Adventure Magazine Cover — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

Judique on the Floor stars were no longer visible; he could see clouds dragging across the sky. He heard voices wrangling on deck; he stole up the ladder and listened. The mate and the master were on the bridge. The voices came from just above him. The mate was piloting the steamer. Donald could feel that the wind was rising; the air had got suddenly colder. The Luiza shot past a river light. The bridge, the funnel, the faces of the two men on the bridge flashed for a moment out of the dark. The Luiza tooted her whistle; another whistle tooted ahead; presently the Luiza rocked with the wash of a steamer passing upstream. Donald saw that the mate was at the _wheel. No one else was on the bridge. No watch was on deck, not even a lookout for- ward. The noise of dice came from the forecastle. ‘T didn’t sign on this,”’ he heard the mate grumble, ‘‘to be master, mate, crew and river pilot. Yes, I know money’s big, but , . never saw a white rat before. See him, Mr. Cope? A white rat just gone down the hold. Why in thunder ain’t those hatches on? Hey, there, forward! Leave that crap game and put on those hatches, you swine.” Donald knew what had startled the mate. He had let his hand rest too long on the out- side of the coaming. The mate had seen it disappear and had taken it for a rat. Donald dropped down the ladder, hear- ing Mr. Cope abuse Tavish for his drunken visions. Then the planks were thumped on the hatches, and Donald was _ battened down in that hold. It was safe for him to strike a match now; the light fell on the refuse left by that shift- less crew. A great heap of it was in the bows. Lighting more matches, Donald found some bunches of bananas and some loose oranges. The bananas were not too green to eat; those bitter oranges of Martinique were refreshing; so Donald had food and drink for his passage. The hold was warmer than the freight car he had come south in, and in addition this dining-car service was thrown in. Using his last match, he made a bed near the bulkhead, with bits of crates, a piece of sacking and his violin case for a pillow de Juxe. That hold was an ocean hobo’s Pullman. 4I HE WAS awakened out of a dream wiatt.| of falling into a roaring, clamorous SJ abyss, by a weight on his chest, a bump on his head, a hundred blunt points stabbing his ribs. Close to his ears were the scrapings of shovels, the gasps of cylin- ders, the ring of thrown-back furnace doors, the roar of furnace drafts. He had been flung against the bulkhead, for the Luiza was pitching. She rolled again, and the bananas that had been flung on top of him fell away. He began to slip with them till he clawed at the planks for a holdfast. The empty steamer was tossing in a heavy sea. Donald tried to anchor himself by holding to rivet heads, bolts, splinters, any- thing for a grip in this bumping topsyturvy- ing berth of the hold. Every time her stern sank the refuse poured over him; hard green bananas stabbed him; fragments of crates speared him; oranges rolled over him; a swill of stalks, skins and juice rose to his waist. His first thought was for his fiddle. He pawed about; he felt with his feet every time that surf of slush poured aft. His fingers closed on something recog- nizable, something made. It was one of his razor boxes, he thought. He felt round the side for the opening button. He pressed it; the lid came back; he could feel the neatly nested razor and the rows of blades. The steamer gave one of her capricious jolts. She was tossing in a more erratic sea than Donald had ever experienced. It seemed impossible to time her rolls. If he was on a Sailing ship Donald would have judged she was adrift with no one at the wheel, abandoned or all hands drunk. He spread-eagled himself on the bulk- head to get a grip; the razor box slipped from his hand; he felt the blades spilling be- tween his fingers. He slipped till he was on his back; for the banana skins, the crushed oranges afforded a slippery foothold. The sea of muck poured over him; a cataract with naked razor blades in it. He struggled to his feet holding to the bulkhead. His violin case must have burst open; the violin was probably in bits; his whole stock was spilled and flying about the hold; he was battened down. in a heavy sea with a loose cargo of razor blades. He shouted and beat at the bulkhead. The thumping of his knuckles was lost in the ramshackle clamor of that ill-kept en- gine. At every impact of the recurring th - >a DOOLK C@ in