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

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

Wrecker Mallow slumped low in the leather cushion. The light from the bracket lamp feebly illumi- nated the thin, worn head. Great bushy eyebrows, white as the heavy thatch of hair that crowned the haggard face, veiled luster- less brown eyes, that seemed to look out on the living world as from the soul of a man dead to the present, existing only in the years that had faded. An hour passed, ticked faithfully off by the brass ship’s clock and still the man dreamed on. A mellow stroke like a chime. roused the old adventurer. He stood a mo- ment by the table as if weighed down with heavier stuff than vears, then walked slowly through an inner door that opened directly into his sleeping-room. He took off his coat and with sleeves rolled up to the elbow washed face and hands. The oblong mirror, screwed fast to the wall above the dark teak dresser, reflected a face that was uncommon, strik- ing, not so much in the characteristics it displayed, as in the intensity of its betrayal of the captain’s passing moods. And the dominant expression was not sadness, nor bitterness, nor despair. All these things were there but as back- ground, for before them all, overshadowing every other mood, was complete unutterable loneliness, the loneliness of years, the in- delible stamp of isolation. He undressed slowly and got into pa- jamas and then lay stretched out on the bunk with his thin arms pillowing the back of his head. Tomorrow Jean was coming back to him—was going to step out from the shadow of the years that had gone, as an actor in a dinfly lighted scene suddenly appears from up-stage, mysterious, faintly seen, not to be believed. What had the years done to the mate? Was he old now like the Wrecker, beaten, done with life? Or had he gone on to success, to a com- mand, to ship owning? How the Frenchman would enjoy success! The food, the luxuries, the wine! Aye, yes, the wine. Captain Mallow sat bolt upright. ‘Then he got out of bed. He groped his way through the saloon, down the passage and into the pantry. He opened the locker door and reached in for the two bottles. Safe! He lifted them out one at a time; then satisfied, replaced them in the locker and returned to bed. Wrecker Mallow awoke early, just after the morning sun had flung its first bright rays 133 through the heavy mist that hovered low over the shallow waters. As her owner and one time commander stood on the com- panion stairs, the Wraith seemed more than ever a ghost-ship. Curling tendrils of mistral floated about her dismantled top-side, but for all the effect of the fog and the derelict ship and the ever-present sense of failure in the old man’s mind, there was a song in his heart now, and from his lips came a quavering illusive sound, a fantom of the mighty choruses he had heard his own men roar out, back in the days when he had ruled the destinies of living ships. ‘Bound down to Rio de Janeiro.” And as he sang; he began to work. Soap- powder, scrubber, squeegee. All the long hot forenoon he scraped and cleaned and polished. With the work came surging over him new strength, fresh energy, happiness, for this was the day his old sea-partner was to board the Wraith, was to have an old- time dinner in the cabin, and life was good to give one late favor to a man who had not found it generous of its favors. At five Captain Mallow left a deck which at least from the sea ladder aft was clean and fit for a seaman’s eye. He went below to the pantry and from a locker brought out several lamps which he placed about in the passageway. He opened a door which creaked from long disuse and stumbled into the stateroom that had belonged to the mate. The captain peered around in the gloom, for the light in the passage came very faintly through the open door. He went out and returned with a brass lamp which he set in its bracket above the dresser. Then came clean linen on the bed, hand-towels on the rack,- water in the pitcher; all these things he accomplished, thoroughly, with the painstaking care that — is only given where the heart is given. When the room was made up, Mallow went into the saloon and set the table for two. What an excitement it was to lay out two places where one had forlornly held through so many years! To place smooth soft linen on the dark table and then to arrange the service of heavy silver plate! All of asudden to leap back to what had gone, as if these small details, these niceties of the sea life he had known, had suddenly bridged at a single bound, the chasm of years. Captain Mallow smiled as he looked at the table brightly lighted, with its dull reflection thrown S CORnNICGLOO (C@