Adventure Magazine Cover, February 3, 1921 — page 169: what you’re looking at

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

The World’s Opinion “Days when I was down and out, beach- combing—”’ whereat he flushed and went livid again—“T’ve tried to forget about it. I couldn’t, no matter what I did. It’s respectability that grips a man.” His eyes showed an inward fire battling for life. “Tt’s what the world thinks of you.” As Arnie heard him he recalled him crouching at the wheel like a whipped cur, afraid of every sea, wincing before the hoarse, supernatural clamor aloft, white- lipped with dread in the contemplation of bringing the vessel about. He thought this man a strange one to speak as he did; and then, he thought, not so strange. A beach- comber, eh? Down and out! And here he was gambling for his precious life. “Don’t go worrying what the world thinks of you.”’ Arnie shrugged. “It don’t think anything, ‘most likely. I go by what I think myself, and that’s all.” “Same thing,’ Grant nodded. ‘‘Self- respect, I suppose you’d call it.” His hands on the table-top trembled; he looked very slight and weak and pathetic. ‘‘You’ve got no use for yourself the way you’re going —and you can’t quit dreaming = “Dreaming.” The word tumbled unbid- den out of Arnie’s lips. ‘Seems like there’s something your stonaach wants, but when you eat you don’t feel any better. A lot of music I dream about most. If only I could hear that music I wouldn’t be so lonesome.”’ He stared at the opposite bulkhead, see- ing there the ardent face of Lelona. But he said nothing of this, and presently he got to his feet to fight off the thrumming of his* pulses, the ache beneath his ribs. “Vou talk funny talk,” he grinned. Grant seemed not to hear him. His head was sunk in his arms on the table where his forehead beat with the flinging of the vessel. He was sobbing like a girl. Arnie watched him, a little stupidly, and, spinning round, was up the ladder again. He had been stirred; how deeply, he hated to acknowledge. What would the men think if they had bent an ear to what he had just admitted? Woman’s talk—that was ‘the name for it. But that view of it stumped him also, because Lelona must have laughed outright if he had so unbur- dened himself to her. He gave it up. The air was growing steadily blacker— and more raw. He looked to see if the wind had shifted, shading his eyes with his whole 163 arm to keep the salt spray from blinding him. If the wind veered they were done for; a cross sea they would never survive; it would pound the Jessica to pieces in a few hours, open up weak seams of which she was full, and down to Davy Jones’ locker® with them. No, the gale held in the same quarter, but the sky was black. Wintry weather. Cape weather. Fine particles less moist and more stinging to the flesh whipped his cheeks. It was snowing. And all at once he was thinking of Cap- tain Miant and the Snowbird and the thick pall of snow. Somewhere Captain Miant had reached the coast, he knew now; but at what cost? And that true sailor’s gaunt distress he vividly remembered. “Save the ship!” was the captain’s one supreme prayer. “Save the ship!” Save the ship! And he, Arnie Sondheim, deposed second mate, had saved it. He felt warm with the flooding burst of unreason- able satisfaction the memory inspired— unreasonable—maybe not—if Grant’s funny idea had any foundation. Grant would have it that he had saved the brig for the satisfaction of the world’s opinion of him. He weighed this, half-ashamed of giving it a second thought. All to no use: he made nothing of it. He gave nota what the world thought, what Miant thought, what all the ship-owners In Frisco thought. Grant was making a fool out of him. weet THE immediate necessity was to Rees reach Japes, isolated in his galley = and in constant danger of being swept by the board—he and his blessed galley with him and all his pots and pans and his flowered vest. He began to make forward stealthily. But a huge comber saw him. There was the devil’s glee in its myriad eyes, the voice of dead souls wailing in its voice. It saw him; it lifted up—up—up, hung imminent— and swooped downward. Alertly he responded; up went his hands to grasp a brace and swing himself off the deck out of harm’s way; but he did not touch it. Instead his mild eyes looked straight into that engine of destruction that had no mind of its own, that was far more impotent than he. If he could not fight this senseless, blundering mass without being a monkey, then he must be no better than a monkey, and there was an end of it. Go OOOKS ANC (C@