"Let's go on," I murmured, "and trust to luck."
"You bet you!" returned the young man, "But there won’t be any luck about it. We'll try this."
When the chauffeur turned around for instructions he got them in forcible and understandable proportions. Anderson’s revolver was within six inches of his back. The man went white.
"A vapor! The boat!" ordered Anderson.
The vigor of that driver's assent was comical, His head rocked and bobbed with eagerness.
"Si! Si! Madre de Dios!" he exclaimed.
SEVERAL YEARS have passed since the occurrence of the foregoing events, and young Anderson since has married. In his nest of a home, to which I am a frequent bachelor visitor in good standing, there is prominently located a certain replica of a beautiful young female just budding into womanhood. It represents the best in the art of the Ataruipe and is regarded by the lady-of-the-house as perhaps just the least bit too naturalistic.
Among artists and archaeologists, however, it has inspired more controversy than anything else in the present century. The trend of opinion is that the figure is an extravagant but exceedingly clever bit of modern work which is being foisted on a gullible public, ever too quick to give credence to cock-and-bull stories of lost treasure such as Anderson and I relate.
They ask for the camera and photographs that Van Dusee had. We say that we did not miss them until on the boat bound for New York; that they were probably stolen from our rooms at the hotel in Rio de Janiero.
They ask us for sight of some of the marvelous jewels. We show them some of the smaller ones, but they tell us these are ordinary and may have been acquired any place; and at their insistence for a view of the big gems we are compelled to advise them that the package handed us by the clever hotel clerk was a duplicate of the one we gave him containing the select stones brought by us from the Caverns of the Ataruipe; that we learned that it contained common pebbles some time before the port officials at Rio de Janiero went through our effects, confiscating everything they could find and seeming particularly happy at discovering the package described so minutely in their search-warrant—the one the scoundrel hotel clerk made up in imitation of Bobby’s wrapping, which we had been careful to restor to its original appearance after discovering the cheat.
"Yes, but how did you save this beautiful statue if they got everything else?" is the final thrust.
And here Anderson lapses into silence, for the matter is a delicate one. It involved thrusting the small package into the arms of a handsome young lady who stood in the throng that curiously watched us come aboard the ship at the last moment under the guardianship of numbers of Brazilian officials, who hovered over us with the eagerness of flies. As she caught Anderson’s eye and got the idea that leaped from it, I am sure she giggled with delight at the ruse, for she was pure American.
Once a year each of us receives a communication from Rio de Janiero that purports to come from government officials. The letters are entirely preposterous in their content—they read like the notorious Spanish legacy letters so long the vogue of confidence men, and speak urgently, earnestly—yea, almost beseechingly—of untold wealth that awaits us if we will but come to Rio de Janiero and assist in the quest for the lost Caverns of the Ataruipe.
But we feel, young Anderson and I, that constant and continuous governmental search must be going forward for the immense treasure; and we feel, further, that in all fairness to the world at large that wonderful collection of art material should be restored to humanity; but we find it difficult indeed to see just why two Americans—even conceding that their help might be of value, which is doubtful—should assist a greedy and unjust officialdom that is absolutely guilty of the death of the best guide and friend it was ever the good fortune of either of us to have encountered.
Another story by JULIAN KILMAN will appear in the next issue of
WEIRD TALES. It is called "The Well," and it's a "creepy"
yarn, warranted to give you "goose-flesh" thrills
Woman Receives Poems
from Spirit World
SEATED in an Evanston drawing-room with some twenty other guests, Mrs. John H. Curran of St. Louis wrote quaint poetry by the yard, all of which, she claims, came from "Patience Worth," who dwells in the land of spirits. Mrs. Curran declares that she first made the acquaintance of "Patience Worth" in July, 1913, while seated with a friend at a ouija board. Suddenly the ouija wrote:
"Many moons ago I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth is my name."
Since then, says Mrs. Curran, Patience has dictated to her numerous poems, dramas and stories. Most of these are in archaic Anglo-Saxon.
"It is as though you spoke through a wall to a person every day," said Mrs. Curran in explaining the apparent phenomenon—"a person who would tell you his habits and customs. After several years of conversation, you would know as much about that person as if he were in the same room with you. So I feel about Patience Worth. I have never seen her, nor have I tried to picture her, but since she often talks in Anglo-Saxon I have concluded that she must have lived on the Scottish border about the time of the Stuarts. She has given me stories in the language of the Bible, of the Elizabethan age, the last century, and this.
"It is not Spiritualism, and I am not a medium. I am perfectly normal when I receive messages from the personality who calls herself Patience Worth. In fact, I can converse with others in the room while she dictates to me."
Then, to prove her point, Mrs. Curran rapidly recited a poem that she claimed was sent from the spirit world.
Man Captures Lion,
Barehanded
WHEN Stanley Graham of Chicago goes lion hunting he needs no weapons save his bare fists. Recently attacked by a mountain lion in a Mexican desert, he jerked off his coat, flung it around the beast's head and, after a terrific struggle, choked it into insensibility.
