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Show m - :" IVBf KlVISzlViBREP ' "XL"" j I If 1 UNDER THE PACIFIC S3 " Barton Cortlco. a youns Amorl- B , : J- cnn of Scotch-Irish descent, queer- B- v "" stftcd with an uncommon men- Br tnJIty. possesses the unusual and v ' uncanny power of vividly recalling H' 4- memorleo of lil.i Kjio passed in - H J former reincarnations, centuries - H' apart. Including many Htrango ad- BW f ventures hy flood and Hold, some of thom connected with lonjr-forgot- -" iH' ten treasure lioardo. concerning1 rH whlrh, by virtue of his unlouc IHHf gift, he Ib able to Instnnco dellnltc v llVf 4 dates and exact localities. At the ! IH time when theso connected nnrra- tm I tlvos bctran, Cortlco happens to be - 1' - In London, practically penniless, Bft: v nlthouKh potentially he commands J B v RTcat wealth. lie Jh ronchlnp out -: J for some ono of means and of In-teKr'ty In-teKr'ty who will evince enough ML 4" faith In his stninne story to finance ' Bf n'm n a critical and actual tst. i -! Such an "anscl" appears In the I Wb Pcrsn of Lord Wcstbury Wayne, "iflx marquis of Hcarsdalc. a young -M j jKor of great wealth, wlio Is cc- -j-.- centrlcally fond of bizarre ndven- -.- ,sm turcs. IHtta Cortlco, Barton's 3ls- ;!jMf tor, dependent upon him, believes ' Of tH hnpHcltJy In her brother, having V ,lced as his amanuensis In set- MnA'Bf l'n,T down certain of his rccolloc- .tyiljfe ""ns. She and Hcarsdnle eventually '.JsK "make a match of it." ae do Hnr- ! DC.ntSV v ton Cortlce and the Lady Blancho, ra&L- -I- Mlatcr of Lord Wayne. Thlt oris- 3 tffflwT n 'nal quartette are reinforced by -J- ifflw John Dare, an American newspn- ."3ft r rr man, who acts as narrator, and TggW? ! Malcolm Torbes. a British mining vMBB engineer, and others. After some SMB ! surprising adventures, connected VlBBjr v''1'1 n forgotten old mine In the !- w9e Andca of Peru, some hidden Jewels ''Jmr In France, and the lost treasure of Kw v King John, the young adventure: v SEHk T iB Indured to unravol the mystery concerning an old Scotch family 4 SjjHK ucP!ion. rollowlng this exploit. - ;t8K v R;irton Cortlco goes In ncarch of a 'JH valuable bed of poarl5 In the Suhi v nen, the story being told by John v 'jSBB' ' ,V ''sVJSW Calling at Corticc's rooms one even- UQSS in in company wilh Inlcolin Forbes, J found llic yoiin American nud i aSIKj WoHtlniry Wayno witli their liearlH lo- "'"''3mk Bother over a square of drawiiiB 4!i ' 'Whnt do you make of that?" said ''Jag the piicinccr, passini; over the docu-mont docu-mont after wo were seated. "Th..l" . jJstt lirovo 10 b ;i vor well-drawn map iHU'lM ",1V 'ancl perhaps islet would be lyi lfflf the betlor word, for the markings ia- ,Jjm dicatnrl Hint it was of the aloll variety ''NNif (,pntnl spot of land surrounded viyfr ''y Jt circular coral reef with a narrow oiitr.'ime, hicIi as are cominoii throiich- Uj tljjS, out Polynesia. A closer scrutiny rc-N,'n'0 rc-N,'n'0 "'at. besides Ihc points of the VEatkMjB coinpajs briny properly indicnliMl, eer-tain eer-tain hiudinarhs were set down. toclh- HKdaS f-r with a row of crosses dotting the IK lagoon. .Vs "flight stand for anything," said 1. nfifWb. "so I won't hazard a guess beyond - l FUpposing that it leprosenls another of 'rJmf Marlon's dips in In tho past." --jMfc "I always heard that you newspaper wB nu1" had a sort of sixth sense,' r- ' ; 'M marked l-'orbes drily. " Ia that the best ou can do?" Pyflp "I can tell you one thing a news- Ujftlw raiicr man never docs, and I hat 'is to 'Ifl III Si B 'ou nrp oviduutly in tho know, sup- f. ff pose you open up. " S -ivBrn Forbes grinned, and questioned Bar- Jm 'on "pl'f'i-'d eyebrows for per- T mission to speak, receiving an nnswer- .i.:jf "Well, my dear fellow." said he, 'AN0lj "(hat piece of papnr sjtells 'pearls.' I3HED w'lh Ji big, big P according to our jrnirtTfft frx'iKt here.' uBlUll: "Pearls!" exclaimed Lord Wayne. nntiBj "There's only two places on earth u3 where you can get 'em first chop, and 0N0;NI that' either in tho Indian or the Pa- R0H?lg eiuY oceau, and the fisheries are all utoiiH$; protected, at that. "Where's this bally t ajfft island ? ' ' I Forbes grunted. "That's iust what Corticc doesn't know, though ho can make a