Welcome back, everyone to 1001 classic short stories and tales. This is your host and storyteller, John Haggardorn. Today, a story from H. G. Wells called The Treasure in the Forest.

In this clever short story from H.G. Wells, two Englishmen with little regard for the life of a

Chinese seek a buried treasure, unaware of the karma and justice seek a treasure of their own.

And now our story.

The canoe was now approaching the land.

The bay opened out, and a gap in the white surf of the reef marked where the little river ran out to the sea.

The thicker and deeper green of the virgin forest showed its course down the distant

hill slope. The forest here came close to the beach. Far beyond, dim and almost cloud-like in texture,

rose the mountains, like suddenly frozen waves. The sea was still, save for an almost imperceptible swell.

The sky blazed.'

"'The man with the carved paddle stopped.

"'It should be somewhere here,' he said.

"'He shipped the paddle and held his arms straight out before him.

"'The other man had been in the forepart of the canoe,

"'closely scrutinizing the land.

He had a sheet of yellow paper on his knee.

Come and look at this, Evans, he said. Both men spoke in low tones, and their lips were hard and

dry. The man called Evans came swaying along the canoe until he could look over his companion's shoulder.

The paper had the appearance of a rough map.

By much folding it was creased and worn to the pitch of separation,

and the second man held the discolored fragments together where they had parted.

On it one could dimly make out, an almost obliterated pencil, the outline of the

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