Adventure Magazine Cover — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

634 writing ‘Tekel-Upharsin’ after his name on the register of the Hotel du Monde in Paris—had given me the $50,000 gold in Havana to do the work with and he was to have the schooner and men ready. I did not know who was the candidate and would not know till Willemstadt. “TT WAS a January night and cold and wet. The men came aboard in fives and sixes up to the number of ninety, nearly all recruits off the park benches, and about midnight we were ready to ease out into the stream. I had given orders to let go, when I heard voices up the dock and running feet. ‘““Everybody was below. All lights were out and I jumped to the plank, a machete in my hand. ‘““ *Stop! Abie, stop! Please don’t make it!’ I heard some one say out of breath. From the sounds there was one man chasing another down the dock. “Twill make it! Vy not?’ answered the first man. “Then the second man caught him and tried to hold him. ‘“* “Let me go, Joey, I have got to make it a soocide!’ ‘““ “Please not to do it, Abie!’ “But Abie jumped and pulled Joey with him. Instead of hitting the water they landed about eight feet down on the tar- paulins, lines and bitts of the port quarter of the Fortuna and, kicking and fighting, rolled over and over on the deck. “The mate did the proper thing. He threw a tarpaulin over them to smother the noise and dropped them down the hatch. It sounded too much like a piece of shanghai to suit a quiet, home-loving filibuster like me. A fuss like that would have brought a watchman or a policeman in no time. I did not have any time to investigate just then and it was only when we were safe beyond Scotland light, about daylight, that I went below to see who our two recruits were. “T don’t often get a good laugh, but I did that morning. Still half rolled in the tarpaulin, they were fast in each other’s arms, asleep like the babes in the wood. Nature had been too strong for all their fears, but to avoid being stolen away from each other they had tied their suspenders together in impossible knots. ‘“ “Here you, wake up!’ I yelled at them, Adventure tickling their noses with a frayed rope’s- end. They were two little red-headed, smooth faced, much freckled Russian Jews, just such as you can find in regiments in Rutgers Park. Both were dressed in their best of light checked suits, and a flower much mussed and withered was in one’s lapel. ‘“ “What are yournames? Wakeup. An- swer me.’ ‘The one in the green suit was hit with the trembles and tried to crawl under the tarpaulin, but I yanked him back by his heels. The other rolled his eyes, scared to death, but he could talk: ““Oh, gentleman, oh, Mister Pirate, please not to hurt Joey!’ ‘€ “Joey who?’ ‘Joseph Berkintowitz, my brutter.’ ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Abraham Berkintowitz, please, and I am his brutter.’ ‘* ‘Oh, each is the other’s brother. How nice. Say, what did you mean by jumping on this boat last night just as we were sailing?’ ‘“ “Oh, and please make it not to be mad, Mister Pirate. Him and me was to my vedding and ven I comes by getting her vedding dowry, six hundred dollars is it, her fadder he makes me a note by t’ree fifty, and my brutter was so sad forme he makes it a soocide, but ve fell across ven ve make a fall down at the vatter and ve fall over on you, Mister Pirate.’ “Tm not a pirate. I am a soldier. This ship is loaded with men going to war and now that you are here you must go along.’ “Ve go to var! Ve don’t vant to look at it.’ “You are not to look at it. You are going to help with the chores on battle days.’ ‘* “Battle! battle! Abie and me got to be varriors and get shooted! J’/] make it a resignation if Abie don’t.’ “But you can’t resign. We didn’t ask you to jump on thisship. We didn’t know you didn’t want to go along and be heroes and fight, bleed and die for liberty, glory and bags full of gold.’ “How much gold does a warrior get if he bleeds but don’t die?’ he asked. “That gave me a glimmer of an idea to have some fun, and of all the ideas I ever had there was never one that I ought not 6¢ 6¢ 74 COMmMICLOOCKS. CO