Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

Forbidden Treasure daughter’s hand and they went into a rough powder between his fingers. ‘‘ Dust to dust,”’ he said, in the same tone. ‘‘The curse lies very heavy on this Vatna Jokull, doesn’t it? And have you ever thought that we have adventured into the blackest wrath of it, identifying ourselves with the forbidden search for the forbidden treasure? I wonder when they will say of each of us—‘ yesterday he was alive’!” He looked from one to the other, his pale lips smiling forcedly. Then Nora put a hand on her father’s arm and laughed a bit nervously. “‘Why, you are really quite im- pressive in the carrying on of the torch, father!” she said. ‘‘One would think the days of curses were still with us.” Berwind nodded and smiled. “It would seem so to any man who was still a climb and a row away from that hot breakfast, Miss Nora.”? His sharp eyes had not over- looked the impression this slight episode had made upon his patient. gis THE descent was immediately begun Batu ond the five of them made their slow way down the lip of the fissure with- out accident or indeed dangerous hazard. The Captain had no sooner set foot upon the beach than he was surrounded by the sailors from the boat, talking now earnestly, now apathetically, of the new situation that con- fronted them, looking into his face with the intense trust of children as they waited for his answers and remarks. It was evident that the Captain had won control of the crew, however little he may have succeeded in ingratiating himself with the owner’s guests. Stuart watched the pantomime with interest. “I dare say,” he remarked quietly to Berwind, “‘that it is just as well the treasure story was a hoax.” “I will try to:make myself believe it, if you will give ‘me a good reason,” replied the Doctor gloomily. “Simply that to divorce our interests at this time from those of that crew would be dangerous indeed.” Rubbish!” said Berwind. ‘Divorce, is it? My dear fellow, the bonds of holy matri- mony are easily broken, it would seem, but the fetters of the ice-floe from Greenland are a different matter. I don’t consider your reason a good one and I shall go on cherish- ing my disappointment.”’ After a moment he added slowly, almost as if apprehensive of ridicule, ‘‘Do you 1027 know, Stuart, I can’t help feeling that the treasure is there just the same?”’ “Of course you can’t! Neither can I. That is just the mule stubbornness of hope. But we have seen with our own eyes that it is not there and little by little we will come to believe it.” | “Unless the vengeance of the Archangel descends upon us first, as Mr. Lee says,” returned the Doctor. “Ah, who’s afraid?” said Stuart with a boyish laugh. . Later indeed, after the hot breakfast, Stuart, with his pipe between his teeth and a sense of physical contentment strong upon him, betook himself to the starboard rail to: torture himself with the view of the Mountain of Sigurda. The infernal cold, as Mr. Lee had inaptly called it, was as searching as ever, but he liked the keen wind on his face, and the rest of him was so protected with warm furs and hot coffee that he would have gone into a blizzard without a murmur. From the bow came an unusual sound of laughter and the loud click of mallets. A glance forward served to arouse Stuart’s surprise, and a vague sense of uneasiness. The sailors who had evidently taken ad- vantage of the overnight absence of the authorities to appropriate the shuffleboard set, had plainly not thought it worth while to cover this breach of discipline even by a tardy restitution. The stocky form of Grim- son, the second mate, was bent in careless exertion over his mallet. Two or three of the sailors, pipe in mouth, were waiting their turns, while against the rail, in a pose of indescribable jauntiness, leaned the chief steward, the handsome red-headed Cockney Bill Levine, who had from the first day been Stuart’s special detestation. Thisfeeling was at the present moment in no wise remedied by the fact that from the fellow’s wide open mouth came, in rolling though untutored barytone, the little song so identified in Stu- art’s mind with Nora Lee: “Down she kyme as w’ite as milk, A rowse in ’er bosom as soft as silk.”’ ‘What infernal impudence!” said Mark Stuart to himself. Yet it was not his yacht —not till life and death were involved could the conduct of Mr. Lee’s employees become his business. So with a firm effort of will he turned his back and put his thoughts reso- lutely to his own affairs. The smoke, rising from the bowl of his © CloO@LKS C©