QUITE IN THE OLD TRANSPONTINE STYLE.

Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 90, 13 October 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

QUITE IN THE OLD TRANSPONTINE STYLE.

The lieutenant and his sole remaining companion thereupon chartered a small fore and aft, schooner, the Swallow, commanded by one Captain Thompson, and proceeded to the Mariannes for his treasure. Thompson tried hard to get a charter for a specified portor ports, hut the lieutenant insisted on a broad charter, including any or all of the Mariannes. I One evening when they were in sight of the islands, the lieutenant, who was sitting on the lee rail chatting with his companion, was, it is conjectured, tipped overboard the by latter and disappeared. The usual alarm has raised, but the lieutenant's bodywasneverrecovered. Thompson, from sundry scraps of conversation which he had ovecheard, having suspected the object of the voyage, overhauled the dead lieutenant's effects, and among them found a chart of the island on which the treasure was hidden, but with the name omitted. Soon afterwards he sighted another brig, with tho master of which he was acquainted, and they arranged to search for the treasure and divide it between them, giving the surviving pirate a share on condition that he consented to

point out the spot, but with a threat , that if he did not do so he would I forthwith be handed over to the | Spanish authorities. At a concerted moment the pirate was seized by both captains, and conditions named. He nodded. They asked him if he would indicate the situation of the treasure. He nodded. They asked if this was the island, pointing to the nearest of the group. He again nodded. They invited him to step into a boat which had been lowered and guide them to the treasure. He nodded once more. Afterwards he went below and filled his pockets with lead and iron. Then, going down the ladder, he pushed off the boat with one foot from the sido of the schoonei*, and dropped feet first into the sea. Until within ttvo years ago there was alive one of the boat's crew, who, snatching at the suicide's hair, to save him as he aank, plucked from his head a handful of hair, but could not raise the heavily-weighted body. This put an end to tho treasure hunting. The chart went into the possession of the Spanish authorities. THE SEAKCHING SHIP .SEIZED IN TURN. The British schooner Nereid recently sailed from Japan as far as Guam — a small island belonging to tie Marianne Group — in search of the buried treasure. But while the "captain, who intended to Bail for Yap, in the Caroline Islands, was on shore, it was carried off either by his mate or two Japanese, or by all three, these being the only persons aboard. As no trace of the vessel has been found, there is still some mystery about the affair. Meanwhile, the captain 6f the Nereid, who holds, or believes he holds, the clue to the secret of all this wealth, has lost everything. Whatever may be thought of this extraordinary story, what is beyond any question, says the Japan Mail, is than an English shipmaster in Yokohama, at the commencement of the present year, set out in a schooner, built under his own supervision and belonging to himself, to search for the treasure supposed to be hidden more than 60 years ago among the coral islands of the North Pacific, and that his crew ran away with his vessel and have not since been heard of. Possibly they, too, having some suspicion of the object of the voyage, determined to recover the treasure on their own account. The story above summarised was taken down from the mouth of the captain himself, but it sounds very like something we have heard long ago, and the readers of recent tales of pirates and plate hunters will doubtless recognise the leading incidents as familiar friends.