Adventure Magazine Cover — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

28 foot of the ladder a light saick, a skiff hav- ing one pair of oars, that we had towed behind us from the jetty. After this they rowed away in the barge and John Paul walked slowly to the after deck. It needed no sailor to tell me that his reception was lacking in respect; Alexiano who stood on the after deck, should have greeted him and his flag should have been hoisted instead of the Greek’s. As John Paul climbed the steps at the rump of the ship, Alexiano turned his back and said something amusing to a man who leaned on a small cannon. This man, in gray and gold was the prince, Nassau, and he had promised to flay me alive if John Paul reached Kherson. Nassau picked up in his fingers a little round piece of glass and looked at me, then at the American, and laughed softly at the jest Alexiano had made. John Paul halted a few paces from the pair, his shoulders squared. Calling to him the under officer with the rapier, he drew a letter from his coat and passed it to the Russian, who bowed and gave it to Nassau. The prince bowed and handed it back without reading it. Alexi- ano, a bull of a man with a fine curly beard, watched Nassau as a dog watches its master... And every man of the crew watched the three on the after deck. Still John Paul made pretense that nothing out of the usual was happening. He talked with Nassau in French and the prince, who had tried to buy the American’s death, was most polite. That is the way of the Mus- covites and the Prussian nobles. But Nassau found time to speak aside with the under officer who presently whis- pered to a Greek with a handkerchief bound over his hair. This chap, who had some rank on the ship, called to him two others who advanced on me with scowls. “Hai, dog of a Cossack,” one grunted, “your saick waits for you. Get off the deck or we will pitch you overside!”’ I grinned at him, seeing that he meant to provoke a fight, and his mate jostled me. When I reached for my sword the two drew knives and opened their mouths to shout. Instead, the under officer on the after-deck shouted— “Form in ranks for inspection!” John Paul had been watching us and he it was who gave the order in the first place. Nassau shrugged indifferently, though Alex- Adventure iano grew red with rage and kept muttering under his breath. He grew angrier when it became clear that the men did not know how to form ranks. Like cows, they trampled here and there, looking all around, until the officers who came on deck began to curse. Finally they were drawn up in strange fashion: The Greeks crowded in with the Greeks, and the Syrians and knows what else, besides scores of Moskya fisher- men. On the other side of the ship under a Russian officer about a hundred of the true faith drew up, among them quite a few Cossacks, and I took stand behind them, up against the rampart of the ship. John Paul, accompanied by the under officer, who translated his orders and answered his questions, went down the front of each rank, looking every man in the face. Nor did he show any disapproval. From the men he turned to the deck, where cannon balls were in heaps and ropes in a fine tangle. Everything he pulled toward him-looking at it closely, the sails and the cannon especially. The mob on the deck saw that he knew what he was about, and fell to watching him instead of the officers on the rump of the ship, who had their heads together around Alexiano. It was nearly dark when he ended the formation. Without taking any more no- tice of Nassau or Alexiano he nodded to me, and the interpreter bade me haul the skiff on deck, and select some Cossack carpenters for work. A_ half-dozen chaps stepped forward at once and hoisted the saick over the rampart of the Vladimir. Then Paul Jones had some rags brought and these we wrapped around the middle of the oars as he bade us. for a rudder, and a broken pike staff fitted to it for a tiller, the rudder being rigged to the back end of the saick. When this was done he ordered us to go and get supper, which was being brought up, the men crowding around the pots without order. One of the Cossacks nudged me while I was dipping out the gruel. “Eh, Ivak, better slip over the side before dark, if you don’t want Greek steel between your ribs.” I Jaughed at him and began to eat. ‘It’s true,”’ he went on under his breath. ‘They have marked you down, Uncle.” ‘“‘And the admiral?” I asked. . ‘‘What of him?” “They say he is a foreigner who can not MICLOOOK A board was cut’ C@ in