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Show 2c il7 ISK"'""" ilS They Came Howling About Me Like So Many Wolves, Eager to See. decks in discontent, now that the ship and weather gave us little occasion for concern. Hero they vigorously plied the cleaver, working in relays of two hours each, during the remainder of the day and night. After breakfast break-fast had been served we all of us went below to unite our strength in hauling forth the loosened box from the ice cavity. We accomplished this by resorting to block and tackle, and even then experienced ex-perienced no small difficulty In dragging drag-ging it away from the ice grip. Under the dim candlelight it appeared a fair-sized fair-sized sea-chest, constructed of some heavy, dark wood, and bound securely secure-ly by metal bands, with a cumbersome lock. A considerable quantity of water wa-ter from somewhere conlinued to seep down into the lazaiette, making the floor an icy puddle, and so we tailed on to the ropes again, and hoisted the chest up through ihe trap-door out upon up-on the cabin' deck. I could find no keys in any of the stale-rooms, and we must have been half an hour breaking break-ing the rusty lock and prying open the lid, the only sounds audible the blows struck and the heavy breathing of the men. Finally we wrenched apart the last hand, and our eager eyes beheld be-held the' revealed contents pieces-of-eight, yellow and level to the top! There was a wild yell, a fierce scramble, scram-ble, the crazed men digging their fingers fin-gers into the coins, handling them, fondling them, laughing and crying like children in tiaeir excitement, and cursing each other as they struggled ror a chance at the box. For the moment, mo-ment, staring down at (he dull glow of the metal, I even lost control of myself, my-self, scarcely aware of the mad uproar. It was actually (here there before me! That old Spanish record had all been true; here, and beneath that Ice between decks lay the remainder three million pesos! Here was the wealth of a king; here, almost within reach of our hands, and it was all ours ours, if we could only bring it forth to where it possessed value. If we only could! The thought struck me like a blow. I knew the truth, the truth. There was not one chance In a thousand cot one. I made no effort to deceive myself. The men, even the mate, blinded by the gold-lust had ignored facts plain as day to me the terrible listing of the ship to port, the constant seeping of water into the hold, the increasing soddenness of the staggering hull all these combined to tell the story that the Donna Isabel was doomed. No power of men, situated as we were, could ever save her. The protecting ice-sheath, by help of which she had drifted ghost-like out of the Antarctic, pounded by the fierce seas, loosened by the milder air of more northern latitudes, bad already commenced to flake off, and the invading water was discovering crevices everywhere along her ancient seams. We had come to the' gold; we had discovered it; it was ours. But we could only gaze on it, and give it back to the ocean in exchange ex-change for our lives. I straightened up, my lips compressed, and looked beyond be-yond the struggling figures of the men into Doris' questioning gray eyes. Father of Mercy, I possessed something some-thing worth more than money the love Of a woman! Ay, but what of the men? What of the men? It would be cutting their hearts out; yet it must be done done, if necessary, with all the brutality of a slave driver. She had said this treasure was a curse, a legacy of crime and death, a prize for dead men. Not while I retained mind and body to battle should it cost our lives. I pushed De Nova backward, back-ward, and planted myself across the open chest, scowling into the uplifted, angry faces. "That's enough, men. This is part of the treasure all right, but there is no occasion for you to go erazy over it. Put those coins back do you hear. McKnight? put them back, and we'll shut down the lid. They're nice to look at, and dream over, but that's about all the good we'll ever get of them. Were there any signs of others oth-ers down there in the ice, Johnson?" (TO BE CONTINUED.) SYNOPSIS. Tho story opens with tile introduction of John Stephens, adventurer, e. Massachusetts Massa-chusetts num marooned by nuth"rltU's at Valparaiso. Chile. IVIng Inter. -sted In mining operations In Holivla, lie. was denounced de-nounced by Chile as tin insurrectionist and as a conseuuenoe was hiding. At his hotel his attention was attracted by an TOngl'shtnan anil a young woman. Stephens rescued the young woman from a drunken officer, lie was thanked bitter. bi-tter. Admiral of the Peruvian navy confronted con-fronted Stephens, told him that war had been declared between Chite and Tern and offered htm the office of captain. !! desired that Hint night the Ksmcrahla, a Chilean vi sscl. should be captured. Stephens accepted the commission. Stephens met a motley creiv, to which tie was assigned. He gave them dual Instructions. In-structions. They boarded the vessel. They successfully captured the vess.