GREATLY DARING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5155, 22 July 1927, Page 4

GREATLY DARING.

HEROES WHO FLAUNTED FATE. JEST IN THE EACE OF DEATH. In grim defiance of death and disaster, Captain Nungesser, the great French air pilot, decorated his Atlantic seaplane with a black skull and crossbones and a white coffin painted on the side.

Warned that he was courting illluck. Captain Nungesser merely laughed. “My skull and crossbones was my lucky emblem during the war,” he said. “It will stand me in good stead now.” A jest or a gibe at fate, a gallant, contemptuous defiance of superstition and warning, a reckless unconcern at their gamble with death — that is bow many of the world’s greatest heroes se-t forth on- their great adventures. With Viking courage they dare the gamut of perils while- the world watches with bated breath. Often they go out of their way to flaunt fate with a quixotic but gallant defiance like that of Captain Nungesser.

Things no ordinary man would dareto do without crossing his fingers and uttering a fervent prayer to avert the forces of evil leave them cold. They scoff at superstition-, laugh at forebodings of disaster; and go out to meet success or doom with a smile on their lips and high courage in their hearts.

Captain von Richthofen, the, great German ace, who was credited with over 80 victories in the air, always flew in a machine painted crimson and carried as a mascot a bullet which had been extracted from a British airman whom he had shot down and killed. Once ire was warned by a fashionable fortune-teller to avoid the thirteenth of the month. It was his- unlucky day, he was told.

But von Richthofen mocked at superstition, and though when the 13th of the next month came he was suffering from the after-effects of influenza, he insisted upon going up to show his defiance of the warnings. That day he added four British airmen to his list.

Time after time he defied fate with impunity. He seemed to bear a -charmed life that neither bullet nor anti-aircraft shell could put an end to.

When British machines were over the German lines in force spoiling for a scrap Richthofen would never disappoint them. No matter how overwhelming were the force-s against him he would always tempt Providence by offering battle. But ho .flew in the teeth of fate once too often, and a crimson aeroplane -crashing to the earth out of control ended his daring and adventurous career as a buccaneer of the air. In a running fight with a number of British machines his plane was suddenly seem to stagger and drop like a stone. At that moment he: was being fired at by anti-aircraft batteries, the pursuing British machines and the rifles and Lewis guns of the infantry. The crimson Fokker wa» 'torn to pieces by the impact witli the earth, but Richthofen remained in his seat—dead.

Of all the stories of the mystic East, with its black magic and strange curses on those who handle things which are taboo, none is more strangely sinister than Lord Carna-von-’s defiance of warning tliat to meddle with Tutankhamen’s tomb meant disaster and his ultimate doom. . •

When he went out to the- Valley of the Tombs of the Kings in connection with the Luxor excavations he was told of the ancient belief in a hand of vengeance which guards the rest-ing-place of Egypt’s mighty dead. He smiled.

Nothing would turn him from his ra'.earches. Warned that he was interfering with unknown malignant forces -he scoffed at superstition and went steadfastly ahefld with his work. Soon the- marvellous tomb of Tutankhamen lay open to gaze. Blit the way to it proved a pathway to the grave in more senses than one.

After the tomb bad been, sealed up for the season the Earl developed blood-poisoning, attributed to a mosquito bite in the face. He died soon afterwards.

All Egypt saw in tlio tragedy of his death the mysterious vengeance of the. Pharaohs, and the potency of the age-old curse laid by the- kings upon whoever, should disturb their sleep. When the body of Tutankhamen was revealed to tho>e who entered the tomb, a mark was found on his face. The mark left by the fatal mosquito bite on the face of Lord Camavon was in exactly the sameposition.

Through the tragedy which the unlucky Hope diamond brings upon- its possessors is well known, there has never been any lack of people willing to risk adding their names to the long line of its victims. Throughout its chequered history the blue bauble has brought m its train death, disgrace, -divorce, suicide, sorrow, fatality, murder, and misery.

Murder, madness, suicide, and other misfortunes have pursued its owners from the fateful day when a famous Belgian traveller, M. Tavernnier, sold it to Louis the 14th. Mme de Maintenon, dwelling idealistically in the sunshine of her Royal master’s love and boasting that no woman could supplant her in- his affections, first wore it. From that moment -her power began to wane. Years after the- diamond came into the possession of M. Jaques Colot, who, after selling it to Prince Kanitovski, a Russian, went raging mad and shot himself. Prin«_e Kanitovski lent the jewel to a beautiful actress named Lorena Ladue, who was then p&iTorming amid a shower of idolatry at the Folies Bcrgere, and the first night it sparkled on her neck the Prince- from a box, shot her dead.

So s tory goes on. Every generation finds somebody courageous enough to flaunt the- curse. But always the tragic ill-luck persists.