protty shrewd guess. Fact ia, wo'vo got to find out." "With this," said Wayne, tapping tho tiny map, "as the only clew7" Forbes nodded. "It ought to bo possible, pos-sible, seeing that tho field i:i compara-tivelv compara-tivelv limited." "Suits ine," said Wavnc, tceutiug another adventure. "Vhcu do we start? Tho yacht's" "Wait a bit. till you hear the j'.irn,'' interrupted Forbea. "This is probably prob-ably the bigqest and toughest problem yci . ' ' While we thrco had thus been toss-inc toss-inc the ball of talk back and forth. Cortieo remained, impassive, lijjhtinc ouo eigaretie after another nt tho ashes of its predecessor. "Fire away, Bart, old man it's up to you," prompted Wayno. k Thus adjured, Corticc sat up and taccd us as we drew our chairs and our hcada closer together. "I've always heard that it's a good sporting maxim for a fellow to press jys luck." ho began tentatively, look-, ing at the three of us in turn. "Surest thing you know," counloroil Wavne, tho "sportiest" mail prcsont. "Thanks." drawled Corticc. "Well. itJ6 this wft': I vrant to test mysolf in ovcry possible manner while tho power last.M. You fellows have seen certain ovidencen of what T can do. jUut liitherto T've been nblo to give you chapter and verse, or rather, let "mo say, that I've had a very clear idea of what I proposed lo do. That Blackboard Black-board affair was the onh' fluke thii far." "Though no fault of you re, however," how-ever," 1 interjected, the remark being be-ing met by confirmatory nods from Forbes find" Wayne. Cortieo signified his appreciation bv a wave of the hand and resumed his rcmarkF. "Well, that being the case, I con-! fcjfi that here, with the exception of the initial fact. I'm up a tree. Beyond that map. drawn from memory, roin-forcod roin-forcod ' by certain recollections .ib vivid as "any that have been vouchsafed vouch-safed to me, I have absolutely no data to go upon. It's like looking for a n(od in a pottle of hay. I cannot i-ven indicate in what part of the world tl.e island exists yet T beliove it does exist. Also I nin very clear as to this, although tho recollection is more or loss hazy, that somewhere and somehow T was "once concerned in tho gathoring of pc.arls from this unnamod and milocatod tropical islet. I am also convinced how 1 cannot tell you that the deposit or bank or bed, whatever what-ever the correct term may bo, hajj lain forgotten and unworked lrom tkit d'iv to this, and hnce must bo of surpassing surpass-ing richness at present." lie ceased speaking to light another cigarette. Then: "Now. I want lo test myself. 1 don't value easy things, though tho rewards re-wards have been great; but, as Wayno would put it, I want to press my luck. u other words, I desire to sec whether my p'arl island really exists." ""well," said Forbes, "it's a pretty indefinite contract to locate a given island, no latitude or longitudo being given " "l'ardon me, '' broke in tho adventurous adven-turous Wavne, "if it's a pearl island, there's only ono quarter of tho world where to look for it and 1 hat's neither neith-er so wide or so long." "Well, how would you go about it?" queried Forbes. "Here's how: We kuow that poarls come from a certain limited area. Taking Tak-ing it for granted that Barton's map is correct as to outline, it ought not. to ho difficult to find someone say an expert in the business, a merchant, a sailor, or a diver to give it a name and u locality by means of the map!" "That's all very well," was the answer, an-swer, "but where would you start? I take it vour inquiries would have to be strictly on the Q. T." ' Surely, ' ' assented Wayne. ' ' But what's the use of our eassing all over the shop? iNo doubt Barton's sitting there laughing at us, having the whole scheme mapped out in his mind. Conio old man, speak up. You got us into the mess, remember." Thus appealed to, our chief conspirator con-spirator took tho floor onco more. "It will bo a very simplo matter after af-ter all," he said quietly, "and, as Wnj'ne suggests, I'vo thought it all out. Tho" island's somewhere in the Indian or tho Pacific ocean. Wo must mako a start somewhere wjthin a radius of say 500 or 1000 miles 'of the known pearl fisheries. My idea would be to proceed