Adventure Magazine Cover — page 78: what you’re looking at

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

ne < > MI Vaan ¥ Sie apr , wan ey : “rt 1 a : #, : Pr 5 at - ‘7 a La) *) z The Prize | 7 hand, on his right and also under guard but unpinioned, mademoiselle sat hunched upon a hillock of sand. Levasseur was addressing M. de~La Place, speaking to him in French. “So that there may be no misunder- standing, let me recapitulate,” he was saying to young La Place with mock suavity. “Your ransom is fixed at twenty thousand pieces of eight, and you shall have liberty upon your parole to go to Tortuga to collect it. I will provide the means to convey you thither. Your father should not consider that an excessive sum to pay for the life and liberty of his only son and for the dowry of his only daughter. Indeed, if anything I am too modest, pardt.” M. de La Place raised his head, and looked the captain straight between the eyes. “TJ refuse—utterly and absolutely. So do your worst, and be —— for a filthy pirate.”’ Levasseur laughed carelessly. himself well in hand this morning. “You will not persist in your refusal,” said he. ‘But I must warn you that should you give me your parole under stress and afterward play me false I shall know how to find and punish you; also, should you forget to return with the dowry you’ll not consider it unreasonable that I may forget to marry your sister. You'll bear in mind that meanwhile her honor remains in pawn to me.” M. de La Place cast a wild glance at mademoiselle, and observed the gray de- spair that had almost stamped the beauty from her face. Disgust and fury swept across his countenance. Then he roused himself, and answered resolutely: _ “No, you dog! A thousand times, no!” Levasseur’s fingers had been busy tying knots in a length of whipcord. He held He had itupa moment. “You know this? It is a rosary of pain that has wrought the conversion of many a stubborn heretic. It is capable of screw- ing the eyes out of a man’s head by way of helping him to see reason. As you please.” He flung the length of knotted cord to one of the negroes,who in an instant made it fast about the prisoner’s brows. Then between cord and cranium the black _ Inserted a short length of metal, round and slender as a pipe-stem. That done, he rolled his eyes toward Levasseur, awaiting the captain’s signal. Levasseur considered his victim, and beheld him tense and braced, his haggard face of a leaden hue, beads of perspiration glinting on his pallid brow just beneath the cord, Mademoiselle cried out and would have risen; but her guards restrained her, and she sank down again moaning. “T beg that you will spare yourself and your sister,” said the captain, ‘‘by being reasonable. What after all is the sum I have named? To your wealthy father a bagatelle. I repeat, I have been too modest. But since I have said twenty thousand pieces of eight, twenty thousand pieces of eight it shall be.” ©) you asked twenty thousand pieces of eight?” In execrable French, but in a voice that was crisp and pleasant, seeming to echo some of the mockery that had invested Levasseur’s, that question floated over their heads. Startled, they looked up and round; and on the crest of the dunes behind them in sharp silhouette against the deep cobalt of the sky they beheld the tall, lean figure and tawny face of Captain Blood. He was scrupulously dressed in black with silver Jace, a crimson ostrich plume curled about the broad brim of his hat affording the only touch of color. “AND for what, if you please, have Launching himself upon the yielding sand, | into which he sank to the level of the calves of his fine boots of Spanish leather, Cap- tain Blood came sliding erect to the beach. He was followed by Wolverstone, the one- eyed giant, and a dozen others. He doffed his hat with a flourish to the lady. “Good morning, captain, ” said he, in English now; and he explained his presence. “Twas last night’s hurricane. We had no choice but to ride it with stripped poles, and it drove us back the way we had gone. Moreover—bad ’cess to it!—the Santiago sprang her mainmast; so we’ve put into the cove on the west of the island. But who are these?” And he designated the man and the woman. “Voilal’’ said Cahusac pregnantly. 9) Eomichooks.co