Adventure Magazine Cover — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

42 from his body in ribbons. His deep chest rose and fell with passion, and he sucked in air through one corner of his mouth. Captain Mac, who had been watching intently, suddenly made a decision. He stripped off his clothes until he was in nothing but his underwear and socks, then he took his handkerchief and tied it about his head so as to conceal the lower half of his face. He went to the break of the fore- castle-head and dropped the end of a cargo fall overside, then went hand under hand down the fall and into the warm water of Jacmel Bay. With long, smooth, silent strokes he slipped through the water toward the Gannet, fifty yards away. Jem and Black Michael wasted no time in coming to blows. They knew how to fight, Jem and Michael, and they wanted to fight—and they did! Jem got in the first punch, a smash to Michael’s cheek. For a fraction of a second the black-bearded one was staggered; then he lunged forward and drove both. fists, one after the other, to his brother’s body. Jen grunted, then clinched and sent his right fist upward in a short uppercut to Michael’s chin. Jem was a few pounds lighter in weight than Michael, and probably not quite so strong, but he was younger and faster, and thus, by reason of his superior speed, a more damaging hitter. Michael had the ad- vantage in knowing where to hit and in rough-and-tumble experience. In grit and bulldog tenacity they were equals. Back and forth across the schooner’s deck they fought, Jem concentrating most of his fire upon his brother’s face and Michael hitting to the body. Time and again Michael went back on his heels; but fighting men know that when a man is really hurt he falls forward, not backward. Jem was bent over from body blows, and his breathing was labored; he fought from a semi-crouch, as if it pained him to stand erect. It seemed that if the fight went long enough Michael would surely win. Jem, in a last desperate rally, sent his left to Michael’s waist and followed it with a crashing right to the jaw that could be heard from end to end of the schooner. Michael stumbled forward, his knees buck- led; but even as he toppled to the deck he struck again at his brother’s tortured body. Jem coughed, blood flecked his lips; he went to his knees. They grappled and rolled to- gether into the waterway, where each strug- Adventure gled to gain the upper position. They were both hurt now, but Jem’s hurt was of the kind that has the longer effect. The fog was already passing from Michael’s brain. Chest to chest, they writhed and struggled in the waterway. “We'll rest,” growled Michael in his brother’s ear, ‘and then at it again.” Jem grunted assent, and they released their holds and rose to their feet. “Mother o’ mel” exclaimed Black Michael. ‘‘Look!” He pointed to the wheel-box. | There stood a slender, clean-limbed little man, dressed only in underwear and with a handkerchief about the lower part of his face. In his hand the stranger held the fake diamond the two big men had been fighting for. “You darn fools,” said the little man. He drew back his hand and sent the “diamond” flying far out into the bay. ‘It went beyond the edge of the bank,” he said calmly, “where you'll find no bottom at a hundred and thirty fathoms.” “You !? bellowed Black Michael, and he leaped forward with murder in his eyes. Laughing softly, the little man eluded the lumbering giant with ease, dodged around the wheel-box, trotted to the poop ladder and went down. Some of the Gannet’s crew, at last awak- ened from their sleep, came from the fore- castle, and they stared in surprize at the figure running toward them. “Grab ’im,” yelled Black Michael to his men. Bee “Knock ’im down with somethin’. A negro seaman clutched at the stranger, but an arm flicked out and an open palm smacked beneath the negro’s chin, sent him off his balance and falling into the men be- hind him. The little man sprang to the rail, steadied himself, and dived cleanly into the water. When he came to the surface he had covered over half the distance be- tween the Gannet and the Hawk. “The boat,” cried Jem, running toward it. “Too slow,”’ said Black Michael. ‘“‘Wait.”’ He ran to the companionway and dived below. A moment later he reappeared, in one hand a long blue-steel U. S. Navy type revolver. Captain Mac, on the cargo fall, was by now half-way to the steamer’s deck, and his white figure stood out plainly against the black of the ship’s side. Black Michael brought his revolver to NOOK 1 O)