The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-06-05
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turned the light side of his little Ian
tern in the direction of John Cams
undesecrated coffin.
A few strokes of the pick soon
loosened the intervening earth suffi-
GENTLY to let him getat wooden plank
on the nearer side of the coffin. 1t
had mouldered away with damp and
age till it was all quite soft and pill
able; and he broke through it with
his hand alone, and saw lying within
a heap of huddled bones, which he
knew at once for John Cams skele-
ton. Under any other circumstances,
such sight, seen in the dead of
night, with all the awesome accessor-
les of time and place, would have
chilled and appalled, Cecil Mitford's
nervous blood; but he thought moth
ing of it all now; his whole soul was
entirely concentrated on a single
idea-the search for the missing
paper. Leaning over toward the
breach he had made in John Cams
grave, ne began cropping about with
his right hand ON the floor of the cof-
fin. After moments search his fin
gers came across small rusty metal
object, clasped, apparently, in the
bony hand of the skeleton. He drew
it eagerly out; it was steel snuff
box. Prising open the corroded
hinge with his pocket knife, he found
inside small scrap of dry paper.
His fingers trembled as held it to the
dark lantern; oh heavens, success!
SUGGEST it was, it was-the missing
document!
He knew it in moment by the
handwriting and the CIPHER! He
couldn't wait to read it till he went
home to the dead mans house; SO he
ourled himself up cautiously in
Charles Barclays open grave, and
proceeded to decipher the grabbed
manuscript as we'll as he was able by
the lurid light of the lantern. Yes,
yes, it was all right: it told him with
minute and unmistakable detail the
exact spot in the valley of the Bovey
where John Cams treasure lay Sc
curely hidden. Not at John Cams
rocks on the hilltop, as the local
legend untruly affirmed-John Cam
had not been such an ungarded fool
as to whisper to the idle gossips of
Bovey the spot where he had really
buried his precious doubloons-but
down in the valley by bend of the
river, at point that Cecil Milford
had known we'll from his childhood
upward. Hurrahl hurrah! the secret
was unearthed at last, and he had
nothing more to do than to go home
to England and proceed to dig up
John Cams treasure!
So he cautiously replaced the loose
earth on the side of the grave, and
walked back, this time bold and erect,
with his dark lantern openly dis
played (for it mattered little now who
watched or followed HIM, to dead
Charles Barclays lonely bungalow.
The black servants were grooming and
wailing over their masters body, and
nobody took much notice of the white
visitor. If they had, Cecil Milford
would have cared but little, so long
as he carried John Cams last dying
directions safely folded in his leather
pocket book.
Next day, Cecil Milford stood once
more as chief mourner beside the
grave he had sat in that night so
strangely by himself; and before the
week was over, he had taken his pas.
sage for England in the Royal Mail
Steamer Tagus, and was leaving the
cocoa nut groves of Port Royal we'll
behind him on the port side. Before
him lay the open sea, and beyond it,
England, Ethel, and John Cams
treasure.