direct to some port say Hongkong or Labium, Singapore or Trincomalee and thero make inquiries whether any ono knows such an islet, without, of course, revealing the roal naturo of our quest." "Great scheme!'' exclaimed Wayne. "The vacht'B at your service 'any day."" Cortice nodded his thanks. Wayne was always ready for a cruise promising promis-ing something in the adventurous line. "But. let me sa3' ouo lliing," I put in. "This .ort. of a venture mav be all very well for us men, but it will be no sort of an expedition for women." T fancied that ('ortico and Lord Wayne were a bit disappointed at this, but as T stood up the project 1 was dead against making a pleasuring expedition ex-pedition of tho venture, and proceeded to say so in no uncertain manner. "You're quite correct, Dare," said Forbes. "It Portico is ngnt and thorn's a long-forgotten bed of pearls li be rediscovered aud worked, the quieter we go to work the better. The known beds aro rigorously protected by several governments, I'vo heard, and if we go hunting with a brnss band we'll fall foul of some gunboat or cruiser, have our trouble for our pains and perhaps per-haps land in a rotten jail. Remember Kipling's story about, the llaliotisf " "Well, we'll havo to leave tho girls at home," said Wayne. 'What next! 1 suppose wo four aro going to sco tho thing to a finish'?'' It seemed that wo all were, so the next question was to determine the time of our start and our destination. Again we referred I ho decision to Barton Bar-ton Corticc. "While I 'm all in the dark as to details," de-tails," ho confessed, "yet something tolls mo that our search ought to begin nearer the Pacific than tho Indiun ocean, llcre is whnt 1 propose: Since Westbury is so generous, let us take tho yacht and make for Singapore. A month, via Suez, will suffice, At that port wo can mnke cautious inquiries anil perhaps learn something to onr advantage. ad-vantage. How does that stnko all hands!" We assured lnm that we were satisfied. satis-fied. Personally, whatever tho others felt I foresaw a chance for somo elegant ele-gant "oopv," whether wo found any pearls or not. I had always wanted to lisit the far east, aud now wau luv w ... . chance. Before we separated that night the minor matters were all settled, and Trn n rrrndil in cnil in fi ivi.lf T.nrrl Wayno on his part engaged to have the yacht in readiness at Spithoad, crew and stores aboard, by tho date named. This, of course, is' no mere yachting yarn, so X shall omit all reference to the outward voyage. It is enough to say that, we dropped anchor in tho roadstead off Singapore on schedule time, and went ashore in tho character of a party of innocent, tourists. On the passu go out, as may bo imagined, imag-ined, we had discussed various ways of procedure upon our arrival at Singapore, Sing-apore, and I promise you wo began to get nciivo almost immediately. The first thing was to locate Barton Corticc's Cor-ticc's island without exciting suspicion suspi-cion as to our. ultimate designs. "The man for you to see and enlist on your sid is Rajah Brooke," said a Singapore merchant. "He's litcrallv monarch of all north Borneo, and knows every fool, of tho Suhi sea, Celebes Ce-lebes sen, and tho Java sea." This was after wo had partly taken into our confidence this trader an American, by the wav and ho had registered his belief that tho atoll would be found Bomowhere in the three waters named. "But," said he. "if it's pearls you're after, vou want to keep your eyes peeled night aud day. Unless you're working under a government govern-ment license, there's strong probability of you'ro being 'rushed' by pirates. Better go well armed." Well, we stenmed round to Labuan, but found that Rajah Brooke was at his bungalow in the hills. However, wo reached him by telegraph and mounted messenger, and in three days he rodo into "town," a tall, bluff Englishman, Eng-lishman, who had litorallv carved out a kingdom for himself; like Alexander Selkirk, he was "monarch of all he surveyod," and lord of 10,000 miles of coffee and indigo plantations and a million or two of islanders. After hearing our story with such a man it was wisest to bo pcrfeetlv frnnk showing him our map, ho exclaimed, ex-claimed, greatly