The Belding banner-news. (Belding, Mich.) 1918-1973, 1919-08-27

HCA Aohsct AhcAC hau o~Ss1S0 w os8o
Of habitation near the wild place
where had come upon her. though. Of
course. a solitary house might easily
have escaped my notice hidden among
all that foliage. particularly at night
fall.
To be sure. had but to inquire of
the storekeeper to learn all wanted |:
but was averse from betraying my
interest to him or to anyone In the
settlement-for. after all. II was my
own affair, and hers. So determined
to pursue my policy Of watching and
waiting, letting a day or two elapse
before / again went out de.ing
with my gun.
i left the craggy bluff facing the
sea and plunged into the woods.
had no idea how dark 1t was going to.
| but, coming out of the sun, / was at
once bewildered by the deep and COM
! plicated gloom Of massed branches
overhead, and the denser darkness Of
shrubs and vines so intricately inter-
woven as almost to make a solid wall
about one. Then the atmosphere was
SO close and airless that fear of suf-
! location combined at once with the
other fear of being swallowed up In all
this savage green life, without hope Of
finding ones way out again into the
sun. l fought my way In but very.
! few yards when both these fears
! clutched hold of me with sudden hor-
ror, and the Precipitation poured from
me; I could no longer distinguish be-
tween the way / had come and any
other part of the wood Indeed, there
was no way anywhere!
/ must have battled through the
veritable inferno Of vegetation for at
least an hour-though Ii seemed life
time. Clouds of particularly unpleas-
ant midges filed my eyes, not to speak
of mosquitoes and a peculiar kind of
persistent singing fly was adding to
my miseries, when at last, begrimed
and dripping with sweat, l stumbled
out, with a cry of thankfulness, on to
comparatively fresh air and some
thing like q broad avenue running
north and south through the wood. 1t
was indeed densely overgr0wn, and
had evidently not been used for many
years. Still, it was comparatively
passable, and one could at least see
the sky and take long breaths once
more.
Still there was no sign Of a house
anywhere. Presently, however. as /
stumbled along noticed something
looming darkly through the matted
forest on my left that suggested walls.
Looking closer, saw that 1t was the
ruin of small stone cottage, roofless,
/ and indescribabiy swallowed up in the
pitiless scrub. And then, near by,
deserted another such ruin, and still
] another-all, as ii were, sunk in the
1 terrible gloom of the vegetation, as
sometimes, at low tide, one can dis
Germ the walls of ruined village at
the bottom of the sea.
Evidently / had come upon a long
abandoned settlement, and presently
on some slightly higher ground to the
/ left. / thought / could make out the
half-submerged walls of MUCH more
ambitious edifice. Looking closer,
! noted, with a thrill of surprise, the
/ beginning of a very narrow path, not
more than foot wide, leading up
through the scrub in Its direction.
! Narrow as Ii was, ii had clearly been
4 kept open by the not-infrequent pas
sage of feet. With a certain eerie feel
1 leg, L edged my way into ii, and, after
following Ii for hundred yards or SO,
( found myself close to the roofless ruin
! OF spacious stone house with some
thing of the appearance of an old Eng
lish manor house. Mullioned windows.
finely masoned, opened In the shat
tered wall, and an elaborate stone
staircase, in the interstices of which
stout shrubs were growing, gave, or
once had given, an entrance through
an arched doOrway-an entrance now
stoutly disputed by the glistening
trunk of a gum-elemi tree and endless
matted ropelike roots of giant vines
and creepers that writhed like SCRIP
ents over the whole edifice. Forcing
my way up this staircase, found my
self in a stone hall some sixty feet
long, at one end of which yawned a
huge fireplace, its fiue mounting up
through finely carved chimney, still
standing firmly at the top of the
southern gable.
How had this almost baronial mag
nificence come to be In this PARKWAY
corner of a desert island? At first I
concluded that here was relic of the
brief colonial prosperity of the Ba-
hamas, when its cotton lords lived
like princes, with a slave population
for retainers-days when even the
bootblacks in Nassau played pitch
and-toss with gold pieces; but as /
considered further, 1t seemed to me
that the style of the architecture and
the age of the building suggested an
earlier date. Could 1t be that this had
been the home of one Of those early
eighteenth century pirates who took
pride In Haunting the luxury and pomp
of princes, and who had perhaps made
this his headquarters and stronghold