Adventure Magazine Cover — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

Plunder stomach and struck his backbone; and im- bedding in the stout muscles, the tip thrust through, showing before the mutineer fell weltering to the deck in a growing puddle of blood. Horton tugged at the weapon to free it, widening the wound, severing the writhing wretch’s entrails. Shipton’s shipmate, the man who had nominated him for quarter- master, came charging with a pike. “You —— murderer!” he shrieked at Horton in a frenzy. “At him, lads. Gut him!” There were others of Shipton’s faction standing irresolute, disposed to take a hand, yet checked by the fall of Shipton. Half a minute had not passed; so swift was the drama that the bulk of the ship’s com- pany watched as if in a maze, or as at a play. The pikeman lunged, charging blindly, sliding, twisting on a clot of blood. Hor- ton’s cutlas whirred up and down, and the pike rang on the planks with its owner’s arms falling lax slashed to the bone, the bone itself nicked and red fountains jetting. Horton whirled about, breathing hard but freely as his lungs came into full play, his face lit with lust of battle. “Who’s next?” They dissolved before him. Two he called back by name. “Pitch the carrion over and mop deck,” he ordered. ‘Take Sime there to the cock- pit and see if surgeon can patch him up. If he mends he can wait table on the fo’csle. He’ll not lift arm again.”’ What was left of Shipton went over- board, a warm and gory corpse. Horton himself picked up the severed hand and tossed it after. He turned to Avary, stand- ing by the rail, his face pale green as he gazed fascinated at the hot, steaming pool of crimson, slowly thickening between scorching plank and hot sun. “Get into your cabin—quick!” he snarled contemptuously. Water rising in his gorge, and Manaus to restrain his qualms, Avary achieved his cabin and his own bunk. There Horton found him giddy and wretched with nausea. “You’ve little stomach for a fight,” he said. “Take a swig of brandy. Here.” Avary waved away the bottle with a limp . ~ hand. “A —— of a pirate, you are!” said Hor- ton as he withdrew. II Presently Avary, relieved from his spasms, essayed to take the mate’s advice. The strong stuff stayed on his empty stomach to his amazement. The fumes permeated him, gave him a sense of hardihood. He drank again and again. Half an hour later he walked out on deck with a gait that was straight enough though inclined to strut a little, with eyes that were set but could see. A man, hurrying forward with a pannikin, bumped into him awkwardly. Out came a volley of oaths. The man turned, stung by an apt simile, anger flaming. The crew had been to the rum- barrel to wipe out the incident, and the sailor was in fractious mood. Avary whipped out a pistol, aimed it without a tremor, marked a spot between the man’s eyes. “Vou dog!’ he said, and barely held a hiccup. “I’d as soon send your black soul to as look at you! Learn to keep clear, you lubber-legged swab. Frown at me, will you? By , T’ll teach you who’s master of this ship!’ The sailor scuttled off, warding with an arm as if to stay the threatened bullet, bearing news of the captain’s tyranny. News that held admiration, and caused it. Avary replaced the pistol with a smile and went to the rail. His head swam a little, his gaze misted; but he shook that off as he had the hiccup. He feared no one now, not even Horton. For he had found his_ bridge. |Ey{ | entirely sober, nor was he ever @@— drunk beyond control. By _ ex- perimentation he found his gage and kept his alcoholic mark as an engineer keeps water in the tube. He tippled steadily, a nip every half-hour through the day. Previous abstinence stood him in good stead. He retained his appetite and kept his stomach filled with food: The chem- istry of his body responded curiously. The liquor stimulated action and etched the release of his will to hair-trigger adjustment. Wine, he found, was a good servant to him; and he took care not to let it become his master. While its effects lasted he no longer feared any man. Sometimes in the early morning he would wake in a nervous reaction, but the handy bottle held panacea. The liquor evoked a sort of devil within FROM then on Avary was never COmiclboooks (C@