Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

132 Something resembling a shock was felt by those who stood around, Here was not a prisoner but a challenger! Willerby raised his voice and said slowly, as insolently as he could— “He is where you will be —— quick— in irons!” Then he continued, his voice quavering rhetorically, like a poor actor ina big scene, for, though he was not acting, he was speaking to the ears of the gallery gods on his poop as much as to Williams. He cursed the man, spoke of the yardarm and hemp, mentioned “‘white cannibals.” Only once did Williams take his gleaming eyes from Willerby’s face. He shifted them for a barely preceptible instant as if to mark the place where DuBeque stood. Willerby at length paused for breath, and Williams spoke again. It was as if he had not heard anything that had been said except the first sentence. “In chains—why?” Williams’ questions were like grappling- hooks that jerked out answers by sheer force. “Because he’s a friend of yours! Why else do you suppose? I offered to make his fortune,” Willerby went on in a slightly ag- grieved voice as a missionary might say he had tried to save an unregenerate sinner, “but—” the wine perhaps was a little con- fusing to brain though not to his less—‘the told me to go to ! And I'll send him there, and you with him!” THEN IT happened as men who sy know of him say it always hap- a pened with Williams. As the hurri- cane strikes with scarcely a warning for those who are not watchful, Williams struck. He half wheeled; an arm flashed out; DuBeque was down unconscious for min- utes and sickened for days to come. Cries, shouts, screams. <A roar of “kill him” from Willerby thrown to the ship at large but more or less directly at the burly form of Jackson. Yells from amidships. Women and men on the poop, fearful yet fascinated, screamed and jostled but did not turn away their faces, and some drunken hands half clutched at Williams as he bounded back from where DuBeque lay. Lania glided to one side. Only she and Williams were silent. Williams glanced quickly to right and left; then he rushed straight into the huge fist of Willerby, taking a glancing blow on the a, Adventure hand, steel , closed on Willerby’s full throat, and a blow like the drive of a pi ton smashed into his face. He A swift backward glance over his and Williams wheeled to meet Jackson. But Jackson stopped. Jackson was no cow- ard, but for one thing his heart was not in in the fight. iv teed pleste el des onkine head, but the gospel of fair-play was at least faintly ingrained within him. Besides, he had once been at grips with Williams; be- sides, still further, sailors were i from forecastle and amidships, and Grogan was coming up the poop ladder. Perhaps a little influence from all those things caused Jackson to stop. He began to talk about it and raised his hand in a kind of repress- ing, soothing gesture. “We've got you, Williams. There’s no use making more trouble. Here come——” A half smile seemed to appear on Wil- hams’ lips. It may have been that he merely parted them in a strained way to suck his lungs full of air. Anyway, his eyes darted toward the top of poop ladder. Men were coming. Sheer numbers would pile him down. He turned and lunged aft. Those in his way Were too surprized and slow to get clear of his road, and a man and a woman were bowled over as ten-pins fly from the side of the ball. The little blonde crazily clutched out at him. With drunken luck her fingers slipped into the waistband of his trousers and tightened. Williams scarcely looked around: a back-handed blow and he was free and her beauty was spoiled for a month. Then he leaped. Between taffrail and awning he dived and into the water. A rush to the rail, shouting and pointing to where the phosphorescent water like a trail of fire-sparks marked his course. “The boat—after him—kill him!” Wil- lerby shouted hoarsely. His throat was painfully wrenched. The windpipe seemed to have been almost jerked out, and, as he came unsteadily to his feet, he felt as if the ship were swinging and swaying in an oily sea. “Tell that lugger to lower away, too,” Willerby shouted again. : Voices screamed across the water the lugger that lay nearest. But Jackson had gone, and his was the only voice that ‘would carry easily now that Willerby’s was. choked down to hoarseness, and the few comicbooks.com | vv =r.