The Arizona sentinel., 1886-05-08

washed it of, dried it and put it in his pocket for future examination; then, the boy having come with help, took his fish and some tid-bits from the shark up 10 the tent, much to the joy of the occu- pants, who could not thank him enough.
 Colonel Euler, to whom Randolph showed his box, immediately thought he recognized it as one of peculiar sort of dispatch-box used by the Confederate Government for their messages by sea and in blockade runners, being conve nient for carrying in the pocket and for throwing overheard in case the vessel was captured. The box was carefully opened and was found to be precisely what Colonel Euler suspected-a dis patch-box of the Confederate Govern ment. The contents, in addition to some papers of no present importance, comprised series of long dispatches in cipher, addressed to well-known agent in Paris of the defunct rebellion, and ten certificates of deposit, promising to pay money of Ambrose Gunter's, now on deposit with the banking-house of X. Animas Freres, Bordeaux, to John Brown or order. when properly coun- tersigned. The amount of the certifi- cates in all was eight hundred and nine ty-six thousand francs. 'Worth noth- ing, of course," said Randolph, down on his luck, as usual.
 ''Not a nickel, my boy" said Colonel Euler; ''but, nevertheless, you must come with me tomorrow and show them to MT. Thompson. Tomorrow is my well day, and I'm going up to Charles ton to see about getting shanty put up for my folks to live in"
 In Charleston next day Randolph was taken by Colonel Euler to MT. Thomp- son, and introduced to that gentleman, to whom he told the story of the shark and presented the box and its contents. Mir. Thompson eyed him sharply and asked him if the whole story had been told him. Colonel Euler vouched for his kinsman, and the ex-secretary opened the box, glanced at the cipher dispatch, and tusned very pale.
 "Have either of you read thisP" he asked.
 "No," said Randolph. q intended to make out the cipher, but have not yet had time"
 MT. Thompson answered nothing, but taking the drafts out of the box, applied a match to the remaining papers and watched them burn to ashes with sigh of satisfaction. ''PeriloGs secrets, young man," said he, ''and happy am I to dispose of them thus. Not only repu- tations, but lives would have been sacrificed had those matters become pub lie. Now, as to those certificates-they are very probably worth nothing-but you have done me a real service in this matter, and more besides me, and if you car get anything out of them and it is worth trying, you are perfectly vel come to it all. The money belongs to nobody, strictly speaking do not consider that the late Confederacy had any heirs-and if you can get hold of it, do so.''
 ''What money is it, or was it?" asked Colonel Euler.
 "I am going to tell you," answered Thompson, ''and 1t is a remarkable in stance of the hard fortune of war that seemed to pursue the Confederacy throughout You recollect the ster- ling cotton loan we made during the last year of the war-the loan by which our English brethren were made so sick? That money was raised to pay for ironclads, you know. The gun boats were built - the Stonewall was one of them-but not delivered. Di- plomacy kept us from getting to sea with the English-built ones, and it was thought the same reason kept the French built steamers from going to sea, but that is not exactly the fact. We would have succeeded in getting them out if they had been fully paid for. We made what we thought were ample arrange ments for completing the payments, but they failed through our persistent bad luck. For instance, take the case of these very certificates. It was nec- essary for us to use all sorts of precau- tions in buying this sort of goods to protect the parties we dealt with, for we knew the Yankees would throw every mothers son of them into court. Hence the money was deposited in vari- ous banks in the names of private persons, but so that it could not be drawn unless the certificates were in- dorsed in a particular way. This is a deposit, you. see, of Gunter's money payable to Brown on certain terms-in other words, it is a Con- federate draft sent out by express mes- senger and payable when 1ndorsed by the agent to whom sent. The agent must indorse it in particular way, and would not do so unless the messenger brought certain credentials. This sys- tenn of checks and balances was neces- sary for our financial secretary, but in this case, and several others like it, was fatal to our plans.
 "Tne messenger to whom this partic- ular box was intrusted-young Ricaud, I remember the very morning I sent him-was instructed to go to Whining ton, cross to Bermuda in the blockade runner Fannie, sail thence for London, report to an agent there, and from him get further orders. Ricaud, instead of going on the Fannie, took another steamer, the Gannet, for Nassau. The Gannet was captured, Ricaud's dis patch-box went to feed the sharks and Ricaud himself to rusticate at Johnson's Island. Meantime we, who knew of the Fannie's safe voyage, were con- graduating ourselves that our agent was on the road to Bordeaux, and we did not discover the truth until it was too late to provide a remedy. This sort of thing happened several times, and our French gunboats never got to sea. !"
 ''Then those Bourdalese still have our money?" said Colonel Euler.
 ''That remains to be seen. was just coming to that point. This particular deposit has never been checked out-of that I am sure. It was quite forgotten. Ricaud never got South again tillJune,