Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 194: what you’re looking at

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

172 “Kwan-po! Whisky! Ubat! Look see!” And when the frantic Chinese looked his way, Wade pointed to his blood-laved legs. At once the Chinese quieted, and regarded Wade with sober mien. “You got dead foot, eh!”’ he remarked in unfeigned surprize. ‘More better cook this pidgen.”’ He lifted Wade up on the transom-seat, and took the revolver from his fingers. “You good fella,” he pronounced. ‘You b’long this side; holy man come back proper, you see!” Wade could make little of the meaning of the Chinese, beyond the fact that ‘‘cook”’ meant anything pertaining to care, and that the wound would be treated. Why the “holy man’’ was to come back was utterly meaningless jargon, not to be bothered about. The Chinese was more than half crazy, anyhow. He departed toward the galley, talking to himself in his own lan- guage. To Wade’s surprize, the serang and the sailors disregarded the cabin in which the mate and Doxey lay dead. They had mere- ly peered in and made sure there was nothing that needed immediate attention there. They were already battering at the after door on the port side; smashing it with capstan bars fetched from the bows, and careless as to the damage they did. The only thing that hampered the serang in his labors with the bar was the crowd that pressed about them. He had to drive them back in order to make each swing at the door with the bar. ‘“‘Bent on loot,”’ decided Wade as he lay still on the seat. “Stuff stowed in that cabin- they want; and when they get it, may finish me off. Good thing Kwan-po only got one gun. I can’t trust these birds. I’m the only man that stands be- tween them and their total possession of the schooner. But what the dickens has be- come of Jessup’s wife?” The cabin door splintered into wreckage, and Wade heard the muffled cries of a wo- man. Wade could not tell what she was saying; she seemed to be wailing in terror, and at the same time trying to urge some- body to action. And the voice seemed to come from below decks! The serang yelped at the sailors. They drew back from him, and in a momentary | glimpse which Wade had of the interior — Adventure of that cabin, he saw the serang tugging at rings in the deck. It gave to his pulling, and a small hatch was lifted out and thrown into the main-cabin. ‘“Kepala! God bless you!” It was the woman’s voice from below, calling joyfully. “Ate, Kepala!”’ shrilled the serang. Wade knew Kepala to be the word for headman, or chief, in the Malay tongue, a word evidently used as a name for the serang, or native bosun. Then a man’s voice! “Lift her up, Aepala,” and the next in- stant a frail littke woman was pulled up through the hatch while the sailors shouted joyfully. Kwan-po had brought a bottle and a glass, and was in the act of pouring out a drink for Wade. But the appearance of the woman was too much for the Chinese. He danced about in glee, the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other, spilling the liquor out. The sailors made way for the woman. She was too weak to stand alone, and the serang helped her to the transom-seat on the port side across from Wade. She was pale and thin, her cheeks drawn with suffering. Her hair was loosely tumbled down her back damp and tangled. Her white skirt was stained and rumpled, and her thin silk waist clung tightly to her sweat- drenched shoulders. She lay back on the transom-seat, while Kwan-po, suddenly sane again, gave her a drink from the glass. ‘““May Heaven bless you, Kepala!’”’ came a weak voice as a man was hauled up through the hatchway. “I knew you'd save us—if you had time, and——”’ He wavered in the doorway, and then collapsed into the arms of the sailors about him. Kwan-po put the muzzle of the bot- tle to his lips and he coughed, and stag- gered to the seat beside the woman. ‘“‘Now who are these?” the amazed Wade asked himself. The man was white-haired and of kindly face; red, now, with congestion, and smeared with dirt. He wore a waistcoat of some silken stuff, but his arms were bare. His collar had been torn away from his thin neck, and his white trousers looked as if he had recently been crawling through a plowed field after a rainstorm. The serang drove the sailors up the com- ‘panionway and out through the forward cComicbook (© 5}