Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

18 Nancy looked at Captain Jean, but find- ing his eyes averted from hers, and seeing by his attitude that he had done for her all that he could, she realized that she must look now to herself alone for protection. “T can not tell you that,” she answered, “although I can assure you it is one not un- known in France as in England.” D’Ogeron, a handsome man a little under middle age, in Rhinegrave breeches seamed all over with scarlet and silver lace, sleeves whipped with ribbons and cannons of the same fluttering material at his knees, ca- ressed his mustache at this. Then, stepping up to her, he sought to take her by the hand. She drew back quickly, her face flushing a crimson color, her blue eyes flashing. He laughed, a good-natured laugh, and tried to slip his arm about her waist, whereat she sprang across the cabin, and placed the table between herself and him, and so stood there, glaring, her nose quivering with re- sentment, until, as he sought to follow, she found the way clear to the companionway, and springing up, gained the deck, leaving Captain Jean with a grin on his face, and d’Ogeron wearing a flabby smile. The nondescript crowd of passengers were crowded into the waist, lining the rail, gazing with eager eyes upon the island, and watching the crowd of ragged and tat- tered men who had flocked down to the beach, where they stood about in groups, repaying all their curious glances with in- terest; or busy packing up their few belong- ings. Nancy, singling out Barney and Cherie, who stood together at the beak-head ladder in the bow, wormed her way through the mob and joined them, and was received with expressions of liveliest interest and delight. The first boat having been lowered, and having no possessions to impede them, they scrambled down, among the first to leave, and soon were pulling off for the shore, with Cherie perched in the bow. As they came into shoal water, a man who stood apart from the others on the beach waded out, and seizing the boat, hauled her up. He offered his hand to the girl crouching on the bow like some carved figurehead, and Cherie, placing her own within it, was deftly swung ashore. Nancy and Barney following her, they looked about them upon as strange a crew of poor devils as might have been found in all Christen- dom. Adventure Nearly all of the islanders were French- men, with here and there a Portuguese, or a renegade Spaniard who had fled to the French colony to escape the penalty for his crimes among people of his own kind. Dirty, unwashed, unkempt, with matted hair falling to their shoulders, over faces baked red by the sun of the tropics, they were clad for the most part in short canvas or cotton breeches, ragged and torn, frayed at the knees, with coarse cotton shirts hang- ing over them. Filth, smoke, bloodstains, and grease had dyed them to the color of a rotten sail. Their hats, fashioned from the skins of goats or wild animals, were brim- less, little more than rude caps. Many of them boasted no other covering than the thatch with which nature had endowed them. Around their waists were belts of un- tanned hides, ornamented with so many knives and pistols, that one would have thought that slaughter was their sole occu- pation; nor would one have been mistaken, for it was. From their shoulders hung leathern pouches filled with powder and shot, and nearly every one carried a musket. ‘Those who were not barefooted as well as hatless wore rough brogans which had been fash- ioned by their own unskilful hands, from the skin of the wild pig. A roaring tide of shouts and exclamations ebbed and flowed through them as, gesticu- lating and grimacing, they rushed out to meet the small boats from the ship which had begun to discharge their loads of human freight, enquiring as to the news from Eu- rope; to learn, perchance, by vague and adroit questioning, so as not to disclose their own identities, if any among the new arrivals came from parts whence they them- selves hailed, and knew aught of friends or relatives. With the landing of every fresh boat, as the newcomers mingled with those on shore, the din and confusion increased. Many of the men had been in the Indies for ten or twenty years, and the women were like creatures from some other world. They stood around on shuffling feet and with gaping mouths, only the more daring among them offering to address these strange be- ings who had come among them to be their wives, and share their wretchedness. He who had assisted Cherie to land, a young fellow of thirty in the dress of a CoOMmMichoooks (CO