Saltus Grammar School - Yearbook (Hamilton, Bermuda)

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18 The Longtail The longtail is graceful and swift in its flight, So happy and carefree and gay. It darts o ' er the water .so sparkling and brighft, Its cry can be heard far away. It nests in a hole in the rocks way up high, After spending the winter away. We always are happy to know spring is nigh, When the longtails will join in our play. C. M. PROFIT, Form U3B. Treasure Hunters Two boys, John, eleven years old, and James, nine years old, were sitting in their back yard and wondering what to do. James! Let ' s go down to the general store and buy something to do. How are we going to get down there, John? I ' ll tow you on my bike; and by the way, you had better go and get some money from the house — about five dollars. They walked into the store and tried to find something of interest. Suddenly, James cried aloud, . Hey! John, look that cardboard poster over there , pointing to the cardboard sign. John read aloud, Phoney Maps for Sale. Good Bargains. John asked the man behind the counter how much one of the phoney maps cost. ♦ Four dollars fifty cents for the map, but there are four dollars in the chest if you find it. I ' ll buy one, please, handing over five dollars and collecting fifty cents change. They rode home and immediately started packing their lunch so they could hunt for the chest. About ten o ' clock they set off for the hills on foot, both wearing knapsacks on their backs. The map read

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17 a small ladder over the edge and slipped down it into the sea. We took along two crowbars in case we needed them which two of us cari ' ied spearguns in case we saw some dangeroursi fish. At first we just floated along the surface then we exhaled and began to sink slowly down to the bottom. As one drifts down through the sea, one experiences a strange sensation as if one was actually flying for you feel as light as a feather but you have complete control of yourself. As we descended we could feel the water gradually be- coming colder and then we reached the wreck. Our depth gauges showed that we were about sixty five feet down and we also knew that at that depth our air would last for about two and a quarter hours. Pierre and Archie immediately began to ex- plore the wreck. So JosQph and I decided to look around for some- thing to spear. I took a practice shot on a huge parrot-fish and it began to bleed like a stuck pig. Then I saw them. There were about twenty-five or thirty barracudas all around us and they seemed to copy everything we did, but I did not like the looks of them so I left the parrot-fish and swam away. However they must have been al- ready full for they did not even touch the parrot-fish. While Pierre and Archie were investigating the wreck, Joseph and I managed to spear a couple of good size amber- jacks. However one does not get much satisfaction when one spears a fish using an aqua- lung for the fish ' s chances of survival are practically eliminated. Around half past three our air ran out so we decided to call it a day and we stowed the aqua-lungs. Archie and Pierre had found a few old jugs, but nothing valuable. We then started the motor and headed home for we were well satisfied with our journey to the blue continent. L. PATTERSON, Form Upper VI.

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19 as follows: ' Start off from the ruins of Fort Dunder and walk a quarter of a mile east north east until you reach a tree with its trunk in the shape of a Y ' , then go half a mile south and find a large boulder with X ' engraved on it, then go fifty yards -south west, and find two caves. In the left one you will find your treasur ' e. ' John and James found the Y ' tree, the engraved boulder, but on their way to the two caves James tripped. Oww! John, I tripped on a root. As he hit the ground, he uncovered a gold Spanish coin which caught his eye. When he got up he yelled to John, Hey! John! Look at what I found. John looked and exclaimed in surprise, 0h, my gosh, a gold coin! The two boys dug around the root and found in a little hollow a dusty old map preserved in a rum bottle. On the label of the bottle was a sinister mark, which John recognized as the mark of General Dunder who had lived around 1850 and after whom Fort Dunder was named. The map read as follows: Go one quarter mile north west by north and find a boulder shaped like an Near this you will find a concealed cave. If you find the cave, when you reach the fork take the right one, and follow the tunnel to the . . . The rest of the writing had faded and disappeared. It ' s too bad that the last bit of writing is gone, said James. We ' ll find the treasure anyhow, if it takes us all day. You said it! answered James. The two boys followed the map until they reached the boulder shaped like an S ' , and searched everywhere nearer than fifty yards from the boulder but they found nothing. James was ready to give up but John wasn ' t quite ready yet. John started to fool around by kicking stones into a pit near by. Suddenly he kicked a stone which supported a small boulder. I don ' t think we ' ll ever find the treasure, whatever it is, he said, as he kicked the stone. Watch out, yelled James as the boulder started rolling, reveal- ing a small entrance to a cave. I jumped out of the way just in time, and look at the small en- trance. Yes! It must be a small cave.