Adventure Magazine Cover — page 174: what you’re looking at

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

166 She made a row of crosses under her letter, kisses from beyond the sea; and bade him not be lonely. She would soon be home. AT SYDNEY two of the hands de- Yg— serted and had to be replaced. On ‘8. the day she went to sea the new hands came aboard. There was a little man with a battered sun-downer on his head, a faded red shirt and a pair of dun- garees so patched and mended that scarce a ioot of the original was left, what with red patches, and with blue patches, and bits of canvas at the knees. He wore a wide leather belt with a big brass buckle in front of it, to hold him together, and came aboard bare-footed; a twisted blackened old pipe between his bearded lips. The other was a man named Bock, a German, from the slums of Hamburg; over six feet tall; a man with immense arms and legs, and a terrific chest; with a vellow, pock-marked face, and red-rimmed watery eyes. They came over the gangway together, carrying the old man’s sea-chest-—a great box built of camphor wood; something that the old fellow had traded for or bought or maybe stolen from a sailor’s boarding-house; or that had maybe been given to him by a drunken, or by a dying sailor. It was covered all over with paintings of square riggers under sail, and with crossed flags; and for handles had rope grummets, par- celed and served, made maybe, in the dog- watch, on the line or in the trades—or maybe in the fo’csle of a ship hove to off Stiff. Bock carried his dunnage slung over his shoulder in a long white canvas sack that somehow looked like a sailor all sewn up and readv for his burying, the way it hung, limp and lifeless, across the back of the man who bore it. Half-way across the gangway the old man stayed to rest, letting his end of the sea-chest down. Bock shouted at him, leering down upon him from his red- rimmed watery eyes. “Come along, old Blood-and-bruises!”’ he said. The little man looked up at Bock, and down at his patched dungarees—patches of red and of black upon the old faded blue. “Aye, that’s right. Blood an’ bruises it is. You follow the sea long enough, an’ you'll be Blood-an’-bruises too.”’ Adventure The mate called to them— “Get forward there.” And the two sailors, answering, “‘Aye, aye, sir,” lifted the camphor wood sea- chest and bore it forward to the fo’csle; the men in the fo’csle greeting them with curious glances, nodding toward the empty bunks. “Skipped, did they?” asked Bock. ‘Starved an’ buried at sea, m’lad—same as you'll be. Ain’t grub enough aboard this here packet to feed such a one as you.” Bock turned to the little man. “Come on, old Blood-and-bruises,”’ he said, “get this old ditty-box out of the gentlemen’s way.” They all laughed, looking at the little man; and putting the sea-chest down, he turned to them. “Ave! You'll be Blood-an’-bruises too, if vou follows the sea long enough,” he said. ‘Skipper got his wife aboard?” asked Bock. “The owner’s daughter. ’Ow ’d you like to be the mate?’ said Billings. Bock leered at him, his yellow teeth show- ing through parted lips. From the deck the mate’s voice called. ‘Loose the tops’ls—four hands aloft. Man the windlass.’”’ And they hurried to the deck. Once more the bark was heading toward the open sea. Moses, on the poop, beside Nance, rubbed his elbows; stiff with rheumatism; looking over the boom-end, as if trying to see home, bevond the sea. There was a beam wind, and the hands came aft to haul the spanker out; Bock and Billings staying to set the gaff tops’l after the others had gone. Bill- ings, climbing into the mizzen shrouds, to go aloft, bent down toward Bock, whis- pering——— ‘“‘T wisht I was the mate,” and Bock guffawed, leering at Nance, standing with her back toward them, forward, at the break of the poop. They gave the Fancy Nan all sail, and she burrowed her rail under, drenching the hands with a spray as they gathered aft at eight bells. At supper that evening Nance asked the skipper— “How many days to Frisco, Mr. Tat- tersall?”’ And looking at her, seeming to listen to the cry of the wind on deck, he answered— “My last voyage, Miss Dowser—my last voyage must be a fast one, eh?” (C@ DOOLK S ©