Adventure, February 1917 — page 92: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Se ingly. her builder. Z 0 there’s beaches in New Zealand where it’s turned up time and again. Maybe thisis the same sort.” Harold knew what ambergris was; there are few men in the world of the outer Paci- fic ignorant of its value. His small bright _eyes sparkled. - “Good old Dad,” he said. ‘‘What luck to have the place to ourselves like this! You may bet Slade would never have al- © lowed Scratchley to be left i in our charge, if he’d known.”’ “No,” agreed Page. The boat was pushed off. The boys be- gan to row. “T never did like that Ben Slade, ” he said, as they swept round the corner of Silence Bay, and confronted the Pacific. | The boys shipped their oars. The beau- tiful boat leaned over to the shouting wind. _ *Ffe’s a supercilious sort of beast. Does- n’t value a good old English family as he should. It’s true I went to sea as a. kid, but we’re the Pages, and people ought to re- member it.” - _ “Who are the Pages, Dad?” asked Harold lazily. “Why — why —they’re the Pages, of ‘course. Everybody knows all about them,” said the captain vaguely; he had never fined the question down to a point. “Oh,” said Harold; the subject did not ; interest him much. Slade’s whaleboat sailed magnificently with the favoring breeze, and the captain was moved to remark again, this time. before the interested audience presented by Har- old, that red shell never did it. “‘She’s a beaut,”’ he pronounced admir- “Sydney-built, and I could name under a hundred pounds. And if you tell me that red shell——” — “¥ don’t,” said Harold. ‘How far is this __ blessed place you're going to, Dad?” ~ “Why, I judge we’ll get there by about two o’clock. You won’t see it till we’re pretty near. It’s almost awash, according - to the chart.” -. “And how are we going to get back with the wind ahead?” “You ought to be sailor enough to know. Beat, if we have to.” “That means a night out in the boat,” said Harold, looking almost ready to cry. “Maybe,” replied his father indifferently. “You can have the spare sail to lie on—” *~ ed She was never landed here Adventure softening a little—“‘and that cushion you have will make you a pillow. You won’t be too badly off.” “Tf I’d known what kind of a sleeping- - place I was likely to have tonight, I’d have thought twice——" “Ah well, you ‘ve made your bed and must lie on it,’ ’ said the captain with a feel- ing that he was quite witty. “TY wonder where we’ll be when the sun sets tonight,” said Harold. He was not smiling. He seemed a trifle unlike himself. “Overeaten,”’ thought the captain kindly. He was kind to Harold in little ways, on the whole. The lad was everything he had to “Why,” he said aloud, “that all depends on what we find, and what we do, when we get to this place of Slade’s. If I’m not mis- taken, we’ve sighted it. I told you near two o’clock.”’ He looked through the glass and handed it to Harold. “T think it looks a beastly place,” said the. youth, returning the glass and hump- ing himself up in the stern of the boat. “Well, nobody asked you to come,” snap- ped the captain. EGE The boys, sighting it, poked each cae" other and made the ugly sounds of the deaf and dumb. | “They recognize it, the beggars,” said Page. He gave the tiller into the hand of a native. , “Better let them steer us in,” he pro- nounced. ‘“These passages among the reef love. THEY ran rapidly toward the cay. are no picnic for strangers.”’ The boy steered ably, and headed for the best opening in the reef. It continued ex- ceedingly hot. The sea was like molten Venice glass, just ruffled by the dying breeze; the blues and greens of the reef- » passages seemed to scream at you as you passed. Nobody’s Island lay uk and bare in the pitiless sun; the shadows under the giant bones were blue as shadows in snow. _A gaunt, sun-crackled, wind-beaten place it looked, full of sea-sounds and loneliness. “T don’t like it,” said Harold. ‘TI told you it would be a beastly place.” “Don’t be sulky, son,” said the captain, . giving him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “You were keen enough about coming. EOPMICLOOOKS (C (EO)