“Most of it. Sometimes a word is gone—faded out;—and a few words I cannot translate;—I don’t remember all my Latin. I have written out a translation as nearly as I can make it out.” He handed a paper to the captain, who read:
“I, Christopher Lunez, am about to die. Once I had not thought that this would be my end,—a tropic island, with only savages about me. I had thought of something very different, since I got the gold. Perhaps, after all, there is a curse on treasure got as that was. If there is, and the sin is to be expiated in another world, I shall know it soon. I did not—”
Here there was a break, and the story went on.
”—— all the others are dead, and the wreck of our ship has broken to bits and has disappeared. Before the ruin was complete, though, I had brought the gold on shore and buried it. No one saw me. The natives ran from us at first, far into the forest, and ——”
The words which would have finished the sentence were wanting.
“Where three islands lie out at sea in a line with a promontory like a buffalo’s head, I sunk the gold deep in the sands, at the foot of the cliff, and dug a rude cross in the rock above it. Some day I hope a white man guided by this, will find the treasure and—”
“There was no more,” said the lieutenant, when the captain, coming to this sudden end looked up at him. “The last few pages of the book are gone, torn out, or worn loose and lost. What I have translated was scattered over many pages, with disconnected signs and characters written in between. The book was evidently intended to be looked upon as a mystic talisman, probably that the natives on this account might be sure to take good care of it.
“All of the Tagalogs who can procure them, carry these ‘anting-anting.’ Some are thought to be much more powerful than others. Evidently this was looked upon as an unusually valuable charm. Sometimes they are only a button, sewed up in a rag. One of the prisoners we took not long ago wore a broad piece of cloth over his breast, on which was stained a picture of a man killing another with a ‘barong.’ He believed that while he wore it no one could kill him with that weapon; and thought the only reason he was not killed in the skirmish in which he was captured was because he had the ‘anting-anting’ on.”
“Do you believe the story which the book tells is true?” the captain inquired.
“I don’t know. Some days I think I could believe anything about this country.”