Adventure, June 1911 — page 109: what you’re looking at

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

Denny the Rat on the water. By peering out of a small window he could see the lights of the city gradually fade from view. Several times they passed ships anchored in the roadway and he strained his lungs to make them hear his cry for help, but none answered. The wind roughly threw the words back in his face, as contemptuously as he had listened to his victims’ cries. There was something malicious about the way it forced his breath back on him, something malicious and yet disdainful, as though he were of no more account than a withered Autumn leaf. Later, by the dangerous rocking of the little craft, he knew they were out on the ocean. Swift-driven foam cut his cheeks; spume and the fear of death forced him back to a corner where he squatted close to the floor. His twisted lips drew back over his yellow teeth for all the world like a rat ina trap. Why any one should want to kidnap him he did not know, but, remem- bering the wrongs he had done in the past, Denny was afraid. | ~@3 AT.TWELVE o’clock the catboat came to anchor. His captor de- scended and, having first taken his weapons, bound his eyes and led him on deck. ‘Then he felt himself being lifted over the side. The water crept from his knees to his waist, from his waist to his shoulders. It was cold and he cried out egain and again. With the water lapping his neck, the inexorable pressure down- ward was withdrawn. He found himself resting easily in the water, supported by his hands on the gunnel. The bandage was whipped from his eyes and Denny the Rat found himself confronted with a face he had condemned to a ten years’ death! He did not cry out again; his tongue was - glued to the roof of his mouth, his brain lay dormant. In the minute they looked into each other’s eyes he could think of nothing but the change wrought in the countenance above him. The sharp features, clean-cut as a thoroughbred’s, had broadened and coarsened. In place of the cool tolerance through which Larry had viewed the world there was a bigoted passion for one idea. The lips were as thin as before, but the years of imprisonment had straightened their bow. If anything, they curved downward with a cruel sweep. Wrinkles of laughter had been replaced by creases of suffering, the unnecessary suffering that sours the 295 heart:* Between them, Denny and the prison had achieved a miracle—they had turned a man into a beast. “Denny,” said Larry at length, and the Rat trembled more at the sound of that half-forgotten voice than he had at the touch of the cold water, ‘‘here is where you and I square accounts. If I punished you as you deserved, you’d die by slow tor- ture. Drowning is an easy death, they say.”’ He clutched the thin shoulders and, twisting him fiercely around, pointed to some lights in the distance. “That is shore,” said Larry. “It is three miles away and you can’t make it in this sea. You swim on and on and on. At first it won’t be so hard, but later with every stroke you will sink lower in the water. Your arms will weaken first, then your legs. You will turn on your back and float, but always you will grow weaker. Every second of the time you will think. You'll remember each time you have seen me from the first to the last. You will recall I always treated you square. The faces of the men you have knocked on the head will haunt you and then, my dear friend Denny, water will creep up and into your mouth! You will sputter and strug- gle, maybe even scream a little. Your chest will split with agony and then, dear, dear Denny, you will go down, down to hell where you belong!” He thrust the Rat’s hands off and, lying flat downward on the deck, watched the swimmer being swallowed up in the dark- ness. While he was still a vague blot on the water, Larry made a trumpet with his hands and called after him, ‘‘And remem- ber, Denny, the Baltic sails to-night!” As for Denny he swam easily and chuckled to himself at the thought of what | a great fool Larry was. Three miles to shore! Hadn’t he seen the lights them- selves? Three miles in a rough sea was nothing to one born on the docks. Prison had crazed Larry; there was no other ex- planation. When he landed he would buy dry clothes, have Billy McShane, now a sergeant, arrest his enemy and he, the Rat, would live long and prosper. HE SWAM for an hour, pleased with these thoughts, then, rearing high in the water, looked toward the lights. In spite of the distance he had come they looked no nearer. The night must be COMmMicloookkSs.G©