. Once there, it was a natural impulse to go across and walk along the ocean side; for, at that time, early in the thirties, it was widely believed that the sea had wealth, and often threw it up upon the shore. Never, however, was it in the least surmised by the Captain’s neighbors that these solitary excursions had woven themselves in as a part of the texture of his life.
Had, though, these good neighbors been quick to perceive they would have noticed one characteristic of the Captain, sufficiently manifest at times—that he was always in the best of spirits when a storm was raging. At such times he had been heard to remark, “This is a wild day, my friend, but just such days is needed.”
And it was not till years afterward that neighbor Rob’son actually understood the import of a strange remark made to him by the Captain one stormy night, when the wind blew fiercely from the south-east, and drove aslant the thin rain which the low scudding black clouds let down.
Mr. Rob’son had been belated and was hurrying to get home. The Captain, meeting him, called out in the most cheerful of tones, “Hello, is that you, neighbor Rob’son?” and giving him time for merely a bare “Yes,” he continued, “This is a monstrous night. Do you hear the ocean pound over on the Beach? There’ll be tons of sand shifted to-night—tons of it; more’n all the men out on a gen’ral trainin’ day could shovel in a year. You’re in a hurry, I see, neighbor. I ain’t. I’m in no haste to get in-doors. A great night like this fits me. Somehow it puts new spirit into me.”
Was it the storm that made the Captain’s heart so buoyant and his mind so cheerful? or was it because such days and nights made more certain the realization of that secret hope which had possessed him for years?
So secret was this hope that even his wife surmised nothing of it; for, happily, she was not one of those unfortunate women who are endowed with satanic intuition, and whose lives thereby are made miserable until they have followed up and chased into clear daylight all the dusky suspicions that flit, perchance, into their minds.
But although a matter-of-fact wife, she had, it must be confessed, noticed more closely than her neighbors the effect a storm had upon her husband; and she had learned to put off until such a time those various little requests about the house, which appear in a man’s eyes so great a matter to get about, and which he usually puts off and shirks with an unaccountable dread. Every little change, therefore, she needed, of driving a nail here, putting a shelf there, or the mending perhaps of a churn-dasher, he cheerfully made at those times; and she would often remark to him, “It’s astonishin’ how much you’ll get done on a stormy day, and the harder the storm the more you’ll manage to get through with.”
If, however, these odds and ends were not finished during the storm, they were suffered to go over, as the Captain was certain to leave home early the next morning; and to any neighbor who chanced to inquire for him, the reply was made that he had gone upon the Bay.
“Gone upon the Bay.” That expression was in those days a most convenient one for a bay-man. The persistent following of the Bay for a livelihood at the present time causes each man to hold closely to one kind of work. But then, there was no telling when a man set out from home how his day would be spent—he might go oystering or gunning, he might cast his nets or waste his time sailing in search of what he deemed better luck. Varying conditions of wind and weather and tide offered, one day, one thing, and the next day, something else; and what use a bay man would make of his day grew out of these conditions and his own ambition.
The Captain, however, on the morning after a storm, paid no attention to what these conditions offered till he had visited the Beach and sought again the realization of his hope. He never failed to be on there early on such mornings, to see what the wind and the sea had done.
And so it turned out upon this very day. There had been a sudden and violent storm the previous night, and the Captain had crossed the Bay and was making one of his solitary patrols of the Beach.
Across his shoulder was thrown his gun, as this he always carried with him. And although he took no silver with him, as certain gunners were known to do, to substitute for lead should there occur any emergency bearing the suggestion of witchery about it, yet he felt, in some way which he did not care to examine, more comfortable with his gun in his hand. He knew well all those stories of witchcraft and mystery about the Beach which superstition and imagination had set afloat in various localities along the “South Side.” How the witches would come at night and rattle the latch upon old Uncle Payne’s gunning house, and how the owner fastened the latch with a shilling piece, crept in the window, and invariably loaded his gun with a silver sixpence to blaze away at these midnight revellers, should he hear the slightest indications of their freaks. And how gunners, taking the surest aim at the wild duck that flew to their decoys, had oftentimes been baffled in hitting them, finding, in such instances, the shot roll out of the barrel as the gun was lowered. And how many a gunner carried a lucky-bone in his pocket as an amulet against such sinister misfortune.