-l suppost d to be the Nsmeralda. through strategy. Cant. Stephens save d'rectious for the departure de-parture of the craft. He entered the cabin cab-in and discovered the English woman and her maid. Stephens quickly learned the wrong vessel tiad been captured. It was Lord Darlington's private yacht, the lord's wife and maid WtiR aboard. He explained the situation to tier ladyship. lady-ship. Then First Mate Tuttle laid bare the plot, saying that the Sea Queen had been taken in order to go to the Antarctic Antarc-tic circle. Tuttle ::p-.ined that on a former vovage he had learned that the Ponna Isabel was lo;-t In 17:"S. He had found it frozen in a huge case of ice on an Island and contained much gold. Stephens consented to be the captain of the expedition. He told Lady Darlington. She was greatly alarmed, but expressed confidence In him. The Sea Queen encountered a vessel in the fog. Stephens attempted to communicate. This caused a fierce struggle and he was overcome. Tuttle finally squaring the situation. sit-uation. Then the Sea Queen headed south again. Under Tuttle's guidance the vessel ves-sel ' made progress toward its goal. De Nova, the mate, told Stephens that he believed Tuttle. new acting as sk'pper. Insane because of his queer actions. Stephens was awakened by crashing of glass. He saw Tuttle in the grip of a spasm of rehgious mania and overcame him. The sailor upon regaining his senses was taken ill. Tuttle committed su:c;de by shooting. Upon vote of the crew Stephens ar.sumed--the leadership and the men derided to continue the treasure hunt, the islands being supposed to be only 201 miles distant. Tuttle was buried in the sea. Ladv Darlington pronouncing the service. Stephens awaking frim sleep saw the -ghost, supposed to have formed the basis for Tuttle's repg-ous mania. Upon advice of Lady Darlington, Stephens started to probe the gost. He came upon L;eut. Sanchez, the drunken drunk-en officer he had humbled in Chile. He found that at Sanchez' Inspiration. F-i-gineer McKnight played "ghost" to scare the men into g''ving up the quest. Stephens Steph-ens announced that the Sea Queen was at the spot where Tuttle's quest was supposed sup-posed to be. The crew was anxious to go on in further search. De Nova and Stephens Steph-ens conouered them In a fst fight. Lady Darlington thanked him. The Sea Queen started northward. She was wrecked in a fog. Stephens. De Nova. Lady Darlington aD3 her mn'd being among those to set out in a life boat. Ten were rescued. Stephens saw only one chance in a thousand thou-sand for life. Lady Darlington confessed her love to Stephens and he did likewise. Lady Darlington told her life story: how she had been bartered for a title, her yearn'ng for absent love. She revealed herself as the school chum of Stephens' sister. She expressed a wish to die in the sea rather than face her former friends and go hack to the old life. A ship was e'ghted. The craft proved to be a derel'ct. They boarded her. She was frozen tight with hundreds of years of ice. The vessel ves-sel was the Donna Isabel, lost in 1753, 126 years previous. The frozen bodies of the former crew were removed. They read the log of the Isabel, which told how the Spaniards had died from cold, one by one. Lady Darlington sang to prevent the men from becoming moody. The crew commenced the hunt for treasure. They found the iron chest, said to contain a part of 3,000,000 pesos, firmly imbedded in ice. CHAPTER XXVI. Continued. "By God, mates, there's one of 'em, anyhow!" roared a voice, hoarse from exploding excitement. But I was already al-ready upon my knees, feeling blindly Into the ice cavity. They came howling about me like so many wolves, eager to see with their own eyes, but I crowded them back, snatching the candle from De Nova's fingers and throwing the flickering flick-ering light down level with the deck. "It's a brass-bound chest, men," J cried, straightening up and facing them. "But- it is going to require some hard digging to get It out. About all I can see is the handle of It." I never comprehended before how the passion and lust for gold can express ex-press itself upon men's faces. Tense, motionless, breathing heavily, their features drawn, their eyes gleaming . feverishly in the yellow flame, they stared at me and then at that Ice-front, demented and speechless. No one thought of where we were castaways, eur lives the sport of winds and waves, a sodden wreck under us, our nearest port a thousand miles away across a stormy sea; all we realized at that moment was that there, just before us, under that mantle of ice, lay buried three million pesos. God! the collar of my jacket seemed choking me; I breathed as if a man's fingers clutched my throat, and I saw McKnight's burly form shaking as if he had an ague fit. Three million pesos! The hot blood rushed to my head, a lava stream, and De Nova's face, white as chalk behind his little black mustaches, mus-taches, seemed dancing before me ghostlike. Damn him! the fellow made me think of Salvatore, the man who, just above, frozen and dead, had guarded this treasure for 126 years. I cast the suggestion aside with a curse and a laugh, grasping Kelly by the shoulder to steady myself to realize re-alize these were real men, this task before us real work. It was like coming com-ing forth from under an anaesthetic, leaving me weak as a child, yet with b-raiu and faculties aroused to action. Johnson thrust forward the cleaver. "Let me get in there, sir; I'm the man for a cuttin' job." I stepped aside, and the" broad t-hde fell slashing against the front of the ice. "Only two of you men can work here at once," I put in hastily. "Hold on, Johnson, until