Adventure, January 20, 1922 — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

46 ye out o’ storm and peril o’ hanging, and I give ye no more reasons. If ye’re for me, over to larboard wi’ ye. Quick, by Satan! I give scant grace.” ‘‘A pox on’s braggart throat! Gi’ him a dose o’ musket balls,” snarled Bristol Jack, his teeth clenched upon the end of a bandage as he bound up his forearm. ‘Stay where y are till I bind these woundy slits up snug, and we’ll see the color o’ his blood.” Without a word further in warning or threat, Davies touched match to his falcon, and a hellish hail of leaden balls swept the huddled mob amidships. The men scattered like a chaff, a score of them hurled every way about the hatch, the rest glaring affrightedly at the man they had lately derided. | Davies had purposely lessened his pow- der-charges so that bullets which might otherwise surely kill might bruise and wound and with luck let live. At the other falcon Goliath stood silently grim, still puffing on his lighted match. Bristol Jack sat where he was, his band- age dropped, his mouth open, a look of foolish astonishment on his evil face, doubly evil now by reason of a flap formed of half his scalp which a handful of bullets had made and plastered over one eye. The men were too bewildered to remember what Davies had said about taking the larboard side. At a gesture from his chief Goliath blew briskly on his match and approached the gun’s touch-hole with it. “Belay, cappen!” screamed Bristol Jack in frenzy. ‘Which side d’ye say?” “Larboard.” : | The crew jostled each other in their anx- iety to prove their loyalty. Davies laughed scornfully and turned away, never noticing, if he saw, the look of dawning admiration that crept into Steve Carr’s face or the flash of pride that lighted the big dark eyes of Nell Clark. “Go seize Bristol Jack, and hang him in bilboes at the fore yardarm,” he told Goliath, and went below without bestowing another glance upon the subdued rabble in the waist. XVII IN THE cold seas between the Falkland Isles and the tip of the Se continent the Cadiz | staggered heavily against the screaming westerly gale. Great gray seas hissed up to her bows, a this. Adventure delivered their hammer blows and rolled in over her high bulwarks to snatch at the lives of her crew. Already blood, thinned by long weeks of tropic seas and warm breezes, proved useless to maintain warmth in shivering bodies; rum, unlimited and ever at hand, alone kept cowed men from giving up the struggle. “Is the Cape o’ Virgins true land or a bit o’ mariner’s fable?’ grumbled Steve Carr, his eyes reddened and his face cracked through long peering into the storm for the Straits entrance. “If we raise not the land soon the dogs’ll lay down and give up the ghost.” Davies laughed grimly. His own face was drawn and blue from exposure and short rations, for he had not spared him- self. “Tis a real cape, Steve. Just beyond the horizon it lies. As for the rascals for- ward, ’twas well we showed ’em who was _ master before we entered these frozen devil’s seas. I like not this bitter weather myself. A pirate may choose his climate, Steve, as no other seaman may do, and rarely will ye find him in such scurvy discomfort as Small blame to the lads. ‘““Give ’em rum, man; let ’em swim in it; and though they growl and curse and threaten they will work ship and talk only. They don’t forget that falcon’s bite!” ‘And what o’ meat?” cried Steve. ‘‘This ship was provisioned for two months when ye took her. Here we are, more than three months out, and the last cask o’ beef is broached, the water stinks, and 2 “What a croaker it is!’ laughed Davies though his eyes held a cold glitter. ‘Ha’ ye heard aught o’ complaining from Nell Clark? ’s; wounds! Ye’re less of a man than the wench.”’ ‘We sighted the coast twelve days agone, and could ha’ got meat beasts for th’ huntin’.” “Aye, and lost yet more advantage to John Cook. I heard ye frothin’ about the reckoning ye were to have wi’ him, Steve.”’ ‘And reckon wi’ me he shall, by Satan!’ swore Carr flercely. ‘What shall I gain toward a reckonin’ if I starve along o’ the lads because 0’ yer mad haste?” Davies mastered the impulse to quiet Steve as he had quieted others. He hoped for much from the man’s bitterness against John Cook when the event arrived. He licked the brine from his lips and bent his CORMICLOO© S (C@