“What made it enchanted?”
That fifth man wuz a pris’ner they’d taken frum some ship they’d run down, robbed, an’ destroyed with the rest on the crew. They’d got ready to come ashore to bury treasure, an’ they ordered him to go long with ’em to help do it. He went, doin’ his part o’ the work jist ez ef he wur one o’ the gang.
They go ashore, mek up their minds ’bout the spot, take their ranges so they kin come back to the spot when they want to, an’ then begin to dig. When the hole is dug deep enough, they set the treasure into the hole, an’ all stan’ in thar aroun’ it. The leader o’ the gang tells the pris’ner that he’s got to stay by that ere treasure an’ guard it, so nobody kin ever git it but them.
They mek him sw’ar with some kind o’ an oath that he will. Then they mek way with him, an’ put his body over the treasure.
That’s why we couldn’t mek out no more ’an four men goin’ back when five come ashore. Them four men murdered the fifth one, an’ in so doin’ enchanted the treasure.
It wuz sealed in human blood, an’ the devil himself wuz thar in full charge. An’ that’s why thunder an’ lightnin’ comes, an’ spectres is seen, an’ the treasure sinks lower an’ lower, an’ the hole caves, when people hev tried to dig up enchanted treasure. An’ that’s why, too, so little buried treasure hez ever been found, ’cause pirates mos’ al’ays enchant it, an’ sometimes enchant it double. They murder their pris’ners, an’ bury ’em, knife in hand, settin’ on the treasure to guard it.
THE MONEY SHIP
Seventy years ago two boys, one seven years old and the other twelve, made a trip with their father up the Great South Bay. They had been promised that when it became necessary to land and mend the nets, they might run across the Beach to the ocean.
So, one afternoon when the nets were spread, away the boys scampered, dragging their outstretched hands through the tall grass. But coming upon a damp spot of meadow when a third of the way over, they were obliged to turn their course. In doing so, they chanced to look behind them, and seeing how far they were from the boat and how small it appeared, they were afraid, and had half a mind to turn back. But the younger lad caught sight of the large, leafy stalks of a great rose mallow, a few steps ahead, spreading the broad petals of its passionate flower out to the sun and the breeze.