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<h1>MYSTERY <br/>OF THE <br/>CARIBBEAN <br/>PEARLS</h1>
<p class="tbcenter"><span class="ss"><b>By ANDY ADAMS</b></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="c1"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER I</span> <br/><span class="h2line2">Discovery!</span></SPAN></h2>
<p>Lightning streaked the skies over the Windward
Islands. The Caribbean Sea was a tumbled mass of
foaming, angry waters.</p>
<p>The <i>chabasco</i> had struck with the quickness and
lashing fury that is the nature of this most feared of
tropical storms. A <i>chabasco</i> strikes without warning,
with tornado-like violence, whirling and smiting and
soaking. The storm ends as abruptly as it begins. The
air regains its calm. Only the churned-up waters continue
to smash upon the shore.</p>
<p>A final, brilliant flash of lightning revealed the
gaunt figure of a man stumbling through the raging
surf, fighting to reach the safety of the beach. He
staggered out of the roiling waters and fell face down
on the sand. His only motion was the agonized heaving
of his shoulders as he gasped for breath.</p>
<p>His boat, his diving gear were gone, smashed to bits
by the wildness of the storm which had washed him
ashore on this tiny speck of an island. The island, he
knew, was in the Baie du Trésor, Treasure Bay, off
the east coast of the big island of Martinique.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</div>
<p>As strength flowed back into the man’s body, he sat
up. Frantically he shot his hand into a pocket of his
wet, worn, sun-bleached dungarees. An expression of
relief crossed his face. In the faint light of a rising
moon, he inspected the two objects in the upturned
palm of his hand.</p>
<p>He held two perfectly matched black pearls.</p>
<p>This was the end of his search, the end of weeks under
the blazing sun of the Caribbean; the result of
hundreds of dives to the bottom of the sea. He knew,
and he had the evidence in his hand, that he had made
a discovery which would startle the entire area of the
Caribbean Sea from the Florida keys to the coast of
South America.</p>
<p>He had discovered a pearl fishery so fabulous, so unbelievably
rich, that his find would make headline
news throughout the world.</p>
<p>He knew also that unless he could keep his find
secret until his claim on the pearl fishery was established,
treasure seekers and money-mad cutthroats
would descend on him like hungry sharks.</p>
<p>He felt sure that his actions and explorations had
been secretly watched. He knew who the watchers
were—unscrupulous men waiting hungrily to move
in and jump the claim he had struggled so hard to
find.</p>
<p>His first problem was to get off this tiny speck
in the bay and back to Martinique. He was no more
than five miles off the shore of the main body of the
big island. If he had reckoned his position correctly,
there was a long spit of land jutting out from Martinique
that he could reach by a two-mile swim. He
would need to rest. Calm now, he settled into the sand
to sleep.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</div>
<p>When the man awakened, the light of a brilliant
tropical morning proved that he had been correct in
determining his position. The sandspit jutted out, welcoming
him. Farther beyond he could see the lush,
green-covered pitons rising in the center of Martinique.
Some of these peaks reached a height of nearly
four thousand feet.</p>
<p>The man began his long, slow swim. He had no
fear of the sea—though he knew sharks abounded in
these waters, and he was unarmed.</p>
<p>But by midmorning he had reached the mainland
of Martinique safely. He was pleasantly tired from
his long swim, and stretched out on the warm sands
to rest and allow his clothing to dry.</p>
<p>In the early afternoon he reached the town of La
Trinité, sprawling at the approach of Presqu’île de
la Caravelle, the peninsula that formed the Baie du
Trésor.</p>
<p>He found a room in a small <i>pension</i>, a rooming
house, and spent most of the night writing two letters.
One of them was addressed to his son in The Netherlands.
The other was to Charles Keene on the island
of Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles.</p>
<p>Along with the letters, he carefully prepared two
small boxes.</p>
<p>In the morning, he was standing at the post office
door the moment it opened. It was with great relief
that he saw his letters and packages go into the
mailbag that would be trucked over the pitons to
Fort-de-France at noon, then flown on to Curaçao
on the night flight.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</div>
<p>In his relief and great elation over his discovery, the
man shed the characteristic watchfulness that usually
marked his movements. He momentarily had
dropped his guard, and did not notice that his every
action had been closely followed from the moment he
had arrived in La Trinité.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</div>
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