“I toiled for an hour and was getting pretty warm. Thus far I had struck nothing but the roots of a tree, so I began to despair. I knew that I might keep on digging holes clear through to China, and, with nothing to guide me, pass within a foot of what I searched for. I took off my shirt, and the cool breeze blowing on my warm body invigorated me; so, taking up the shovel again, I started to lengthen the hole to the eastward. I dug steadily for another half-hour, when my shovel suddenly struck something solid. This made my heart almost leap into my mouth, and with quickening breath I dug fiercely on.
“Like a miner on making his first find of gold, I trembled all over, and the perspiration poured down my naked breast and shoulders as I threw clouds of sand on all sides. I was as drunk as if I had swallowed a pint of liquor, and I remember nothing except that I felt like shouting with delight. I finally cleared a box of the sand over it and then tried to lift it. To my intense surprise it moved easily. But my excitement gave way to the deepest disappointment, for I well knew that if a box about six feet long, two wide, and two deep contained coin it would take more than one man of my size to move it.
“I lost no time thinking these thoughts, but started to pry off the lid. The wood, which was extremely well preserved, resisted the edge of my shovel so well that it broke the iron. I was losing patience, so, whirling the shovel above my head, I brought it down with crushing force upon the lid. After a few blows it gave way, and I eagerly tore off the splintered fragments. As I did so I leaned over and peered into the face of a corpse.
“I leaped back and gazed at it in a stupefied way for some moments, my head in a whirl, then partially recovering myself, I went forward to examine it. It looked like the body of a man in the uniform of an officer; at least so I judged by some buttons on the coat; but everything had passed through the last stages of decomposition. There was nothing left on the head at all, and the teeth grinned horribly in the moonlight.
“As I stood and gazed I thought of Alvarez. So this was his secret! How came a man to be buried in such a lonely spot? Was it a friend or victim of his former days, brought ashore from some vessel in the offing that dare not land at St. Augustine?
“I did not molest the body, but after recovering myself I put the fragments of the lid back as well as I could and piled the sand over it. I then dressed, and, taking my gun, started for the boat. After sailing several hours with hardly any wind, I arrived at the town just as the rising sun came up out of the ocean. I said nothing of my trip to any one, and soon after left St. Augustine to return no more for years.
“The town is a queer old place, but it has changed greatly to one who remembers it as it was years ago. Its quaint old fort and coquina walls doubtless contain many secrets of their former owners. As for old Alvarez, he carried his to sea with him that bright afternoon with a shark for a pilot.”
THE CURSE OF WOMAN
“SOME skippers are good and some are bad,” said Gantline, joining in the talk on the main-hatch. He was second mate, so we listened. He expectorated with great accuracy into a coil of rope and continued:
“Likewise so are owners. The same holds good to most kinds of people. Some owners don’t want good skippers. They’re apt to be expensive on long runs, for they won’t cheat a poor devil of a sailor out of his lime-juice and other luxuries they have nowadays. At best a sailor gets less pay and works harder than any man alive, leave out the danger and discomfort on a long voyage on an overloaded ship. It’s only fair to treat him as well as possible. This idea that feeding a man well and not cursing him at every order will make him lazy is wrong, and ought to be kept among the class of skippers who take their ‘lunars’ with a hand-lead.