How important is imagination in a man's life. 5 Say if the idea to spend a night in the Murderers' Den would have ordinarily come into Hewson's mind. 6. The real murderers of Hewson.

 

SAKI (H. H. MUNRO)*

THE TREASURE-SHIP

The great galleon¹ lay in semi-retirement² under the sand weed and water of the northern bay where the fortune of war and weather had long ensconced³ it. Three and a quarter centuries had passed since the day when it had taken the high seas as an important unit of a fighting squadron ⁴ — precisely which squadron the learned were not agreed. The galle­on had brought nothing into the world, but it had, according to tradition and report, taken much out of it. But how much? There again the learned were in disagreement. Some were as generous in their estimate as an income-tax assessor,⁵ others applied a species of higher criticism to the submerged trea­sure chests, and debased their contents to the currency of goblin gold.⁶ Of the former school was Lulu,⁷ Duchess of Dulverton.

The Duchess was not only a believer in the existence of a sun ken, treasure of alluring proportions; she also believed that she knew of a method by which the said treasure might be precisely located and cheaply disembedded.⁸ An aunt on her mother's side of the bmily had been Maid of Honour⁹ at the Court of Monaco, and had taken a respectful interest in the deep-sea researches in which the Throne of that country, impatient perhaps of its terrestrial restrictions,¹⁰ was wont э¹¹ immerse itself. It was through the instrumentality of this relative that the Duchess learnt of an invention, perfect­ed and very nearly patented by a Monegaskan savant,¹² by means of which the homelife of the Mediterranean sardine might be studied at a depth of many fathoms¹³ in a cold white light of more than ball-room brilliancy. Implicated in this invention (and, in the Duchess's eyes, the most attractive

Munro, Hector Hugh (1870—1916), a British writer of humorous stories and novels, born in Burma. He chose the pseudonym of "Saki" from the cup-bearer in the "Rubaiyat" of Omar Khayyam.

part of it) was an electric suction dredge, specially design­ed for dragging to the surface such objects of interest and value as might be found in the more accessible levels of the ocean-bed. The rights of the invention were to be acquired for a matter of eighteen hundred francs, and the apparatus for a few thousand more. The Duchess of Dulverton was rich, as the world counted wealth: she nursed the hope of being one day rich at her own computation. Companies had been formed and efforts had been made again and again during the course of three centuries to probe for the alleged treasures of the interesting galleon; with the aid of this invention she considered that she might go to work on the wreck privately and independently. After all, one of her ancestors on her moth­er's side was descended from Medina Sidonia,^l4 so she was of opinion that she had as much right to the treasure as any one. She acquired the invention and bought the apparatus.

Among other family ties and encumbrances,¹⁵ Lulu pos­sessed a nephew, Vasco Honiton, a young gentleman who was blessed with a small income and a large circle of relatives, and lived impartially and precariously (непрочно) on both.¹⁶ The name Vasco¹⁷ had been given him possibly in the hope that he might live up to his adventurous tradition, but he limited himself strictly to the home industry of adventurer, preferr­ing to exploit the assured rather than explore the unknown. Lulu's intercourse with him had been restricted of recent years to the negative processes of being out of town when he called on her, and short of money when he wrote to her. Now, however, she bethought herself of his eminent suitability for the direction of a treasure-seeking experiment; if any one could extract gold from an unpromising situation it would certainly be Vasco—of course, under the necessary safe­guards in the way of supervision. Where money was in ques­tion Vasco's conscience was liable to fits of obstinate silence.

Somewhere on the west coast of Ireland the Dulverton property included a few acres of shingle, rock, arid heather, too barren to support even an agrarian outrage,^l8 but embrac­ing a small and fairly deep bay where the lobster yield was good in most seasons. There was a bleak little house on the property, and for those who liked lobsters and solitude, and were able to accept an Irish cook's ideas as to what might be perpetrated (commit, prepare) in the name of mayonnaise, Innisgluther was a tolerable exile during the summer months. Lulu seldom went there herself, but she lent the house lavishly to friends and relations. She put it now at Vasco's disposal.

"It will be the very place to practise and experiment with the salvage apparatus," she said; "the bay is quite deep in places, and you will be able to test everything thoroughly "before starting on the treasure hunt."

In less than three weeks Vasco turned up in town to re­port progress.

"The apparatus works beautifully," he informed his aunt; "the deeper one got the clearer everything grew. We found something in the way of a sunken wreck to operate on, too!"

