The Phantom Treasure

by Harriet Pyne Grove

She turned to the right and opened the sliding door, finding it more easily opened now that she knew how. She was surprised to find light here, and looking above, she saw a round window, or ventilator at the top of the room on the side of the house wall. This, doubtless, matched the other one in the attic. But it supplied little light, and she looked around for a place to set her candlestick. She sat it down on the shelf, which had most probably been provided for a narrow bed, and saw that a board or leaf hung down from the wall on hinges. The hinges were rusty, but still good and Jannet succeeded in raising the board and propping it with the stick attached, which fitted into a place in the wall beneath. That was the table, then. It had held the ghost costume.

Jannet’s imagination was working in good order. With a smile she lit her candle. “Now I’m ‘captive’ or ‘fugitive,’ back in the old days, and there is a price on my head, perhaps, and I haven’t anything to eat,”—but Jannet’s heels struck against something of tin that made her look under the shelf to see what was there. The room was perfectly bare except at this place, and Jannet saw only an uninteresting pile of pans and dishes in one corner, all covered thick with dust. An old wooden box, a wooden pail falling to pieces, and a tin or metal kettle of an odd sort stood in a row. Jannet could scarcely see, through the dust, that the “tin” kettle was of pewter. But Jannet did not like pewter things anyhow. Cousin Di had laughed at her for this distaste.

“He certainly kept everything under his bed,” thought Jannet, in no hurry to touch the dusty things. But under the wooden box she saw the corner of something made of leather sticking out. With the tips of her fingers the stooping Jannet drew out a queer old portfolio. This promised to be of interest. Jannet decided to investigate it right on the spot, though she wished that she had brought a dust cloth.

But she sacrificed her clean handkerchief to the cause and after blowing off some of the dust she wiped off most of the rest. Opening out the decaying leather, she found that one pocket had a few papers in it. There was a torn paper, conveying some property, that she thought would be interesting to Uncle Pieter, as she glanced at the old writing and the Dutch names. But what was this,—oh, how perfectly wonderful!

For the next ten minutes there was perfect silence in the box of a room, while the candle fluttered a little and Jannet, wrapt in what she was reading, almost lost sight of where she was. Many and many a long year before, some one had read those little notes tucked away in the old portfolio with as much interest and more anxiety. “Dere Father,” ran the first that Jannet pulled from the sticky leather at the side. “It is hard to get the food to the attic without being seen. The Captin watches us or some one is there while we are cooking. But they watch my mother more than they watch me. I put the food on the stair and tapped, but you were asleep, perhaps. I heard a noise and I hastened to go up and closed the trap. There was no one here. Now I will drop this down quickly. It is a good thing that I keep my dolls in the attick. They let me play here. I was eating some bread and having my table spread for my dolls when the Captin looked within the door to see what I was doing this morning. I put my old doll’s head on the flagon of water and wrapped it in the plaid coat that Mistress Patience made for the doll that you brought from England.” (And Jannet had found little dishes and dolls in the pretty box of dark wood, whose key had been discovered!)

No name was signed to this. It had been folded tightly to be dropped at the entrance, Jannet thought, for it was greatly mussed and difficult to read.

A small piece of paper with a large grease spot bore a short message. “I made these for you. Mother says that they are tasty.”

“Probably doughnuts,” smiled Jannet, looking at the grease spot.

But here was a longer letter and in another, older hand. It began without address, or was but a part of the entire message.

“I can only pray that you may not be discovered. Your rash act in opening the panel and entering the room where the captain was sleeping to get the covering, was successful in a way that you may not have considered. The captain did make a to-do about it when he saw that it was not a dream. The men will not go into the room nor will they go into the attic since the wind has been making music there. The tale is that a gaunt ghost, with a clank of sword, appeared by the bed and snatched the quilt from upon the captain. The door was locked and the guard outside saw no one, yet the quilt was gone. For my sake, Pieter, do not be rash. I will continue to leave word of their movements. It will be safer to visit the attic now, I hope. Noises there are thought to be the ghost. Jannetje pretended to be frightened, but she can yet visit her dolls at times. No very good word comes from our troops. Our Tory neighbor doth rejoice in unseemly fashion for one who pretended to be our friend and he is oft at our door in converse with the captain. I am watched at all times, but I lock my door and write when I am thus alone, putting my messages inside the little waists of Jannetje, who was ten years of age but yesterday.”