Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

r ae 7 Her black eyes, suddenly fierce, shifted to Willerby’s face, and she put out a hand as if te protest. But the hand fell again to the arm of her chair. She lay back and kept silent, watching Gilbert Lang in- tently. The boy, slender, pale with anger, con- fused by the injustice, stared at Willerby. _ Willerby was furious, but Gilbert Lang thought such an order must at most be only a threat. Men did not do such things! But Jackson, taking a half dozen steps forward, called from the poop for Grogan, the third mate, and Grogan came. “Trons. An’ drop him down the for- ward hatch,” said Jackson carelessly with a gesture toward Gilbert Lang. Git!’ cried DuBeque, ever anxious in some distinguishing way to aid the wishes of Willerby, as he gave the boy a shove and kicked him.. Gilbert Lang wheeled and leaped. He smote the fastidious DuBeque on the mouth and whirled another fist to the jaw. The . dormant blood of his fighting forefathers who had raised to prestige the name of 4 Lang was foaming in his veins. Again, as among the raiding bushmen, he knew no fear and had no thought of it. Injustice set 4 : him wild. Willerby’s erder to throw him _ into irons had made him like a barrel of a dry powder, but it was DuBeque who ap- plied the match. Lania DuBeque sprang to her feet and- . drew back. She did not cry out. Others 1 were doing that. a ‘ The fight was short. Its length was scarcely countable in seconds. It was not really a fight, for Paul DuBeque did noth- ing but scream and try to protect himself by bending down and covering his face. When Jackson, profanity flowing from his bearded mouth, reached out a powerful, deliberate arm and gripped Gilbert Lang, then DuBeque remembered the revolvers at his side and snatched at them. With feline swiftness Lania pushed him to one side, erying— “You fool!” Willerby was storming and ordering all manner of terrible things at once to be done to Gilbert Lang—whose name he even did not know, had not heard. But Jackson, half pushing and half pipet es boy down the poop ladder, ____ turned him over to Grogan. aw e. < ut him Somewhere so W. W. don’t md ~ RE bo Son hi wie ge reek, stumble across him. Stick him some place —to keep him from ’scaping—an’ DuBeque from knifin’ him,” said Jackson to Grogan in a whisper. - Then aloud with lurid oaths he roared for Grogan to make Gilbert Lang lament the day of his birth and that he had never learned manners enough not to strike gentlemen in the face. “A-r-r-right!”’ said Grogan hoarsely and fiercely, jerking the struggling, dazed boy along as easily as a man might pull a frail child Willerby was beside himself. He was often beside himself. But familiarity with his rage did not breed contempt in those who lived on the ship with him. True, Lania DuBeque had a way of seeming un- impressed. But, if there was something of the roaring bull in him, there was a good deal of the tiger in her. Probably no other woman would ever have returned as she did to face Willerby’s jealous rage when she had fled it; possibly she was ashamed of herself for having fled, and that was why she returned. Too, she may have been aware of her charms and confident. It is the conscious- ness of beauty, not of brains, that makes women daring in that picaresque, sensa- tional way that frequently startles not only communities but nations. As Willerby stamped the deck and stormed, all but Lania and Paul DuBeque drew respectfully away from him. Du- Beque, presuming somewhat on his bat- tered face, solicitiously felt of his swollen lips, and a finger with a delicate touch ran along his jaw to see if it were really broken. “Take the crews off the luggers and every man off the Bebe and go get that fellow Williams!” Willerby shouted at Jackson. “Bring him here! I'll tend to him! Ill show him that Winston Willerby can’t be made a fool of. Send that girlish kid here as a spy, will he? By —— I'll cut his eyes out and use ’em for fish-bait! Do you hear me?” “Yes,” Jackson rumbled. But ——” “But what?” Willerby demanded im- patiently. “We can muster about ten white men.” He paused to let his eyes sweep the guests in the background, who, though white men —and women—were not included in the “T hear you. - e a a ee ] muster. “And Williams—he ain’t called