Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

Days of Morgan 31 “Bully for you, Devon,” answered a man’s voice from the darkness. ‘‘A Devon- shire voice that, and a woman’s to boot, or you can keel-haul me.” The man’s tones, so rich and deep and vibrant, thrilled her and set her heart to beating as it had never beat before. ‘‘Aye, sir,’ she answered, ‘an English girl. Follow me at once—there’s no time to be lost.” “Right you are,” replied the voice in the dark. ‘Ho, lads! Tumble up there, my hearties! Here’s an English girl come to steer us out of this beastly hole.” 1 thrusting the key in, threw open the door. As it swung back creaking and grinding on its hinges she heard the rush of men’s feet upon the stone passage- way, engulfed in blackness, which yawned mysteriously in front of her. ‘Steady, lads!’ commanded the vibrant voice again, while Nancy, as the sound of it bathed her soul with a new and strange delight, felt a sense of strength and confi- dence take possession of her whole being. ‘‘Line up, men, and answer to your names.” The corridor was suddenly full of invisi- ble forms. ‘Then the voice in the dark again— “Will Johnson?” nag el”? SHE had found the lock now, and “Aye, sir!” ‘‘Jim Rimble, are you there?” ‘“Well I should kiss a pig!’ “Then stand in the doorway here and tally the men off as they come out, lest one be asleep in the dark and left behind. Count me as one.” He stepped into the dark chamber be- side her, and the girl felt him touch her shoulder, and then grasp her hand silently with a clasp of comradeship, and manliness, and vigor that went straight to her heart. “Thirty right—all accounted for, sir,” said another voice from the depths of the gloom. “Very good, Jim Rimble. Now do you take up the end of the line. Forward, men —softly, lads, softly. Lead on, Devon- shire girl!”’ They felt their way along the corridor, back over the route by which they had come, Nancy, Barney, the black man and the Fleming going ahead, with Three-legs sniffing along in front, his scruff in the boy’s fingers, the Englishmen marching along af- ter in single file. Up the steps, down the long corridor they crept. More steps to be stumbled over, the men admonishing one another to be quiet and making all the more noise for their pains. In front of the door to the big room Nancy stopped, pushed it open, and step- ped quickly within. The link-lights still burned as brightly as before, and the fire on the hearth was blazing, the crisped pig sending forth an acrid odor of burnt meat. D’Ogeron lay where she had left him, bound and gagged. He had come to his senses, and glared at her in impotent rage, struggling frantically to free himself. The feet of the monk stuck out from beneath the table on one side, and from the other a long, hairy, red arm and a grimy hand, still clasping a bottle by the neck. His snores, and grunts, and groans, and rum- blings filled the chamber like the music of a pipe organ in a cathedral. But where was Yellow Eyes? Gone! Only a patch of blood on the sand and reeds to show where he had lain, and beside it the ropes from which he had freed himself. That he had not stopped to liberate the Governor she attributed to the fact that he had probably heard them coming just as he had succeeded in working loose. So she concluded he had taken but a short start of them. She sprang back into the corridor, as the head of the line came up. “Quickly, men!”’ she shouted. ‘“ ’Tis life or death now. One has escaped who will spread the alarm.” She sped down the corridor which led to the great door, the men swift in her wake. And they were soon in the little clearing on the crest of the mountain. The moon was gone, and where she had ridden a bank of clouds reared their angry thunder-heads. The night was thick around them. “Men!” called Nancy. ‘“There’s work ahead of you this night. There’s a ship in the harbor to be taken. She lies close in, with only half a watch aboard, and they drunk.” “Drunk!” cried a husky voice at her side. ‘Some men get all the luck in. this world.” “Silence! Jim Rimble.” The vibrant voice that Nancy had come to know so well had a ring of command in it, and Jim” COMIGIOOKSEEO