Adventure Magazine Cover — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

72 Adventure 49? “Ow! Tom ‘He done that—to a pearl! Jest to show her he hates ’er! An’ he don’t hate ’er, — him! To a pearl, that big!’ Tom ex- citedly measured off at the first joint of his thumb. “He’s gone clear off his head, he has! I'll never speak to him again—strike me dead if I do! He tromped on a pearl. An’ I busted a lookin’ glass! “Jack—” he shook a warning finger against the boy’s face—‘“‘if this here ship goes down with all hands, don’t ye be sur- prized. Afore mornin’, maybe!” aV. TEN days later Heddon hardly knew 9 whether he felt relief or something = that was not relief as he lowered the telescope, knowing that the dark low-lying blotch on the shining sea was the Kulico Reefs. He turned with a seaward glance all about. Nothing was in sight. Then he looked with perplexed watchful- ness at Oxenham and Gloria, side by side on the seachest near the foot of the fore- mast. They were together for hours each day. They were as nearly made for each other as boy and girl were ever likely to be, each flushed with innocence—and yet this sea-born, sea-bred girl was incom- prehensible. The morning after he had crushed the pearl she had come up to where he was standing alone on the deck and quietly stood near, looking at him with gray-eyed mildness. He rather felt there was a little reproach in her eyes, knew that he deserved it. He had destroyed a pearl that would have made many a girl a handsome dowry. “Well, Gloria?” “Yes, Wil.” “Something has to be done for you. With you. What would you like?” “To stay on my ship,” she said. “You can’t stay on the ship, on anybody's ship. You have to go somewhere—get under a roof. You’ll be happy. People will like you. There’s Oxenham. He thinks you’re about the finest girl he ever met. He likes you.” “T like him,” she said simply. “See here. You two were born for each other. You marry him. Go with him.” ‘You want me to do that?” “T think it’s the best thing you can do. And you—he likes you. You like him.” “Not so much as [ like old Tom, or Jack Raeburn, or you.”’ ‘What the do you like about us?” She gave his question no answer, but asked one of her own— ‘Why did you make that woman think my pearls were not real?” “Does she?”’ ‘“‘When you were gone she asked me, ‘Are these really not pearls?’ I said: ‘They are worthless. You may have them. I give them to you.’ ” “You what!” Heddon exclaimed. “T said: ‘If you think they are pretty, you take them. I don’t want them. I don’t like them.’ ” ““You—you gave them— Say, look here, they are worth—well, you don’t under- stand money. But they are worth a lot of money. I’ll see that she doesn’t take them. What on earth made you do that?” “Tf I got rid of those I knew you couldn’t send me away until you got others for me. I want to stay on my ship.” “But you wanted to get off it. That’s why your father was leaving the sea.” ‘I—now I don’t,” she said quietly. ““What’s come over you? I think you’d be confoundedly glad to get off.” “T don’t want to leave you,” she said it simply, not even coloring. “Leave me? What have I to do with itr “T love you, Will Heddon. When I see you, I am happy. When I don’t see you, lam not happy. When you look at that woman I want to hurt her. She loves you too.” ‘Thunders of nonsense!” said Heddon ex- plosively. ‘She does. I can tell by the way she sits and looks at nothing. When I sit that way, Iam thinking of you. Soisshe. I knowit.” “What’s got into you, child?” “T am a woman! I love you. I know I love you. I don’t want you to send me away. I don’t want to leave you. I want to go where you go, always.” Heddon stared at her, impatiently. He searched her features with a cruel scrutiny. In all self-honesty he could not imagine why she should care two straws about him. Ex- cept that she was the girl-child of Bennings, he did not care two straws about her. In his eyes she was immature, colorless—a lusterless woman, howev::. '- of a wo- man. Not badly featureu aoty, dull, without the evanescent = ave COMmicbOoolks. C@