Adventure Magazine Cover — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

Forbidden Treasure dismasting her, and made toward the in- hospitable shore. ‘‘Here, Svéatur,” he shouted through the clanging air, “take this oar! Go to the bow!”’ The man shook his head in thick and sullen incomprehension, till with his free hand Stuart thrust the oar into the fellow’s grasp. For the moment, so invincible seemed the Icelander’s reluctance to land, it appeared possible that a struggle might ensue. Svéatur, however, moved obedi- ently, albeit sullenly, to the bow with his two companions, but it was not until the steersman, putting the boat’s nose through the long rollers that swung obliquely about the lee side of the shallow headland, forced the seamen to flight for their lives that they condescended to understand his orders. Beneath the cloud of scared and scream- ing eiders, dislodged by their coming, they dragged their flat-bottomed boat up over the black lava-grit into the shelter of the overhanging gully. This work, together with the furling of the sails and the pitch- ing of the tent, was performed by the men with so black and open an unreadiness that Stuart’s tingling hand went back more than once to the pocket beneath his oilers, where lay the irrefutable argument of his revolver. To-night he shared his dainties with his men instead of leaving them to the strips of dried fish and slabs of hangi which formed their usual fare. They swallowed the un- usual luxuries with voracity, and Stuart, smiling at his own unaccustomed subtlety, prayed- that this primitive womanly per- suasion to which he had reverted might find its effect in a renewed docility in the morning. The men, still whispering together, hud- dled in their sheepskin bags. The drift- wood supply was scanty, the fire burned low. The roar of the pounding rollers seemed only to make articulate the death- like silence of the place. To the eastward the glare of the volcanic vent flamed like a blast-furnace. Behind their camping- place, below the lava-ridge of the beach, bubbled the cauldron of a gigantic mud- puff. Though its sulphurous steam had a far from agreeable odor, its yellow-gray mire exhaled a comfortable warmth. Stuart, dabbling his half-frozen fingers back to life, considered the shadowy and gigantic outlines before him with a triumph oddly mingled with awe. Was this desolate place perhaps the very spot on whose once 847 verdant slopes the Olafsens had plucked their grapes? Was this perhaps the length of shore on which the Viking ship with her cargo of accursed treasure had been dashed to her fore-prayed destruction? And that treasure itself, with its legendary quality like that of the upas-tree of blasting all life and growth within its radius—was it possible that even now, by some stray whim of chance, it lay unknown and undiscover- able within reach of his hand? CHAPTER XIV ALONE ON THE VATNA JOKULL HOROUGHLY exhausted as he had been by the unusual amount of labor he had been forced to undertake the pre- vious day, Mark Stuart woke slowly the following morning. He lay with his eyes open, the flap of the sleeping-bag pushed from his face, staring at the sky and won- dering at thecold. Then slowly the memory of what had happened stirred in his drowsy brain, itself like a sleepy thing in a warm nest. He was on the shore of the Vatna—and had had some difficulty in getting there as well! The cold air on his face had hastened the process known as the collecting of wits, and he became conscious as well of the awaken- ing of a dormant but undeniably healthy appetite. Pulling his arms free of the en- veloping bag, he sat himself up. He looked at the glittering, pale, icy sea, washing more placidly between the black walls of the fiord. He looked to the left of him where the fire had been built. He looked to the right where his box of pro- visions had been opened for the unusual feast of the night before. With a sudden wild wrench of his body he tore himself free of his sleeping-bag and leaped to his feet. A loud call burst from his mouth and throat. The cry was taken up and echoed back and forth between the high barren cliffs which hemmed in the inlet. The surf pounded monotonously on the lava beach, and the slow, fat bubbles of the mud-puff burst with a comfortable sound as of steam- ing porridge. Beyond these sounds there was silence—blank and utter silence! Stuart was not the man given to frantic and useless doings in the moment of crisis. He did not call aloud again. But a sudden Comicbook CO