Four Bells: A Tale of the Caribbean

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

“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 the Valkyrie.

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 old Valkyrie. 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!