Author’s note: To get the most out of this story, I recommend you first read the previous blog about the place. Thanks!
1698:
With a final violent push, the surf scraped a dinghy over razorlike coral reef and jammed it onto a small pocket of beach. When it hit the bone-white sand, the boat splintered in two. A sailor was cast from the boat onto a beach, where he lay as lifeless as the metal box next to him. Roiling clouds darkened the sky, rain plunged in diagonal sheets, and gusts of winds flattened coastal shrubs.
When the sailor regained consciousness, the hurricane had churned its way beyond the horizon. He glanced around at debris left behind – dinghy fragments, dead fish, sodden twigs – before his eyes lit on the metal box. With sudden clarity, he remembered the events of the last twenty-four hours, and a smile played on his lips.
His pirate ship had just passed a small island in the middle of the Mona Passage when a hurricane the ship had been dodging for days turned and headed its way. Pandemonium broke out as the crew prepared for the storm’s fury. At that moment, inspiration struck the sailor. No one would be guarding the captain’s personal treasure. He snuck into the captain’s quarters and pulled out a metal box filled with gold and silver coins. As he was leaving, the ship’s cook spotted him and threatened exposure if the sailor didn’t include him in the heist. Together, they untied a lifeboat, slid into it with the treasure between them, and rowed fiercely into a roiling ocean.
A perilous, even suicidal undertaking, but the rewards … ah, the rewards. Enough for the sailor to live comfortably the rest of his life.
His life.
When a large wave collapsed on the boat, the cook fell overboard, surfaced, and grasped the gunwhale with his hands.
“Help me!” he shouted above the din of the storm.
With his oar, the sailor struck the cook’s hands. Repeatedly.
“Damn you!” the cook shouted as his grip slipped from the hull. “A curse on you and your ill-gotten treasure!” A subsequent wave swept him under the water.
Now safe on the beach, the sailor caressed the metal box. Rising, he took stock. He was on tiny Mona Island, where he knew from other sailors there was a spring, feral pigs, and deep caves for hiding out. Sea grapes and coastal thicket separated the beach from a limestone cliff pocked with cavities. He noticed a shadowy, toothy hole near its base that looked promising. Pulling the metal box across the sand, he made his way to the cave.
A twisting passageway extended far into the cliff. Though the box was heavy and he had difficulty dragging it along the uneven floor, the sailor continued until only the tiniest ray of light lit the chamber. Even that wasn’t enough: he and the treasure must be completely hidden from any of the captain’s men who might come after him. He took measured steps through silent blackness.
One more step, and his foot touched the edge of a deep cavity instead of solid rock. His hands, still wrapped around the heavy box, could not stop the fall. He landed hard, breaking both legs in the process. At the bottom of the cavity, unable to walk and imprisoned by darkness so complete it obscured any sense of direction, the sailor could only wait for someone to save him.
No one did.
Over the centuries, Mona Island saw its share of pirates and treasure hunters, farmers and miners, biologists and cosmologists. Of the hundreds who arrived, perhaps half a dozen came upon the sailor’s desiccated bones and tattered clothes scattered around a metal box. When they opened the box, they discovered coins that let off an eerie light and burned the skin of those who touched them.
No one did more than once.
