Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

134 the mate—he being’ the same as got his ranted leg yanked off him. His eyes are ulgin’ out o’ his head, an’ he’s white as a new mains’l, but he goes toward that shirt, crouched over an’ creepin’ cautious. Mind you, if was a white shirt and we seen it plain, even in the dark. ‘“‘When he gets close, he makes a dive at it. But just as he dives that shirt slumps down flat on the deck, lifeless, like any shirt, an’ there it lays when he lands on it. “He picks himself up out o’ the scuppers, lookin’ wild an’ foolish, leaves the shirt lie, an’ goes aft. “It turns out that two or three other seamen saw the same thing I saw, and the upshot of it is that we heaves the whole kit an’ kaboodle of that missin’ swab’s dunnage over into Davy Jones’ locker. An’ if that’s where he is, which is likely, he now has his shirt back.” “What a darn fool crew,” said Jim, the piratical. : Sam wagged his bottle-nose back and forth sadly. “Along in the midwatch, my bunkmate he rears up an says— “* ‘Charlie,’ he says és A curious look came over Bill’s face, and in momentary confusion he took refuge in his flagon. With the curious tact of the tropics, the two other missing men re- | frained from asking him why at that time he should have been called Charlie. collected himself, and went on: ‘* “Charlie,” says my bunkmate to the man in the next bunk, ‘somethin’s been walkin’ around this fo’cstle, catfooted an’ soft, an’ I don’t like it!’ ‘* ‘Be like me,’ I says, ‘what isn’t afeard 0’ man or ——.’”’ Jim winked at Sam. Bill continued: “Nobody took no stock in them foot- steps my bunkmate heard. Just the same, all hands was uneasy about the different things that had been going on, what with eyes in the dark, and pigs an’ seamen dis- appearin’ , and pants’ legs tore off the mates, an’ shirts crawlin’ up an’ down the deck all by theirselves in the dark. “Yarns began to get about of a night, about this here ship found driftin’ derelict with all hands disappeared off her, an’ that there ship what disappeared right square in the middle of a calm sea, an’ all such like. Bill - Adventure “BUT the night afore we touched fal at Bahia was the worst of all. Somethin’ happened as put a cap on the whole business. It’s been a slow voyage all along, seemin’ to sail lively but not get- tin’ there neither, an’ the more we sailed the worse we felt about the queer goin’s on. “All was quiet an’ calm at about two- three bells in the midwatch. ’Twasa black night, overcast an’ cloudy, an’ no moon. All of a sudden all hands in the fo’csle was raised out o’ their bunks by a sound the like o’ which I reckon nobody ever heard on this earth afore.” Bill paused, and his face looked blank and scared, at the mere reminiscence of such a noise. ‘“‘What manner o’ sound?” asked Jim after a silence. | “Well, mates, it wasn’t a yell, and it wasn’t a hail, nor yet was it a bawl. It come nearer to bein’ a scream, but not like no scream you ever heard from the throat of man, nor woman neither. Nothin’ earthly could make no such ghastly, in- human scream as that. “Tt rung out twicet, loud an’ long, until the stanchions fair quivered. And mixed up with that second unearthly scream was the voice of a man, bellerin’ in holy terror. Right after that the ship slued round an’ the sails slatted an’ whacked, an’ she rolled, same as if she’d quit steerin’ herself alto- gether, an’ we thought the end o’ the Mable Jones had come. ‘‘We rushes up on deck. Both mates was dashin’ up the companionway ladder, with lanterns swingin’ an’ banging’, an’ all hands rushes aft to where the row comes from. “There, by the wheel, which is runnin’ free an’ idle, lays Sandy Smith, what has been takin’ his turn at the helm. ‘“‘He’s clean passed out, all white an’ green around the gills, an’ we thinks he’s done for sure. And there wasn’t a man of us that stood around him there that didn’t feel creepy, crawlin’ feelin’s goin’ up an’ down his back, an’ eyes lookin’ at him out o’ the dark from behind, until you couldn’t help lookin’ over your shoulder constant, to see what was there. ‘“‘Well, sir, mates, we sluices a couple 0’ buckets o’ water on him, an’ it comes out that he’s still live an’ kickin’ after all, but so scared that he can’t hardly tell what happened. Near as we can make out, CoOMmiclhoo © 5}