Adventure Magazine Cover — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

28 in Bristol back of the water-front or off the heath,” he added in a tone suddenly brisk with authority. ‘‘Nor do we do business with such as you. I'll warrant you have stolen goods for barter. Off with you, you scurvy rascal, before we hale you before the justice on suspicion. We deal not with highwaymen—or with water pirates,’ he concluded meaningly. Lindsay was still thumbing his nostrils delicately with the snuff, looking at Avary in the same half-tolerant manner. Hutton pulled a cord, and a bell jangled, ‘Send me the porter,” he told the answer- ing clerk. ‘You put a bold front on, my man. It is lucky for you you have not told me your affairs, or my oath of office might constrain me to detain you and look into your record. I should advise you, for your own good and that of Bristol, to leave this city with all dispatch. Overseas—that is the place for you.” | The porter in his leather jacket, formida- ble, aggressive, appeared, touching his forelock. ‘See this fellow off the premises, Peter,” ordered Hutton. Avary in extremity found his voice. “You—you order me to leave?” he choked. ‘You and your partner there?”’ “This gentleman is not my partner,” an- swered Hutton composedly. “And I give you very excellent advice. Peter.” The husky porter laid a compelling hand on Avary’s shoulder. “Best be easy,” he whispered. them’s a magistrate. like a wise man,”’ “One of Now out with you, AVARY emerged on the street iA) panting and with his eyes wild as those of a hunted, homeless, hungry dog. He had his guineas, but these were his last.. Murder welled up within him, sank again. His spirit was broken. Fear held him. These cold-blooded merchants had out- pirated him. They could send him to the callows, accuse him of having offered gems, even show some of his as evidence, claiming to have told him to return while they set the machinery of justice in motion. And there was the false friend he had choked. He too was a treacherous hound. There had been something in his face at parting that meant retaliation. Avary had been cozened, undone. Terror mounted to panic. Every man Adventure who looked at him he thought a tipstaff. His cunning prevailed enough to deny him- self liquor for the present. Dread hounded him to the water-front, where he took passage on a trading-hoy to Dublin. From economy he herded in a crowded cabin forward and reached freland stricken with typhus. He came to himself in an attic, lying on a heap of rags, an old hag leaning over him, holding a mirror to his lips. His money was gone. -He had a dim recollection of stum- bling through the streets and gaining this place. Now they had robbed him without redress. He begged harborage of the crone. Bare- ly able to stand, he begged in the streets. Now he was all the scarecrow that Lindsay had seemed to fancy him. One last resolve, faintly colored with hope, remained—to go back to Bristol humbly. He had done amiss in boldly bracing Hutton at his shop. This time he would try to gain audience more covertly. He could surely wring some drop of mercy from them who had made a fortune out of him. To gain England he was forced to work his passage on a vessel bound for Plymouth. He who had lorded it over a fine ship of thirty guns with a crew of fifty jumping to his word, cringed at the curses of the bully- ing skipper of a leaking coaster, dismissed at Plymouth sick and weak, without his wage, for a lazy, useless dog. To make Bristol was impossible. He dragged his way afoot to Bideford. His old lodging was vacant. He summoned the remnants of his cunning and spun a tale of robbery and sickness that his person attest- ed, declaring that a remittance was due, gaining grudging shelter for a night or two. The next morning a bailiff and two tip- staffs pounded on the door of the house for admission in the king’s name. There was a man with them who had been there be- fore—the go-between. The scared landlord fawned upon the officers. ‘“‘Avary—the pirate—in my house? It can not be. It is true this man Saxby re- turned. But he is no pirate. He has not a shilling on him to buy linen for a shroud.” ““A shroud!’ “He died an hour ago, gentlemen. wife is with him to lay him out.” “To rob the body, rogue,” said the bailiff, and pushed past the man. My COMICOOOLKX (C@