to our delight: "Why. that's what T call Half-Moon island." Then, with a curious smile, which lifted one corner of his tawny moustache, ho inquired: "But whnt leads you to suppose that thero are any pearls in the lagoon? I've been hore for thirty year, and pearls aro ouo of my or specialties, but neither nor my natives ever guessed nt pearls on Half-Moon." The rajah it was a mere conrtosv title, by tho way evinced somo suppressed sup-pressed excitement over the suggestion. sugges-tion. "We are not certain." said Cortice, "but my or information leads mo to strongly suspect that such is the case, and I and my friends are hero to find out." Wo had agreed among ourselves on the way out that it might be ns well to suppress all roference to Barton's peculiar gift, although I was and still nin of tho opinion that in ihc J'nr oast his claim to recollection of past existences ex-istences would havo boon received with unbounded respect. However, oven to Rajah Brooko we kept "mum" .ih to this. "No such deposit has ever boon worked in my time," ho went on; "consequently tho bed if there is a bed must be of surpassing richness.' "Precisely," said Cortice. and well worth working on that account. Since you know tho name of tho island, can you not also givo it a location?" ho inquired in-quired further of tho rajali. "Suroly." was the frank reply. "Half-Moon island, tit I call it, is less than a day's steaming from whero you sit, gentlemen." "And under the jurisdiction of whom 7" asked Forbes, i "Of myself," was the direct rcplv, I "as lessco of all this north coast." "Thon " Forbes was beginning, tvJinn "Rrnnk-A nnnttimnrl : ' "A merely nominal control, you understand, un-derstand, 3-ct I beliove I. 111.13' add that what I hay goes in theso waters. But I'm interested in .vour expedition. Mr. Cortice, mid if I can be of anj' assis tance, command me. If j'ou locato any pearls well, the question of my royalties royal-ties can be settled later." This was certainly a very handsome offer, and wo said so. I took it upon myself to remark: "Practical help, based on knowledgo of the local conditions, is what we need most. " "Just so," said tho rajali. "Have any of 3-011 gentlemen over had any experience ex-perience in ponrl-lishing? " "Not a jot," wo assured him cheerfully. cheer-fully. "In fact, sir," put in Corticc, "if 3-011 would consent to help us, directly or indirectly, we should bo willing to put our information, whatovor it raa3" be worth, against 3our practical assistance, assist-ance, and form a partnership." "That's very well snid, gentlemen," was the answer. "Frankly, I don't tako much stock in 3-our 3'arn; if there were pearls in Half-Moon l3goon I should havo heard of it. But I'm willing will-ing to lend 3'OU a i'orco of nativo divers. div-ers. You put t hem on tho ground, and you'll soon find out. Unfortunately, other duties call 1110 up country, I'm just getting in ni cofTeo crop, eo 1 can't go with 3-ou." This was as much as wo could ask or expect, and wc renewed our assurance assur-ance that to tho rajah should belong a moict.v of tho spoils. To this he returned re-turned a laughing, half skepticnl nnswer. nn-swer. "Give mo tho biggest, pearl you find, and I'll sa3 thuuk you!" True to his "promise, thero came aboard the vacht next day five nearly naked islanders, two expert pearl div ors and the rest shell-cleaners, as it turned out. With them came a boat load of frosh tropical fruit, chickens and eggs. So wo st sail again in high spirits, Cortice, ns usnnl, becoming more animated as tho timo or tho test approached. ap-proached. We made Half-Moon island and anchored an-chored the. j-acht in tho crcscont-shaped bn3', which gave tho islet its name. ''Whereabouts aro tho pearls?" T in- 3uired of Cortice, when the anchor was own. "Oh, over 3-ondcr," he answered, pointing to the inner rim of the encircling en-circling coral reef, across winch tho ocean bwoII outside lifted in lazy curls; "right under tho lip of tho rocks 3'on-der. 3'on-der. ' ' Our nnt.ivo divors spoko a hideous jurgon of pidgin English, and when thc.v finalb' understood where thc3' were to dive, they made violont gestures of dissent. Thero wero 110 pearls there, 1I103' said never had been, never could