Author’s note: To get the most out of this story, I recommend you first read the previous blog about the place. Thanks!
Ralph did not like to follow directions. Much less, directions given by someone half his age who had a bronzed body without an ounce of extra fat and a halo of dark curly hair lightened at the tips by the effects of sun and salt water. Jamal was his snorkeling guide to the underwater treasures of Sint Eustatius.
With his face encased in a smirk, Ralph let his mind wander as Jamal instructed the small group of fellow vacationers on the proper use of snorkeling gear, the dos and don’ts for a safe underwater journey, and snorkeling etiquette.
Blah blah.
Etiquette included not touching the coral or any artifacts embedded on the ocean floor. “Statian spirits retaliate BAD.” Jamal joked his warning in an overly affected island singsong, geared to make the ladies in the group swoon. Which they did.
His wife had talked Ralph into spending the morning snorkeling, just as she had talked him into spending a week on this speck of an island. Never satisfied with mainstream travel, Edith would scour the tour books for the most remote, godforsaken places. She’d outdone herself on this one, an island five miles long, sporting more churches than bars, more goats than people, and an extinct volcano on one end that neither of them could climb. In fact, snorkeling was the only excursion that might not tax their overweight bodies.
Snorkeling here involved more than just oohing and aahing over ornate coral formations and schools of iridescent fish. Oranjestad’s Lower Town dated back to the 1700s, when Statia was a trade mecca. Thousands of ships sailed into the bay every year, and hundreds of warehouses and homes crowded the narrow street paralleling the bay. Eventually, trade went elsewhere, and part of the town sunk into the sea.
Ralph sat in the sand at water’s edge, his neon-yellow swim trunks partially submerged. He fit the mask over his eyes and nose, adjusted the snorkel mouthpiece, and tugged the fins onto his feet. All the while, he eyed tilted stone and brick walls and foundations scattered along the beach. Trees sprouted from some of them. Submerged in the water, Jamal told them, were more ruins as well as ship wrecks and trade objects from virtually every country in Europe. “All belong to Statia now,” he warned them again.
Yeah yeah.
Ralph trundled backward into the water, then began to swim off on his own. “Wait for me, Ralph,” Edith shouted, but he ignored her. He also ignored Jamal’s waving arms some time later. He was farther out than any others in the group, and he liked it that way. The coral and the fish would have knocked his socks off if he’d had any on, but he was more interested in artifacts that peppered the sea bed — hand-blown bottles, irregularly shaped glass beads, corroded anchors, ivory pipes, metal plates and cups.
A glint caught his eye. He powered his fins until he was above the glinting object half buried In sand. It looked like a tiny covered serving bowl with a spout on one end and a handle on the other, but instead of ceramic, it appeaared made of gold.
My my. Ralph’s heart palpitated irregularly.
Taking a deep breath, he dove and pried the object from the sea bed. Returning to the surface, he gasped for air, then glanced toward shore. Jamal, no longer waving, was putting on his snorkeling gear with angry, jerking motions.
Uh oh.
Rubbing the sand away, Ralph studied his treasure. It was beautifully made, with what looked like Arabic lettering on the sides. Definitely gold and definitely worth a fortune. In hurried motions he stuffed the lamp into his swim trunks and wished for Jamal to disappear.
Quick as lightning, the water rose up with a swishing noise. It tossed him head over heels, round and round, before spitting him onto dry ground. Heart hammering against his chest, he found himself sitting on a narrow street surrounded by massive warehouses and the stench of old urine and unwashed bodies. Crowds dressed in costumes from a Shakespearean play jabbered in languages he could not understand. Their fingers pointed at his neon-yellow trunks and brightly colored fins, mask and snorkel.
No. No . . .
