CHAPTER II THE STORY OF THE PHANTOM GALLEON
"Well," answered the professor, slowly. "Up until a very short time Ned,and others, thought that it was only a legend. He hadn't been in thecountry very long before he heard it, and he put it down as one of thosesemi-historic tales that consist of half truth and half fancy. The talehad been handed down for centuries and always by word of mouth, and thisis the story:
"On a certain evening, hundreds of years ago, a huge, lumbering Spanishgalleon, loaded with treasure, fled along the coast of Lower California,pursued by three English barks. In the long run there was not a chancethat the gold ship would get away, for the light English barks were muchfaster, and it was only a question of time before they hauled down onher and boarded. The way they were situated was this: one ship was inthe rear of the Spaniard, one was coming up in front of it, and a thirdwas moving in from the open sea. It was a regular trap, you see, andmerely a matter of time.
"But fortunately--or unfortunately, I don't know which--for the galleon,one of those rare tropical storms came up at that moment when captureseemed assured for the gold ship. There was a furious rush of the wind,the sky grew black and lowering, and finally, in one great maelstrom ofconfusion the three ships and the galleon were blotted out of sight. Thestorm only lasted for some half hour, which is unusually long for someof them, and when it lifted the galleon was nowhere to be seen. TheEnglish barks had had all they could handle and had been so busy holdingtheir own against the elements that they hadn't time to keep up thepursuit, and their conclusion was that the Spaniard had gone to thebottom of the sea. As it was built much higher and was much harder tohandle than the lighter ships, the conclusion was justified, and thepursuers drew off and left the shore.
"As I told you, that had happened in the evening, just as dusk wascoming down over the shore and the sea, and the high decked galleon,with its spread of strained canvas and yellow streamers, its loftyrigging and its ornamental work, looked like some strange phantom as itfled down the coast. I don't know who saw it or how many saw it, but tothis day the story, half legend as it is, has persisted concerning thephantom galleon. Some fantastic tales still linger about it appearing ondusky nights and sailing swiftly along the shore, but they are idlestories to which no one with intelligence pays any attention. Ned nevergave the whole thing much credit until a remarkable circumstance broughtit forcefully to his mind.
"Near his little ranch there is a large old estate which belongs to aonce noble family of mixed Spanish and Mexican blood, and although theykeep pretty much to themselves, out of a lofty sense of pride, they havebeen rather friendly to Ned, in their stately and exacting way. Therewas an old man who was head of the place, his daughter, and one or twoservants. Lately the old gentleman died, and Ned kindly helped out withthe funeral and the management of the ranch affairs until a permanentoverseer was brought over from Mexico, and in her gratitude the youngsenorita allowed him to roam pretty much around the house. I suspectfrom his letter that he has of late become rather more than friendlywith the young lady, but that doesn't make much difference either way.It seems that she had been left with quite a library, reading being animportant business in such a lonely place, and some of the volumes werepretty precious, being hand written works of early settlers and priests,who thus left interesting historic records. One of these books attractedNed's attention strongly.
"It had been written by a priest in the year 1571, and it described theSpanish treasure hunts, some of which were plain plundering expeditions,and this particular book related them in detail. Ned wasn't unusuallyinterested until he came across the part relating to a chase that thegalleon had had from three English ships. According to the author theyhad loaded with something like 100,000 pesos and a fortune in gold andsilver bars, to say nothing of jewels, and had sailed for UpperCalifornia. But near the shores of Lower California the galleon had beensighted by an English bark, which had instantly given chase. Thegalleon, which had a good start, fled, but its chances of escapesuddenly became less as another English ship appeared before it, andanother bore down on it from the open sea. It was growing dark, wrotethe priest, and there was some hope that it would slip away in thedarkness, but something more to the point stepped in when a tropicalstorm wrapped the nearby world in temporary darkness. The _DonFernando_, that was the name of the galleon, slipped into a nearby creekor small river and ran hard and fast aground, the lofty masts and sparscrashing down, a total ruin. The creek seems to have been far enoughback for the wreck to have escaped the notice of the English, for theywere not molested, and the crew, after assuring themselves that thetreasure was safe, tried to make their way inland for help.
"But somehow or other--the writer does not say how--they all perished,and he alone escaped to Mexico, there to write down the story of theflight of the galleon. He affirms positively in his journal that thetreasure was not touched, and he planned to raise enough men to go andget it. Whether he did or not no one knows, but if he didn't thattreasure is still somewhere in a creek, in the wreck of that galleon,perhaps buried below the level of the sand which has shifted. Ned thinksthat it is nearby and that is why he has written to me.
"The tragedy of the thing is this: the priest wrote everything exceptthe name of the creek down which the phantom galleon fled. There areseveral pages missing from his book, and it breaks off like this: 'Theship with its fortune in gold and precious stones, its coin and bars, isstill buried in the sand in a creek called----' and there itunfortunately ends. If the name was only there we could tell something,for it is always probable that someone can be found who will recall thename, no matter how ancient it may be, but as the name is lost, Nedfaces a blank wall. He inquired from Senorita Mercedes just where shehad obtained that book, but she knew nothing outside of the fact that ithad apparently always been in their house."
"That certainly is interesting," said Don, as the professor stopped."Your son Ned thinks that it is somewhere near his place?"
"Yes, he believes it is somewhere within a radius of a hundred miles.The legend has it that the galleon vanished somewhere right on that veryshore, and that would indicate that the galleon ran up some creek verynear to his place. If no one ever did get back and take that treasure itis probably in the rotted hold of the treasure ship, buried more or lessdeeply in the sand, just waiting for some lucky one to discover it. Muchof the land near Ned's ranch has never been thoroughly explored, and itmay be that it is nearer to him than he has any idea of."
"Has he made any effort to find it?" inquired Jim.
"A somewhat feeble one, yes. He endeavored to enlist the aid of somenearby ranch men, some half breed Mexicans, but although they startedwith some enthusiasm they soon gave it up. They are the kind who wouldnot mind sharing in the rewards if someone else does the work. So hegave it up, except that he patiently read every other book in SenoritaMercedes' library in the hope of obtaining some clue, but the missingpages were not to be located and he is still no nearer to finding outthe name of that creek than he was at first."
"And he never did find out how that book came to be in the library ofthe Spanish ranch?" asked Don.
"No, but we can hazard a guess as to that. The Mercedes family havelived in Lower California for at least a hundred years, but before thatthey came from Mexico. It is very possible that the priest had escapedto Mexico and fallen in some way in with this ancient Spanish family,perhaps dying there and leaving the book with them. How the last fewleaves of the book came to be missing no one knows. But perhaps you cansee the possibilities?"
"What do you mean?" asked Jim.
"I mean that perhaps someone has already read that book, tore out thesheets with the information on them, and has already found thattreasure!" was the startling answer.