we get this shipshape. ship-shape. An axman, with a helper to haul back the ice out of the way, is all we need. Any more would only be In the way; besides, some of us ought to be on deck. It is going to require re-quire hours, maybe days, to get that chest out, and meanwhile we must sail this vessel and keep her right side up. The thing to do is to arrange relays, and keep at it steady. Johnson, you and Kelly go to work first. The rest of us will climb up into the cabin, and figure it out." They went along with me up the ladder as though they were prisoners, casting the last lingering glances below, be-low, where the weird flame of the candle flickered yellow, the blows of the cleaver echoing sharply as they clustered about the stove, welcoming the warmth of it. It had been frigid below decks, although we had been scarcely conscious of it in our excitement. excite-ment. But now we stood shivering, gazing into each others' faces and actually afraid to talk lest the whole occurrence should prove a dream from which a chance word might awaken us. Three million pesos here, actually actu-ally here; almost within reach of our hands; they were digging for them just below; even then, in the silence, we could hear the faint echo of blows being struck agaist the ice. Three million pesos! and it was all ours, our very own to divide, to spend, to do with exactly as we pleased. We had dreamed about all this before, on the decks of the ill-fated Sea Queen, but now we sought to grasp it as an actual existing fact, and our minds seemed paralyzed by the knowledge. I even forgot that Doris was present until she touched me gently on the shoulder, 'and I looked down into her questioning eyes. "Do you not know what we have just discovered below?" I asked, still tingling to the marvel of it. "The treasure, the Spanish treasure!" "Oh, yes," but the soft voice seemed tinged with sadness. "Yet it does not greatly interest me. Money seems so little here, so utterly valueless." The simple words, the tone of their utterance brought me to myself as though I had received an electric shock. She was still smiling, yet all at once I noticed how white her face was, how dark the shadows beneath her eyes. The lure of the gold vanished van-ished from my mind, as if some wizard's wiz-ard's wand had waved it away. I thought of the treacherous sea without, with-out, the life and death struggle before us, those dreary leagues separating us from hope. My hands clasped hers, the expression of love in my eyes brightening her face instantly. "That is so much better, Jack," she said tenderly. "I knew it was only the madness of a moment which caused you to forget. Come out on deck with me until you lose all mem ory of it until I bring you back to real life again." "I do not need It, sweetheart," and I bent low, looking into her eyes. "The fever has left my blood. I hardly know how" it ever laid such hold upon me, but the thought of all that wealth below drove me as mad as the others. You see how much I need you." "Oh, no; you would have recovered without my help, although it might have required more time to complete a cure. But I fear there is no hope for the men." . "I certainly shall not spare you to minister to them." She laughed, her happiness of disposition dispo-sition returning. "That would be useless; they are of different stamp. The fever for suddfc'i wealth is in the blood of all of us. See how excited Celeste is. Perhaps if I had ever experienced poverty I might be crazed also. But it is so foolish here here," and she swept her hands about in comprehensive gesture, ges-ture, "when we know it can be ours only for a day, or at most a week." "But we have not given up hope," I protested. "Why should we? The Donna Isabel seems stanch beneath us." "Even in case of that miracle I want nothing to do with this treasure," she said gravely. "It seems to me, Jack, there must be a curse upon that gold below. It will never do good to any human being. It was stolen by the sword, won for Spain by the shedding of blood, and has since cursed this ship and all who sailed In her. The living and the dead guarded it, and now we have come into its evil clutch. It is not superstition but faith which makes me say this the Donna Isabel will never make port; that gold below be-low will never do a soul on board anything but harm. I wish it could be left where it is, buried in the ice." "At such a suggestion the men would mutiny." "I suppose so," she acknowledged sadly, "and the end will be the same in either case. But I want you to be different. Let them build their air castles; but do you come out on deck I with me, where the sea and sky will give us other thoughts." Comprehending only vaguely what she meant, yet beneath the witching spell of her presence I went gladly enough, forgetting utterly that useless treasure imbedded in the ice below. CHAPTER XXVII. In Which the Treasure Causes Trouble But the men did not forget, or cease in their eager efforts to rescue that frozen gold from the grasp of the ice. By this time, thoroughly convinced myself that our final preservation of this wealth would prove impossible, I-was I-was still far from devoid of interest in its recovery, and consequently made no effort to interrupt the work being carried on between decks. It was belter that the men be busy and their minds occupied than to have them roaming aimlessly about the |