Adventure Magazine Cover — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

Yellow Men and Gold knife, and a revolver whose mainspring turned out to be broken, were found about them; and in Kelsey’s watch-pocket a small bottle labeled spirits of lavender. Bessie was about to heave this overboard, but Carmen begged for it, saying that it was a well-known and harmless remedy for insom- nia, and that she stood in great need of something of the kind. I think she spoke in good faith. “But,” said Bessie, “how do you know it’s what the label says?” Carmen uncorked the bottle, and sniffed at the contents, then broke suddenly into one of her rare and animated smiles. “Vou tell by that-a smell,” said she. And she recorked the bottle and thrust it into her bosom. “It’s my hands,” she said, nodding brightly; “‘they keep-a me awake. They have a what-you-call-him.”’ “Rheumatism?” I suggested, and she nodded. “Tt’s this cold, damp climate,” I said, “you poor soul!” “Ves,” she said, “here it is too fraish for my poor bone.” CHAPTER XXV CARMEN GIVES ADVICE He’ often, during the next days of appalling labor for all hands, did I envy Carrol, Kelsey, Brandreth and Swigot, in comfortable bondage, each with a pillow to his head, reclining in the warm galley and resting from wickedness! Standing and contemplating the great mass of treasure on the cliff for the first time was, I think, the most delightful and thrilling occupation upon which I was ever engaged; and I could have spent a month turning over the pieces, admiring this ad- mirable golden bowl, battered as it was; or piecing together the ancient Peruvian wainscoting and laying it in order (like the parts of a picture-puzzle) upon some level space of sand; or I could have looked by the hour into the heart of one ice-green emerald, and by the hour into the heart of the next. Or I could turn away from the glisten- ing, tarnished heap, losing my vision in the distances of the snow-capped mountains and flying hand in hand with the imagina- tion to the active centers of civilization; there to see myself play the nabob, the 619 philanthropist, the friend of the poor; my yacht should be white and tall upon the blue waters of Long Island Sound; my houses should stand wherever skies are bluest and nature is most grateful to the helping hand. I imagined in terms of hun- dred-acre lawns and marble stables. Or better, and less personally, I dreamed that I should do something noble with my money, of great good to the many, endur- ing and free from taint; though just what that should be I was admittedly unable to specify. In short, like every other natural man in this world, I wanted the pleasure and the ease and the picturesqueness of great wealth without any of the labor. I wanted to sit upon the cliff and play with the mu- seum pieces of the treasure, and guess the value they would bring in the market. But after one hour of it exactly, I did not want to be one of the pack-mules that must carry the stuff like so much coal and help store it aboard the Shantung. Do you know that sixty pounds of gold is no easier to carry than sixty pounds of offal, and is heavier upon the shoulders of a man than the whole of his sins? But such is the fact. And when you get under your load for the twentieth time in one day, and the straps of your pannier settle themselves into the raw furrows on your shoulders; and when, after a heavy stumble, the sixty pounds hits you a concentrated jarring bump upon the spine, then, indeed, you begin to understand the woes of the rich. And the woes of the rich are just as woful as the woes of the man who dynamites them. And this, having moved upon my own shoulders more than a ton of bullion in two days’ time, I myself am prepared to certify, laying, if requested, my right hand truthfully upon the Book. When at last it came to moving the sil- ver—and this was of problematical value owing to the depths to which it was bitten by tarnish and destroyed, I struck work. Cold as was the wind and the drizzle, I stripped off my coat and shirt, and in- structed Jili (who, ever since I had gone as an exchange for Lichee, had been very ten- der with me and thoughtful of my comfort) as a committee of one to examine my shoul- ders. He reported them unfit for work, and . though at a pinch I might have carried one more load (consisting of nothing less valu- COMMICOOCKKS. EO