The Press. (Stafford Springs, Conn.) 1883-1935, 1901-07-04

earth. 1t was a natural chamber, 90
feet deep, about 80 feet wide and from
10 to 20 feet from floor to roof. There
was good ventilation. and the place was
as dry as a bone. No man could say
when that cavern had first been made
storehouse, but judging by some of
the arms found it must have been 100
years before perhaps twice that. The
tusks had come from Ceylon and the
mainland of India, the silver from In
dian mines, the wines and liquors and
shawls and cloths from no farther
south. Nothing had decayed. There
were Chinese silks and India shawls
and Persian wraps as stout and strong
and as lively in color as the day they
left the looms. There were bales of
furs from Madagascar and the African
coast from which time had not loosen
ed hair. and the kegs and barrels of
wine with French and Spanish marks
ON them had doubled in value ten times
over since they were hoisted up from
the beach.
Who had created the Storehouse?
Why had they sealed it up and gone
away? Was it the plumber of pirates
Or the treasure house of some prince Of
India or Ceylon? We wondered and
specialized, but we were no better off,
Our first move was to establish q
camp on the highest spot of the island
and divide our force. 1 took charge of
the land party and Barcas of the brig.
My party removed the plumber from the
cave and carried it half way down to the
beach, and his men carried it aboard
and slowed it away. 1t was a rugged
path we had to travel, and though we
worked 16 hours out of the "a we re-
duced the piles very. slowly. AS I
checked off the goods as they were
brought out of the cave let me tell you
what we took out in the five weeks we
were at work. The tusks counted up
1873, the boxes of silver 3O7, the barrels
of wine GA, the kegs of wine no, the
bales of fur Ga, the bales of shawls and
silks 100, the boxes of coined gold of
native Indian money q, and there.
was $4,000 to the box. In addition to
these we found two boxes of pearls, ru-
bies, diamonds, ETC., most of them I'M
cut, which 1 roughly valued at $780,
600. On certain evening when we
knocked off work figured the value of
gems already taken out at $1,5O0,O 900,
and there was yet a weeks work to re-
move the rest. The day had been hot
and sitting and the work harder than
usual The cook was half an hour late
in rubbing his eyes open, and he had
hardly reached his feet when his shout
of surprise alarmed the rest of us. At
some hour during the night and so
quietly that not man of us had been
disturbed the waters had retreated in
every direction from the shores of the
island until there was only the bed of
the sea to look at. Here and there a
deep hole created little lake, but one
could have walked for six or eight
miles without wetting his feet. AS the
waters retired our craft had gone with
them, never to be heard Of more.
had lived in the east too long not to
know what was coming. We were as
high as we could get and could only
wait for the peril. 1t came as the sun
rose. We heard booming, roaring and
crashing and next minute caught sight
of tidal wave sweeping in. That
wave was 20 feet high, and as it rolled
across the island from north to south
its foamy crest was only 80 feet below
where we stood. There were three
waves, each moving at a speed of 100
miles an hour, and then the sea settled
down to it's usual level and soon grew
quiet A thousand acres of forest had
been swept away and the whole face
- 10 tell nd oh in
Our spring and our camp had been left
untouched, but there was no longer
cavern, no longer bale of goods, no
longer brig laden with kings ran
som. An earthquake at sea. mighty
CONFUSION of nature 500 miles away.
had robbed us of brig, crew and treas
ure and left us on an almost desolate
rock To wait for naSSing craft