"A wreck in Innisgluther Bay!" exclaimed Lulu.

"A submerged motor-boat, the Sub-Rosa,"¹⁹ said Vasco.

"No! Really?" said Lulu. "Poor Billy Yuttley's boat. I remember it went down somewhere off the coast some three years ago. His body was washed ashore at the Point. People said at the time that the boat was capsized (overkiel)²⁰ intentionally — committed a case of suicide, you know. People always say that sort of thing when anything tragic happens."

"In this case they were right," said Vasco.

"What do you mean?" asked the Duchess hurriedly. "What makes you think so?"

"I know," said Vasco simply.

" Know? How can you know? How can any one know? The thing happened three years ago."

"In the.locker of the Sub-Rosa I found a water-tight strong-box. It contained papers." Vasco paused with '"dramatic effect and searched for a moment in the inner-breast-pocket of his coat. He drew out a folded slip of paper. The Duchess snatched at it in almost indecent haste and 'moved appreciably nearer the fireplace.

"Was this in the Sub-Rosa's strong-box?" she asked.

"Oh, no," said Vasco carelessly, "this is a list of the well-known people who would be involved in a very disagreeable scandal if the Sub-Rosa's papers were made public. I've put you at the head of it, otherwise it follows alphabetical order.

The Duchess gazed helplessly at the^tnng_of names, which seemed for the moment to include nearly every one she knew. As a matter of fact, her own name at the head of the list exercised an almost paralyzing effect on her thinking fac­ulties.

"Of course you have destroyed the papers?" she asked, when she had somewhat recovered herself. She was conscious that she made the remark with an entire lack of conviction.

Vasco shook his head.

"But you should have," said Lulu angrily: "if, as you say, they are highly compromising. — "

"Oh, they are, I assure you of that," interposed the young man.

"Then you should put them out of harm’s way at once. Supposing anything should leak out, think of all these poor, unfortunate people who would be involved in the dis­closures," and Lulu tapped the list with an agitated gesture.

"Unfortunate, perhaps, but not poor," corrected Vasco:

"if you read the list carefully you'll notice that I haven't troubled to include any one whose financial standing isn't above question. "

'"Lulu glared at her nephew for some moments in silence. Then she asked hoarsely: "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing— for the remainder of my life," he answered meaningly. "A little hunting, perhaps," he continued, "and I shall have a villa at Florence. The Villa Sub-Rosa would sound rather quaint and picturesque, don't you think, and quite a lot of people would be able to attach a meaning to the name. And I suppose I must have a hobby; I shall probably collect Raeburns."^{2 1}

Lulu's relative, who lived at the Court of Monaco, got quite a snappish answer when she wrote recommending some further invention in the realm of marine research.

NOTES

1. galleon: a large sailing-ship, esp. of the kind used by the Spaniards in the trade with the New World from the' 15th to the 17th centuries, often carrying treasure

2. in semi-retirement: half-buried

3. ensconced: settled comfortably

4. squadron: a section of a fleet under a flag-officer

5. income-tax assessor: налоговый инспектор

6. goblin: in folklore, an evil spirit, esp. in the form of an ugly-looking little man, believed to play evil tricks on people;

goblin gold: gold which looks real enough but will dis­appear or turn to ashes at a touch

7. Lulu: the short for Louise

8. disembedded: removed from its bed

9. Maid of Honour: a lady in the service of a queen or princess

10. terrestrial restrictions: smallness of territory

11. was wont to: was accustomed to

12. Monegaskan: a form of "Monegasque" (Fr.) Monacan;

Monegaskan savant: a local expert.

13. fathom: a unit of measure (6 feet==182 cm) for depth of water

14. Medina Sidonia: Spanish Duke, commander of the In­vincible (or Spanish) Armada sent against England by Phillip II in 1588. The Armada was almost entirely de­stroyed by the English navy led by Sir Francis Drake and bad weather.

15. encumbrance: a burden

16. and lived impartially and precariously on both: he show­ed no preference for either source, drawing equally from both, but getting very little money out of either of them.

17. Vasco: the allusion here is to Vasco da Gama (1469?—-1524), a Portuguese navigator, who discovered the sea route around Africa to India

18. agrarian outrage: the poorest kind of farm

19. Sub-Rosa (Lat.): secretly, in confidence

20. capsize: to overturn, to upset (esp. of a boat in the water)

21. Raeburns: paintings by Sir Henry Raeburn (1756— 1823), a famous Scottish portrait painter

EXERCISES