Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1917-11-30

lost In the darkness. Then the waves
came again and again, sucking up the
sand and piling it oyer and about the
dark object until II, was entirely hid
den from view.
With appalling ~suddenness the storm
vanished as If it had never been. Over
head the stars shone gently, and the
waves softly Tapped the quiet beach.
Jarvis found his motive power as IL
magically restored. With a leap he
was off the cot and dashing down the
stairs to the sand. There he stood
dumfounded.
To the touch of his stockinged feet
the sand was warm and dry. His
cropping fingers confirmed that fact.
The tide was rising. and almost to its
verge the sand showed no trace of
dampness. The sea stretched a level
expanse, broken here and there by dim
ping wavelets.
"Ill be hanged Il / know what to
make of it." muttered Jarvis dazedly.
81 couldn't have been dreaming, and
yet He looked at his watch. ITS
certainly up to me or the tobacco I've
been smokingl Nine o'clock when l
turned in, and now it's 9:30. Even
in these swift times they don't turn
storms off and on at that gait"
Chagrined, he walked over to the
place under his balcony where the
waves had tossed the dead man for a
brief instant before they reclaimed
him. Jarvis had watched 1t with his
own eyes, and he had seen the follow
ing waves heap sand about a small
dark object the man had left behind.
There should be a little sand mound
here-and there wasi
The painter was too excited to re-
turn to his bed; therefore he went into
the cottage, found an old fashioned
lantern, In which he stuck a candle
end, took up a coal shovel and went
back to the beach.
Here by the candies dim light he
grimly dug into the shallow heap of
sand. 1t was a fools business, he told
himself as he delved downward to
where the sand was soaking wet and
the water oozed up into little wells and
impeded his labor.
At last came rags and shreds OF
something that might have been an OIL
skin coat, and afterwardy deeply i'm
bedded in the sand, Jarvis found a
small water soaked box bound with
iron bands. This was treasure trove.
Jarvis FASTENED to the cottage and
with hammer and chisel pS6nded away
at the little box until its rotted sides
fell inward and the iron bands crum-
bled to rusty flakes.
Pitiful indeed was the little treasure
contained In the tiny chest-a sailors
keepsakes. Bits of coral and pretty
shells and stones, a woman's lovely
face smiling from a furnished frame.
a baby's first photograph, the mothers
loving inscription penned on the back;
a few letters intimately tender from
wife to husband, a copy of a will, a
few months wages tied in little oilskin
sacks, the owners name on the inside
of a memorandum book-James Petrol,
master of the ~freighter Sea Nymph-
that was all.
So the man who had been thrown on
the beach as revealed TO Jarvis in the
vision-for such the painter believed
his strange adventure to be-must have
been the captain of the i'll fated vessel.
On the morrow he would inquire con-
corning the wreck of the Sea Nymph
and try to find the relatives of James
Petrol.
After that Jarvis tumbled into bed
and went to sleep, wondering why he
of all men had been chosen to bring to
light the long buried box. He dreamed
about the curly headed baby, whose
charming smile pursued him through
his dreams.
YES" said the oldest cottager when
Jarvis g~uardedly made inquiries con-
corning wrecks on the coast. at was
as far back as 1885 that the Sea
Nymph went ashore off here. She got
on the shoals, but the seas were riding
so high she didn't stick. Back she
went, and they simply swallowed her
up, 10 the story goes. Bits of cargo
ioated ashore long afterward-one or
two bodies of seamen. That was all.
Divers never found trace of her. 1t
was the worst storm ever known on
the coast. After that. they built the
breakwater and the lighthouse. AT
that time there was an old fsherman's
hut or the spot where your cottage
now stands. Tradition has it that the
old man lured the steamer to her ruin.
If he did it was small profit to him,
for the storm washed his hut into the
sea, and he went with it. The man
who owns your cottage once found a
copper canister filed with choice
smoking tobacco buried in the sand
near by. 1t pleased him to resurrect 1t
and smoke it. He quit using it after
awhile because, he claimed, 1t gave
him the night1nare-said the Sea
Nymph went ashore every night In his
dreams. If there's any of it left you
better not smoke it," added the oldest
cottager whimsically.
HTf'c oil MONA ~ rop1fo1 Jorpi, u,fh n