He had heard, too, of that sheltered spot on the north-west side of [Watch Hill], inclosed by a clump of old bayberry bushes and low cedars, where searchers for money had occasionally gone with a mineral rod; and who, whenever they began to probe for treasure, were always frightened away by a huge black snake that wriggled itself up the stem of a bush, and stretched out at full length along the top of the foliage, darting its tongue and hissing as if guardian of the enchanted spot. And more marvelous still, the tradition of a stone, circular and flat, bearing upon its surface the image of a man’s face, that had at times been run upon, near the Point of Woods, but which never could be found when deliberate search was made for it.
While the Captain thought he put no real credence in these stories, yet he felt more or less apprehensive when upon the Beach. A sense of mystic awe, which he could not explain always possessed him there, and notwithstanding his disbelief in witchcraft, he would sooner have abandoned his quests than forego the companionship of his gun.
All the morning long, that idea which had come to him with strange force ten years ago, and which had engendered the secretly cherished hope, was uppermost in his mind. So strongly did it dominate his thoughts when he was alone by the ocean that it had forced itself into words. Over and over again he stated it as he talked to himself, adding this time one tradition, the next time another. No one was near to hear it. The very utterance cheered him and fed his hope.
Becoming somewhat tired in his patrol, for he had already walked fully seven miles, he ascended one of the sand dunes to reconnoitre the Bay, and assure himself whether any boat was making towards this part of the Beach. He saw only two or three sails abreast of Patchogue, and these were bound westward. Feeling, therefore, that he could take the time, he threw himself down to rest.
The day was clear and bright, with a light breeze astir. The wide Bay was blue in the sunlight. Near the hither shore he saw a long file of wild ducks sweep a graceful curve and flutter down upon their feeding ground. On the farther shore stretched the stately woodland, its whole extent broken only by the meadows about the creeks, and the few patches of green that revealed the scattered farms. This was all the prospect. No church spire stretched itself upward as a landmark, no village showed white along the shore, no fleet boats with pleasure-seekers sped here and there.
His weariness soon passed, and as he descended to resume his walk, the sand, flowing down the steep hillside as fast as he trod, set his thoughts back again upon the old theme. “The sand on this Beach is all the time a changin’. What are hollows now ’ill be hills in a few years. Sea and rain and wind are all the time at work. The wind, though, puts in the most time. How soon it ’ill sweep out a hole and carry the sand up the side of a hill anybody knows who has been on this Beach in a blow. It handles sand in about the same way it drifts snow.
“No, I’ll never dig for treasure, and I’ve no belief in mineral rods. Too many fools have used ’em. Watch Hill has all been dug around ag’in and ag’in, and never anyone found a shillin’ for all their potterin’. If there’s anythin’ valu’ble buried on this Beach, sometime or other it ’ill be laid bare—that Money Ship wa’n’t off and on here so many times fur nothin’—there’s got to be treasure here, and who’s more likely to find it than me? No man watches this Beach closer, and nobody knows I’m watchin’ it, either. It’ll come, too, one of these days! If a man’s determined enough and only holds on long enough, what he’s desirin’ and hopin’ for is sure to come round, else he wouldn’t feel so sure about it all the time all through him. It’ll come, it’s sure to come, and then I’ll build my vessel.”
This had been the Captain’s theory. He had held on. Never in the least had he slackened hope.
During the storm the tide had run high, surging up and washing away the foot of the sand hills. As far as his eye could reach, he saw the precipitous side of hill after hill. This very condition led him on a mile or more farther than he generally walked. And then, as no footprints but his own were to be seen anywhere on the crisp sand, he determined to go on still farther. He had walked perhaps half a mile, having lapsed into that state of reverie apt to come upon one who has urged himself beyond the accustomed limit of toil, when suddenly, through the drowsiness of his mind, a perception, unheeded at the time by the other senses, flitted back, awakening and concentrating all the faculties upon itself. In a moment he turned about, saying, “I believe I’ll go back and see what that actually was that looked like a piece o’ black glass midway up the bank.” Reaching the spot, he stepped up the slope and began to dig away the sand. He saw at once that it was a small glass or earthenware pot of a blackish color, which settled quickly as he dug.
