Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 185: what you’re looking at

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

~ Ry . TEACH: PIRATE DE LUXE. and a packing-case for dressing-table, and Tl make it into a Cunard state-room in half no time.” That afternoon, at two o’clock, the Jao Geraes, drifting along under the easiest of steam, was obliged to notice another in- habitant of the vacant sea. In fact, she very nearly ran her down, and the man at the wheel, rubbing his drowsy eyes, hastily shifted course, and then bawled for the offi- cer of the watch, who was snoring in a deck chair at the end of the bridge. That worthy did not altogether take in the situation at a glance. But at the end _—of five minutes’ yawning he was sufficiently awake to ring off the drowsy engines and— as an effort of spite—to send down. the _ quartermaster to rouse Captain Smith. He had his knife into Captain Smith for being so unreasonable as to want any ofhcer to keep a midday watch. Captain Jacob Smith, aroused most re- luctantly from his sacred siesta, very natur- ally retaliated. He ordered the imperti- nent officer to call away a boat and go and _ investigate. Then, being joined by Miss Arncliffe, he had himself to wake up more thoroughly. He handed her his binoculars. “I don’t want those,” she shuddered. ‘““T suppose those men hanging on that spar are real?” . “On the foreyard? Oh, they’re men, all right. Or were. «Looks as though we were on the track of your friend, Admiral Teach, almost, doesn’t it? I’ve sent a man aloft to make sure, and he reports nothing else in sight. “ Three of them dangling below that yard, aren’t there?—and so far as one can make out through the glass, they look like Germans. The schooner—she’s an ordinary topsail schooner—as you see, is English. At least, her name, John and Louise, is En- glish enough, though to me she’s the look of a West Indian trader about her. canvas furled, too, and nobody visible on _ deck. Rather an impossible sort of vessel to meet out here, isn’t she?”’ “Then do -you think this is a bit of Teach’s work?”’ | “My dear young lady, I have ne means of being sure. I merely make a guess. As we seem to have lost our siestas, and to be All 751 thoroughly awake, what do you say to low- © ering another boat and rowing across? “That fool of an officer of mine doesn’t seem to be making anything of it. To give you a confidence, I don’t mind telling you there’s a good deal of dark blood in him, and that’s fatal for efficiency. His kind are the curse of our service. Just excuse me a moment, and I'll see cushions are put into the stern-sheets of my gig for you.” The schooner, when they reached it, was sufficiently surprising. She was neat and spic and clean with the extreme of nautical dandiness; the blowsy Brazilian seamen - were a blot upon her, wherever they moved; and even below, in her cabin and forecas- tle, everything was exactly spruce and ordered. ‘But the three figures dangling by the neck from her foreyard offended the eye and made the gorge rise. Their shadows, which chased about the white deck-planks as the schooner rolled to the swell, gave’ a shuddering chill to any one they fell upon. ‘Germans, all right,” said Captain Jacob smith. ‘‘ Huns, I suppose you would call them, Miss Arncliffe. Dutchmen as your friend, Adm‘r@] Teach, and his kind would say. “ But I wonder how they came there? This schooner’s British and two hundred ‘and fifty tons, and it’s hardly likely they were her entire crew and strung themselves up there without help. I think there’s more in the immediate past history of the John and Louise than we have discovered So far.” ‘ That’s obvious,” Mary snapped at him. She never could endure inefficiency. ‘“‘ Have your people made a thorough search of what’s below, or shall I try?” “To tell. the truth, I don’t think they’ve been below at all, although, of course, they tell me they have. You know we Brazilians always jump to the idea of pesta bubonica — when we see a deserted ship.’ ‘“‘ However, as there’s nothing more of in- terest, suppose we return to the yacht? I like to think I’m giving you a cruise in a yacht, Miss Arncliffe, instead of a sordid war-ship.” “Thank you, but I'm going to look (C(O) nn) (C 6)(0)©) S (C(O) nn