Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 186: what you’re looking at

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

164 that was next the schooner’s bulwark, which gave them air. “We’ve turned the trick,’’ whispered Wade gleefully. “She sails in the morning. There’s a small water breaker here in the stern, and a bag of biscuits. We can hold on until after dark tomorrow night, which means we'll be well to sea. We'll catch Jessup off guard, and we’ve got this beauty of a schooner.”’ IX t OUT of sight of land, and heading 74 southwest under a quartering breeze, : the Gospel Argonaut drove through the South China Sea in the cool of_the eve- ning. The stars hung low, so near at hand that they seemed adrift in the sky and in danger of losing their brilliance under the sleek swells that mirrored them. The schooner had sailed that morning from Andrus Island, leaving word with the natives that she was sailing north and would run through Balabac Strait. But once she was off the island and had lost it, she swung to the southwest for open water, a course on the chart that showed not a speck of land under her jib-boom nearer than the South Natuna Island, a good week’s sail distant. The plan was to make through Sirhassen Pass and keep well off the Palawan Passage route of steamers be- tween Manila and Singapore. Now Jessup lounged on a transom-seat of the main-cabin, stretched out with his feet aft toward the companionway to the quarter-deck, his back to the passage lead- ing from the main deck forward. A single gimbal-lamp on the bulkhead over him provided the light, and as the schooner heeled gently under the press of wind in her sails, the stars washed back and forth across the open skylight. Supper was over and the last rattle of dishes had come from the galley in the passage. Kwan-po, the Chinese cook, had finished his work for the day. The sweet reek of opium came aft at times to Jessup’s nostrils. The missionary was aware of a move- ment in the passage. He gave the sound little heed, for it might be the steward-boy coming to the cabin with fresh water for the cabin-bottles, or mayhap the serang coming for ubat, or medicine, for an ailing man in the crew. Adventure So that the first time Jessup heard the soft tread of a foot he did not turn his head to see who was coming. But the second time he heard it—and he knew now it was inside the main-cabin—he turned his head and looked over his shoulder. What he saw surprized him so that he was incapable of making any sound. His eyes met something that was so far beyond his expectations, so utterly undreamed of as to be absurd, that he could only gasp. For what he saw within two feet of his head was the shining circle of the muzzle of a re- volver. | “Keep quiet,”’ said a low-toned voice. ‘Don’t move your hands, or I’ll drill.” Jessup let his eyes wander from the muz- zle of the revolver up its slanting barrel to a sunburned hand; then up a brown and bare arm to the sleeveless cotton shirt of a man; on to a hairy neck and a face covered with sweat-grimed brown stubble of beard. There was a pair of narrowed eyes that glis- tened feverishly in the light of the gimbal- lamp. Jessup’s gaze did not go beyond those eyes; they were fixed with the hypnotic stare of a snake, swimming in a sweat that oozed out at the corners and ran down into the beard. They revealed a desperation so unlimited in its danger that there was actu- ally something bland-like and soothing in their glitter. They held Jessup’s eyes and burned like the steady flame of a candle which is protected from moving air by a per- fectly transparent enclosing cylinder. “Tf you call for help,’’ went on that even and unruffled voice, ‘‘you’ll die where you sit, Parson.”’ Jessup’s eyes held on as long as they could. Then his gaze wavered, and he saw in the dimmer light behind that man with the revolver, another figure. This second man hung idly against the corner of the bulkhead to the forward passage, and was half turned so as to command a view into the passage. This other man held something in his hand which made a flash of white light every time the schooner took a roll to starboard and the lamp spilled its illumination to that side. It was a couple of minutes before Jessup realized that the flash was from the blade of a knife. Braced against the casing of the door into the passage that man lounged in a seemingly careless attitude. Comicbook A) © =