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Chapter One
(An excerpt from the novel Victory and Death)

by Gregory Smith

Gregory Smith is a homeschooled student currently in tenth grade. He enjoys doing a few activities, including soccer and physical labor around his home. He hopes to become involved in government and would like to go to college to
further develop his intellect.

    The passage where Joe stood was dark, and he carefully struck a match. Putting the match to a candle, he observed his surroundings. The passage in which he stood was part of an old monastery’s fire escape. The monastery no longer existed due to continual attacks from men eager for the wealth of the monks, but the fire escape had somehow survived.

    Joe had entered the passage from the coastal entrance and now, after following a turn which cut off all light, had struck a match. Setting down the candle, he began to cover the floor with utmost care, counting his steps as he moved along. He went down the passage till the absence of light brought him back to the candle, which he moved further down, continuing his scrutiny.

    As he made his way down the passage, he slowly approached a powdery dust laying against the wall. Coming toward it, he suddenly stopped and looked down. 

     ”What was this?” He stooped and picked up a gold piece much worn and faded. He glanced around quickly then turned his attention back to the gold. ”I must be close.” He shivered with excitement. “What strange fate or
fortune has arranged for me to find this place? Indeed, I will be a rich man on my return. No more begging or stealing–this was what I was made for, to be wealthy.” He smiled. “I have found one; now where are the others?”

    Setting down his pack, he removed a pick and small shovel. He then hacked and dug in the sandy floor for a full hour with nothing to show for it. He sat down, worn out. Not even one more, but there has to be; the old  man said
this was where they hid it. He took out the gold piece once more. It had been lying in a soft powdery dust against the wall. 

     He paused. “Only one…and that one had been found against the wall. Maybe, just maybe…” Taking the shovel, he hacked at the wall, breaking off large clumps of dirt and debris. All of a sudden, his shovel was gone. It had simply disappeared. Grabbing the handle tightly, he pulled. There was a snap, and the front of a rotted out coffin crashed to the floor.

    He stood speechless, starring at two bulging sacks. His hand was shaking as he felt each one was filled with gold coins, hundreds of them. Suddenly a footfall sounded in the passage. He spun around, digging in his pack for something. A man came around the corner, a big man. 

     He raised a pistol. “Stand up.” The voice was gruff and grating in the still passage air. Slowly Joe laid his
pack on the ground.

    They had set him up, all of them. They couldn’t find it, so they got him to do so. He was mad. He would have been rich, very rich. This man was going to take it away from him. No, Joe Stewart was not going to be poor again. His sister and younger brother were not going to grow up as he had.

    All the resentment and shame of the past few years exploded. “No!” He swung up the pistol he had been trying to find. The man’s gun stabbed flame.

    Joe felt a red hot pain in his chest as he swung his pistol up and squeezed off his shot. The man before him slammed back against the wall as if hit by a large hammer. Joe desperately began to load his weapon for another shot, but it was not needed. The man before him slowly slid down the wall onto the floor.

    Cautiously Joe approached him, tapping him with his foot. No movement…the man was dead. Joe had put his bullet in the man’s heart from over sixty feet. It was true that the man had also hit him, but he was
alive.

    Right then he felt a pain in his left shoulder. As he became conscious of it, the pain increased. He told his mind to forget it and get back to the gold, but he was already falling and was out cold when he hit the earth.

    An hour later, three men carried his body from the passage and down to a large ship waiting at the coast. The gold coins disappeared, and the man Joe had killed was buried where he died, with a marker which said, “George, last name forgotten, 1801.”