“Ah,” exclaimed he, “the day’s here! The day’s got here at last!”
Clasping it in his hands, he weighed it, so to speak, lifting it up and down till his surprised senses needed nothing more to convince them. He examined it, but found no mark upon it, not even upon the resin with which it was sealed. Suddenly a strange alarm rose up within him, and he feared someone would come upon him. He obeyed his first thought and looked quickly eastward and then westward along the surf shore, but saw no living form. Someone, though, might be crossing the Beach and might at any moment appear on the crest of the hill just above him. Before the thought which suggested this had really passed, he began digging a place in the sand, and in it he set the heavy pot. The hole, however, was not deep enough, and he lifted the pot out. But thinking it would take too long to dig the hole deeper, he put the pot back again, took off his coat, threw it over the spot, and laid his gun atop of these. With steps as agile as any youth of twenty, he climbed up the slipping sand to the crest of the hill and looked keenly over the Bay. He found himself as secure from interruption as when an hour or more ago he lay down to rest and enjoy the scene. In a second he had returned to the hole and was lifting out the pot, determined to open it at once.
Doubts, however, thrust themselves upon him. “Why had he taken so much for granted? What was really the need of all his alarm? After all the jar might only be filled with bullets or shot.”
But another thought crowded closely along with these doubtful ones. “No, it couldn’t be. He hadn’t at last espied this jar—the only thing that met his hope for the countless times that he had walked along this shore—to find in it only lead. It had treasure in it of some kind. He was sure of it. His feelings told him so.”
Opening his jack-knife he began to cut away the resin from the mouth of the jar, making slow progress with the hard covering. At length he reached the stopper, and tried to pry out the thick cork, but with such haste that his knife-blade broke, and he was forced to cut down on one side of the stopper. Deeming he had been a long time opening the jar, his old alarm returned, again suggesting that someone might be approaching. A second time he scanned the shore in both directions, covered the jar with his coat, ran up the steep and looked over the Beach and over the Bay. No sign of approach or molestation was anywhere discernible. Condemning the alarm that had so wrought upon him in stronger terms than is necessary to use here, he returned to the spot, and this time, instead of kneeling, sat down and took the jar in his lap. Not a great while elapsed before he had cut away enough of the cork to thrust in the blunt edge of his knife. A pry, a deeper thrust, another pry, and out came the thick stopper. But now he was startled, fearing that he had opened some magical jar, and was, at last, to be entangled in that witchery he so strongly discredited; for, strange to relate, upon looking in, he saw something that resembled either lint or cotton, and which no sooner had the air touched, than it slowly lost its substance and vanished. His affright went, however, as quickly as the mysterious exhalation, for there lay the coins of gold, as bright as on the day when Tom Knight, the buccaneer, afraid the town magistrate would search the Beach and find them evidence against him, had sealed the coins up in the jar, and hid it among the hills.
He tipped the jar aside to disturb the coins, observing as they slid over, other traces of the lint or cotton, which had evidently been used to pack the coins in layers, either as security to the jar, or to muffle any clink that would excite suspicion in removal. But his purpose in tipping the jar was not to witness the exhalation of the fluffy substance—he had another object in view. So, canting the jar first towards him and then from him to secure as varied a change of the contents as possible, he peered to the very bottom. Nothing there but gold, the yellowest of gold.
Reaching in with two fingers, he brought out a coin between them, and began to examine it. The date, 1783, was all that was familiar to him. Looking at the other side, he recognized the image of a crown, and under it, upon a shield, figures of lions, standing on their hind legs, with long tails curved like the letter S. Was it English money? The letters, HISPAN-ET-IND, around the edge, were unintelligible to him. He turned the coin back to the date side. Here was the profile of some rotund personage, and over his head, CAROLUS III. DEI-GRATIA. It was the third of some monarch, that was evident enough; but the DEI-GRATIA was just as puzzling as the letters on the other side. Reaching in for another coin, he read the date, 1799. Above was a slightly different profile, the same name, but after it was IIII. instead of III. He drew coin after coin from the jar until he had several in his hand. Except the dates they were in the main alike. He conjectured that they were doubloons—Spanish doubloons; and his conjecture was right. Satisfied with the examination he had made, he piled the doubloons in a column in one hand, and with the other, lifted the pile and let them drop, one by one, to hear the solid chink. This, however, did not reach up to the height of his feelings. So he spread out his coat, and made, with a few blows of his hand upon the yielding sand underneath, a concave surface. Then lifting the pot, he poured out the coins in a glittering stream. Their fall was musical, and when the last one fell, he scooped up double handfuls, held them high, and let the dazzling stream run again.
