Adventure Magazine Cover — page 139: what you’re looking at

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

Micky’s Marquis “Cissy? ‘I know not ziz Cissy!” the Marquis answered, twisting free from Big Bill’s grip with suspicious ease. “I am not ze boy, messieu. Skimps shall bring ze ’ash, yes. Iam ze able seaman. ‘Tra- la-la!’? And he spun away singing and snapping his fingers nonchalantly, while a titter went up from the curious crowd that provoked Chivers to fury. With an oath he lurched forward, “aimed a savage punch at the Marquis, and missed. Recovering himself, as the French- man turned upon him in bland surprise, the big fellow swung his sea-booted foot and kicked the small man viciously on the thigh. The next second the forecastle crowd scattered back in amazement; for, instead of running away, or even crying for help, the Marquis turned pale, his lips drew into a thin red line, and he faced Bill, poised on one foot, hands ‘held loosely at his sides, the other leg swinging from the knee down- wards like a stocking on a clothesline in a gale of wond. Before Big Bill could wholly recover his balance after his vicious kick, the Marquis shot out his own free “foot like a serpent’s stroke, and his heel took the bully under the chin and sent him headlong over the scuttlebutt. “Zere! Peeg-dog!” panted the Marquis, and as suddenly as his anger had risen he cooled, trotted nimbly up the ladder and lighted a cigaret while waiting for the delayed supper hash. But Big Bill was not content. He picked himself up, whipped his belt around, bringing his sheath-knife to hand, and blundered up the ladder after the Marquis, cursing horribly. Men stood. aside and let him go, and until his knife flashed clear as he leaped through the scuttle the Marquis seemed to be threatened with cold murder at his back. But sight of steel aroused Micky Donlin. Like a sleek cat he sprang up the ladder, caught Big Bill’s knife-wrist in a wrenching grip, and flung the big man bodily over against the fife-rail, where he fell heavily, his knife clattering into the lee scuppers. “Ve dirthy heathen!’ Micky said with- out heat. “It’s wan o’ thim knife butchers ye are, Is ut?” “He kicked me! The pink-faced shrimp kicked me!” roared Bill, rising slowly and early in the voyage for men to have found their separate levels. Nobody had yet told Bill that he was not to be cock of the forecastle; and Micky didn’t look so very big in the evening dusk. ‘Kicked ye, did he?” soothed Micky in silken tones. ‘‘Arrah! Whin did ye ’arn a right to use the boots widout paymint? Didn’t ye kick him foorst? Say, big felly, I can’t fight; I niver licked a poshtage stamp widout payin’ fer ut; I’d shtand- fer tales ov h’athen, Gawd bless um! takin’ sunsthroke fer want o’ woolen shirts as I knowed our dacint captain has in his slop chist; but Oi’m hungry as th’ divil, and ye’re sthoppin’ me food. Let’s ate, f’r Big Bill cut short the argument.by a sud- den stumbling rush and a wild punch that caught Micky unawares and hurled him back through the forecastle hatch into the midst of the gaping crew. Following fast, and bent upon wickedness, Big Bill reached the forecastle floor two jumps_ behind Micky, and that was as far as he got, con- sciously. Pé7 a HE REACHED bottom to come : we wa face to face with a smiling, blood- mies smeared devil, who seemed pos- sessed of as many arms as an octopus, and each arm terminated in a hard, willing, utterly capable Irish fist, driven by the force animating a heart that had never missed a beat through fear. Micky made a clean job of that first encounter: or rather a complete job; for when at last a subdued but secretly ex- ultant Skimps set the hash kid on the table Big Bill was swabbing his battered face in a bucket of salt water under the hatch, while his mates unostentatiously turned blankets and other personal gear bloody side down, pleased that the cock of the forecastle had been found and established . thus early on in the voyage, but quietly cursing him for spilling so-much of Bill’s gore down below instead of taking it on deck. Big Bill allowed Micky’s supremacy to go unchallenged for a long time after that first sea day, but that didn’t prevent his own sly bullying of weaker members of his own watch. As a seaman he was perhaps the best of a bad lot, outside of Micky Donlin, and that and his great brute strength, and a peering doubtfully at Micky. It was too» measure of courage too, made him leader CORNICOOOKS 133. (E@)