The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1876-05-24
THE DEVILS GIFT.

THE DEVILS GIFT.
Although manslaughter is common
enough in the tropics, where mems
blood courses hotter and swifter than
in the temperate North, cases of de.
liberately conceived and executed
murder are rare. The criminal annals
of tropical countries exhibit .singu-
larly comparative paucity in this re-
spect. When a case of willful taking
of life does occur, however, it is in
variably accompanied and surrounded
by such horrible details that the in.
ventive deviltry of Northern nations
is, save in very exceptional cases, COM
pletely surpassed. One of the most
terrible and remorseless examples of
wholesale murder ever known &C.
CURED in a land watched over by the
Southern cross, the Island of Trinidad.
In October, 1869, an overseer named
John Gibbings, who was employed on
one of the estates belonging to the
Colonial Company of London, situated
in the department of San Fernando,
and known as La Florida, was en-
ployed on the beach, some two miles
from the estate, experimenting the
shipment of some casks of sugar, in
lighters for transportation down the
Gulf of Paris to Port de Spain. His
task was completed early in the after.
noon, and after dispatching the coolies
and negroes homeWard by the direct
road, Gibbings mounted his mule and
rode down the beach, intending to
reach the plantation by another track.
He was accompanied by his gang mas
ter, a high caste Hindoo, named Ran
COON. This man trotted along beside
the overseer's slowly pacing mule,
talking over estate matters to him in
Hindoostanic.
There had been a gale a couple of
days before, during which the sea had
forced a passage into one of the Ia
goons, which everywhere in that dis
trict line the coast. The shallow
channel thus fo.med was nearly dry
when the overseer and his companion
reached it, and from it's middle rose a
couple of rotten timbers, evidently
the ribs of some ship driven ashore
decades, perhaps centuries before, and
long since buried under the sand con-
stantly gathering on the lonely coast.
The curiosity of the overseer led him
to halt, and dismount, to examine the
ancient relic. In doing so his booted
foot came in contact with some hard
object beneath the sand, and carelessly
scraping the thin layer which covered
it aside, a portion of the lid of a chest
Of some kind lay exposed. With a
flush of expectation Gibbings fell to
work, with the assistance of Rangoon,
to unearth the box, and their united
efforts soon uncovered the worm-e eaten
lid of an old-fashioned sandal-wood
sea chest. The wood was so rotten
that pieces of it came out under the
hands of the miners; and correctly sur
missing that it would be impossible
to lift it bodily out, the overseer with
a vigorous kick stove the covering of
the chest in. A few articles of cloth
ing, so rotten that they fell to shreds
under the touch, were all that at first
sight were revealed. The coolie gath
cred them together as best he could,
disclosing beneath them layer of
stout canvas bags. The material of
these was rotten as that of the clothing
which covered them, and in attempt
ing to raise one it burst, sending a
scattering shower Of gold coins back
upon the rest, whose contents were
thus denoted to the delighted discov-
erers.
The pair were still gloating over their
treasure-trove when a coarse voice be-
hind them caused them to start. It
was too late to attempt any conceal
ment of their treasure, for the speak
er, a gigantic mulatto hunter, known
as eel Buey,'' or the OK, was already
at their side. The half-dozen macaws
which he carried strung to his belt,
and the gun in his hand, told the story
OF his appearance even without the ex-
PLANTATION he offered. He had been
hunting materials for his supper among
the mangroves when the sight of the
figures on the beach had drawn him
thither. This meeting was the first
step in horrid tragedy.
In Trinidad all treasure-trove, save
small PERCENTAGE given to the
finder, falls, by law, to the Govern
ment. This rule is of course invaria-
bly, evaded, and of all the very consid-
cradle sums ofmoney which have from
time to time been recovered from the
hiding place Of the Buccaneers on the
island, a very small proportion has
taken the direction ascribed for it by
law. The find Of Gibbings and his two
companions was, by common consent,
transported to Rangoon's huts at Ella
Florida,' the overseer inwardly ours
ing the luck which had left him no
choice between sharing his newly &C.
quired fortune with two others and
surrendering it all: After the dinner
at the managers house, where the