be! "Well, what about it?" T .inquired of Cortice. He was unruffled. "If Uie3''re not there, then, J don't know aii3-thing nbout it," ho said. "In my time wo used to stand naked on tho edge of tho reef and divo for them. Gad, I believe 1 could do it 3'et! Tell tho boggars to make a try. myhnw. Toll 'em that the first lot thoy bring up belongs to them. If they bring up nothing they'll got $50 npicce for their troublo anyhow. " That agreement settled it. Wo shifted shift-ed tho j'acht, unshipped both gangwa3's, and a "diver Hashed overboard from either hand, clothed simply in his birthday birth-day clothes, a knife in ono hand and a basket slung round his loins. They wore not realby "divers," for thoy wont down b3r moans of a heavj' stone tied at the end of a lino, 011 which thc3' stood till the3- roaohod tho bottom, which was five or six fathomn from the surface. Well, as T say, over thoy cnok went and remained under perhaps a couple of minutes. Then the smooth waters of tho lagoon wero popped open bv a cou-plo cou-plo of wooly heads, und tho dusky follows fol-lows were ou deck in a jiffy, each with at least a dozen or fifteen great oysters in his bug which he had picked up or torn from tho rocks. Then a rather surprising thing happened. hap-pened. Each of the men mado for Cortice and kneeled at his feet, ejaculating ejacu-lating in gutloral tones: "Plenty shell, much pearl, b'long heap big fellows!" Aftor a fow minutes' rest tho operation opera-tion was repeated at intervals', until in four or live hours Ihcro woro several sev-eral bushols of 03510 messing up the whiteness of our main deck. But wo noticed that the two black fellows wore careful to keep their initial haul senarnto ns belonging to thomsclvcs. 'Do 3'ou supposo there aro anj-pearls anj-pearls in the lot?" queried Forbes fo nie. "Looks liko it," I replied. "You ma3' bo sure those fellows wouldn't go on diving unless there wero. But wo 'II soon know." And we did. About 4 o'clock they knocked off work, and borrowing one of our small boats, dumped the day's tako therein und pulled off for the Hhore. Thero thoy buut a fire, produced an iron gettlo, and proceeded to boil tho oysters. This, I nftorwards found out, was dif-torcnt dif-torcnt from tho usual process, which consists in rotting the cntch on the bench under tho sun. Wc afterwards made full and odoriferous odor-iferous acquaintance with this inodo of procedure. But the boiliug method was much quicker, and would yoon fchow whether there wore imv pearls in Half-Moon lagoon. And b3 sunso't. wc had ocular demonstration demon-stration of the fact. The natives tried out their own potful first; whnt thoy found we nevr knew, but it must havo been satisfactory. Well, the not result of that single day's "fishing" was six of tho finest pearls I ever saw. Of course, not every pair of shells held a poarl, but even those that didn't wero valuable for the nacre, or mother-o'-pearl. So, to cut the ator3" short, wc kept at work for a couple of weeks, rotting out tho shell on tho boach. tho output being some 200 superb stones, some of them as largo ns a pigeon 6 egg. and all of the most marvelous lustre. There Verc oven four or fivo black pearls rare for their shape aud size. Apparently Apparent-ly tho bed. was inexhaustible on account ac-count of its having boon unworked for so long. But the monotony began to pall on us. We had moro poarls than we know whnt to do with: the bent was something some-thing Terrific, und tho stonch of tho rotting shell on tho beach nncscapable, no mstle.r what tho diroction of the wind. We unanimously voted, one scorching Jiot morning." to knock off work and bequeath the deposit to Rajah Brooke, of wuoin wo had lieard nothing sinco slaying ood-b But w"o were not, to get out of that blazing lagoon without a tusale which camo noar wining out tho yacht and all hands 'nether the native had betraj'od ns and tho surprising richness rich-ness of our find, wo never knew. Probably Prob-ably they- had "leaked" while on shore rotting out the shell. We were about to weigh anchor and hoad for Lnbuan onco more, the hotir being eight bells t o'clock in the afternoon watch, when suddenlv wo espied coming up from the nortfiward, running before the monsoon, a