Adventure Magazine Cover — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

814 holding his breath, not daring to move, felt that at last an encounter was at hand. Was it one, or three?’ He set his teeth. Now it came again—in the gangway—it was on the stair—the soft pad of a naked foot on the step! It would be foolish and extravagant to say that the third mate was unacquainted with fear. But to fight in the open, to see your antagonist, to anticipate in clear daylight the movements of the adversary whom you are to kill, or by whom you are to be killed, is one thing. To crawl into a black hole, with the intention of engaging, not one man but three barbarians; to be, not only out- numbered, but rendered impotent by ob- scurity; wil:ingly to run the imminent risk of being approached on three sides at once by invisible assassins, every shadow a shape, every sound a menace, yet to turn your back resolutely upon the open way of escape—in a word, to put yourself in the way of being completely and summarily cut into bits without being able to see your assailant— that is quite another matter. The third mate, when he heard the step on the stair, felt the hair rise on his scalp. Nevertheless he advanced toward the sound. Before he could reach his weapons they were knocked clattering to the floor. With a grunt of defiance, Clough reached for a cutlass and, thrusting with all his strength into the obscurity, ran the blade through the body of the savage who had ventured below. He heard: the Kanaka’s cutting-spade drop to the floor; he drew the steel out, would have thrust again, but the heathen, and without making a sound, leaped into a clinch with the ferocity and swiftness of a wild animal. Grappling and clawing at his assailant, the third mate went down under the impact of his body like an ox under the assault of a tiger. There was a fight on the cabin floor. Writhing in each other’s embrace, rolling over and over, clawing at each other’s throats, the two, the white man and the savage, fought it out like two beasts. the details of that strange fracas Clough could never remember much; but he never forgot the heathen’s rank breath in his face, the hot blood that gushed over his body, nor the terrible eyes, like twin emeralds in the dark, like the eyes of a cat, that glared into his face without blinking and were inde- scribably malignant. Of Adventure He had come aboard to fight for the ship. He found himself fighting for his life. He was in the clutches of a beast. He himself became a beast. Once the black clutched him by the throat; he thrust his thumb into one of those cat-eyes and forced him to loose his hold. A dozen times the third mate strove to get in a thrust from the side. As often the negro intercepted the blow, seized the weapon by the hilt or clutched the naked steel in his hands and tried to wrest it from his grasp. Always afterward Clough con- tended that that barbarian could see in the dark, The fight resolved itself into a struggle for the cutlass. The third mate was becoming tired; the black, on the other hand, was . becoming exhausted. At last, he hardly knew how, the white man turned his antag- onist, pinned him to the floor and put his knee upon his chest. He felt the fierce body quiver under his weight. He jabbed once with the cutlass, taking out one of his eyes. He pushed the blade against his neck with both hands—tried to cut off his head; the heathen clutched the steel, cutting his hands, Then at last the negro breathed heavily in the darkness, lay inert; his knuckles struck against the floor. The third mate loosed his weapon, his eyes starting from his head, the breath whistling through his nos- trils; covered with gore, he reeled to his feet. It was a ruse—the fellow was on his feet at the same instant, swinging the cut- lass. Even as Clough groped for the other cutlass his right arm was slashed to ribbons. In that moment the third mate thought he was lost. But in his turn the Kanaka dropped the weapon. He fell forward on his face, rolled over like a gaffed whale, gagged audibly in the darkness and lay still. The fight was over. It had lasted perhaps five minutes. ‘““One!”’ said the third mate aloud, and took in his hands the musket. fk ALREADY some one was running ( F along the deck, calling back in the — night. As in a dream Clough saw the fellow silhouetted against the light in the gangway in the act of throwing a cutting- spade. He pulled the trigger, and even as the gun roared, the iron tore through the fleshy part of his left arm, bringing a torrent of blood. But in the flash of the discharge he saw the face of the savage, the eyes pro- COmiclbook (©