It was the first golden dream realized since the days when Captain Kidd was said to have buried his ill-gotten treasure in countless spots upon that Beach. How would that gold have dazzled the sight of all those argonauts who had made so many continuous but fruitless searches for the money reputed to be hid among those sand hills! What exultation would the sound of those falling yellow disks from the old mint of Mexico have wrought in those who had dredged persistently but in vain upon the bar where the long-boats of the Money-ship upset, or those who by moonlight and by starlight had walked to and fro over the hills, grasping the mineral rod, and digging where its delusive twitch indicated, until weary with toil and disappointment.
While the Captain’s whole attention was completely absorbed in this revel with his gold, a coasting vessel had been approaching. It is true that the schooner was a mile or perhaps farther from the shore, “but with their spy-glass,” thought the Captain, as he discovered the vessel, “those on board can plainly see just what I’ve got here.” Hurriedly dipping up handful after handful, he slid the coins carefully into the jar, and after the stopper was replaced, wrapped his coat about it, reached his gun, and disappeared over the hills.
When he came to his boat, he tied the coat securely about the jar with odd strands of rope, and placed the prize carefully under forward. When night fell, it was his intention to make towards home.
The south-west breeze had gathered with the day, and blew freshly even from the Beach shore. Out in the Bay, where it had wide, unhindered scope, it had added to itself, pushing the waves before it, and urging them with such impetuosity that their crests grew flurried and broke into white, foamy caps. Every leaf on the “South Shore” was astir, fluttering and tugging in the moist wind; and the trees bended and straightened to trim all their spread of canvas to the sweeps of the breeze.
“Ruther rougher than I care for tonight,” thought the Captain, “but the wind’ll fall after the sun sinks; I’ll give it time.”
The color had gone from the few strips of cloud that lay about the sundown spot, and the gray twilight arch stretched across the west, as the Captain cleared away for home. Along the eastern sky, well up, a glow of dull orange spread itself, and creeping up to the glow and gradually transmuting it, was a cold blue, the blue of advancing night—a color so rare that it is matched nowhere else than on polished steel when the blacksmith tempers it.
The Captain steered with a strong and steady hand, and watched his sail with a vigilant eye. But give heed as closely as he might to his craft, there played with his fancy the glowing rays of distant Fire Island Light. It had just been built. Again and again its gleams, falling on the dark side of some tumbling wave, caused the Captain to turn his head and look over his shoulder to the source whence they came. The light was, in truth, no guide to him on this night, but thoughts of the time when it would be, kept recurring. He called to mind going in and out of Fire Island Inlet years ago, before a light-house was ever proposed, and of how difficult a place the Inlet was to enter after nightfall. But now, no matter how thick the night, bring that light to bear north-east, and one was inside and out of harm’s way. What an advantage it was! He thought, too, of how he should see it far ahead, when making a run homeward from Coney Island; of the times he should have to lie anchored within the inlet waiting for fit weather to go out, and how companionable that light would be sending out its bright rays on wild, stormy nights.
All that the Captain fancied came true in the years that immediately followed. Speedily the timbers of a vessel were got out and set up, and duly “The Turk” was launched. What odd notion dictated the name was never known. It was thought, though, by many of his neighbors that some name suggestive of that which made the long-wished-for vessel a reality, should have been given her. Indeed, there was no little comment about it at the time, and much protest whenever the vessel was discussed. It was overlooked, however, in this instance as it had been in several others, that the Captain held views and ideas quite opposite to those of most people who knew him; for what one of these neighbors, had he conceived the idea of finding buried treasure, would have done as the Captain did, and waited for the wind and the sea to dig it for him?
