COCOS— A TALE OF TREASURE ^55 



tain as additions to the undermanned vessel. 

 Thompson was evidently not born to be hung. 



Thus Cocos became the Treasure Island, par 

 excellence, of the world. Thompson, the god from 

 the machine, the repository of secrets, the man who 

 had twice seen tremendous wealth buried on the 

 same small patch of land, is next heard of in 1844. 

 In that year a ship bound from an English port to 

 Newfoundland carried a few passengers, among 

 them a man with an air of mystery. One of the 

 sailors, a native of St. John's named Keating, 

 made friends with him, and received the confidence 

 that the passenger was not anxious to draw the at- 

 tention of the authorities. On arrival, Keating 

 took the man as a lodger in his own house, and 

 observed that he never ventured abroad in daylight. 

 At length the stranger revealed himself to his 

 host as Thompson, told him of vast treasure on a 

 Pacific island, and showed a rough chart of the 

 Cocos depository. There are several versions of 

 what happened next ; one story says that Thompson 

 died, another that he fled in the night from un- 

 known enemies, still another that he went to Lon- 

 don, where Keating followed and obtained further 

 particulars. At any rate, Thompson, having served 

 his turn, disappears from the stage for good. 



The known facts are that Keating interested a 

 firm of merchants in the project of recovering the 

 treasure, and that they outfitted a vessel to go to 

 Cocos. Keating was an illiterate man, unable to 

 read or write, to say nothing of knowing anything 

 of surveying, so one Captain Bogue was sent with 