wholo fleet of triangular, lateen sails. Thero must have been twenty or thirty of them long, low, rakish-looking hulls, each with a crew of cutthroats aboard standing up, 3'olling and gesticulating as thoy swarmed for the one opening in the reef. Froiy the evident terror of our native recruits, we judgod that it was a case of ""nil hands stand by" with whatovor urms wc could muster, for tho beggars ovidently meant to rush us. Suro enough, with much fiendish veiling veil-ing thoj camo down on either hand of the y'ncht, prepared to board. Everyman Every-man had a gun or a pistol in ono hand und a gleaming kris in tho other. If they ever reached our decks it would be good-l3' to the yacht and to the lives of ovcry white man aboard of her. Luckily wo had a skipper, two mates, aud an engineer of pluck and resourco. While tho devils were coming on their hostile intentions were apparent whilo 1 1 they wero yet outsido the roof tho ' IH captain had made his preparations. Wc had a full head of steam up, so B doublo lines of hose were hurriedly f , ctrctchcd along the decks in tho port and starboard gangways, manned by ' the first and second engineers, tho bos'n I and tho quartermaster. In addition, the mates had each armed themselves with a heap of Cos- J ton lights a spccicB of rocket, very n dcudh- at short range. Bohind them , Gtood" Forbes. Corticc, mytsolf und tho tl IB captain, armed with a shotgun apiece, 1 read;,' to fire the instant the Malaya cainu within shooting distance. Wol!, although for a few minutes our lives looked pretty cheap, for the pi-rates pi-rates wore a hundred to ono, it, was laughablo in the end. Each of the junks had to drop sail ns slio camo alongside, B and thoro were so many of thorn that 1 the;, got in each other's wa3 But bo- fore thoy could forgo alongside wo let them have it ccalding hot wntor from t B four two-inch nozzles, volleys of blaz- B ing rockcto and a perfect fusillade of B buckshot and btrdsliot from tho Win- I B Chester. How many fell writhing and shrieking I could not tell yon prob-ably prob-ably most of them moro scared and scalded than seriously injured hut the , J way chc3" hoisted sail and mado for tho 1 inlet and the open sea was a caution for We hnd onh' one mishar and Cor-tice Cor-tice was tho victim. Somo of the 3iala3 pirates flung a knife, a urooked long-bhided, long-bhided, hea vy-uandlcd krin, sharp an a razor, which'came hurling through the 1 air liko a sunbeam and deadly as a bolt jH of lightning. Tho th'ing kris pricked Corticc nuat- j l.y, piercing histysliirt over tho right shoulder, penetrating tho skin, and pin-niiig pin-niiig him neatly to the mast. Coolly cDongh, ho drew the quivering blade out with his left hand, wiped it on his clccvo and gtuc.k it in bin belt as a IH souvenir of Half-Moon island. This was our onh' casualty, and tho wound proved lo bo a mere scrulch. Wc had no hesitation in putting to , sen right in the wako of the pirates, for IH our ppecd was on e.asy eighteen knots and pursuit ou their part impossible. , Well, when, wo reported rosnlts to Ran all Brooke you may bo suro thero , was one astounded Englishman. Jt needed the cvidonco of "tho biggest ' pearl" and of all the rest to convince , him thnt wo had really discovered or , rodiscovcrod a virgin bod of poorl oy- IH sters, and as Cortice readily rolin- 1 IH quishod all rights thereto, savo a yqnr- H y porcentage, Ibo rajah lo3t no time ; ' IH in filing his own claim. To this day he does not dream of ' how the discoven really came about j that in tho quiet and rather reticent , ' young Auicricau ho had really enter-taincd enter-taincd a most romarkablo personage IH ono whoso recollection .went- buck lo IH that fablod limo when "the memory of ) IH man runneth, not to the contrary." , IH As for Barton Corticc, although the valuo of the pearls recovered lo date fools up to near a hundred thousand pounds half u million dollars he found, as usual, moro real satisfaction ( it. having onco again provod the trutir of his own theory-. Bat and. hore I indulge in a little pionhecy on my own account should ' ho ovor marry, bin bride will nover IH ncod go to Bond street or Fifth avenue f , for her pearls. I IH (Next wook: "Nero's Barge.' ') I jH |