Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

men on board the lugger were slow to get the order into their aoe through their heads. The boat alongside was delayed a little in getting away. Rifles were fetched. Then it was found to be overcrowded, and some of the crew were sent up, leaving just enough to man the oars, excepting Jackson and Grogan. A white sailor steered. Williams was a fast swimmer, but he had a hundred and fifty yards to go. The boat swung out clear of the ship. Grogan and Jackson fired. The mark was not visible, only the phosphorescent wake of the swimmer, and the bullets striking the water—unless an almost spent ricochet— rarely leave even a passing flashing of water- sparks. But, after they fired, the phosphorescent trail vanished; the water disturbed in swim- ming smoothed out. “—___ did we get him!” Jackson ex- claimed anxiously. “Oi shot hoigh,” said Grogan, and both looked back a little apprehensively toward the Bebe, where cheering and compliments came from over the rail. Then the cheering died, and shouts of “Look!” ‘There!’ rose. Again the water betrayed Williams after a long dive. Jackson and Grogan shot again, and again Willams dived. The lugger had lowered away. “ them!” said Jackson, glancing in the direction of the reinforcements as shooting began from that boat. Williams was swimming fast, and his dives were long. But oars bent in the water, and the boats gained and gained. There was little chance of hitting him uritil the boats were almost on top of him, but they would be there before he could reach shore. Then from the water and through his cupped hands as he treaded it, Williams shouted one word twice: “Banoo! Banoo!” The shore suddenly seemed alive with savages. Yells and howls, the fire of rifles, and presently the streaks of phosphorescent wakes as the canoes took to the water. - All Gopassa was on the beach. What Banoo and those with him had heard and seen when Williams left with DuBeque had _ rapidly been repeated, and all the Sa- moans, Tongans and Gopassans had come to the beach, where they had squatted and talked wonderingly, awaiting the dawn. _~ >" % ~ ‘es ~ a a ‘~ = ' Savages sal J ~ * w = 1 133 The pursuers were abruptly turned into the pursued, and the boats went about and made for the ships as fast as the frightened oarsmen could take them. Both boats fired and in earnest, but little harm could be done in the darkness. The water was alive with canoes and as if all the fiends of hell were on it. Howls and yells of derision, taunts, were flung from the distance, the lessening dis- tance, as the canoes swept on. Then there broke from the Bebe a mighty flash and roar. The old brass cannon split the cup of heaven, and its echoes crashed amid cliffs and hills: It had never failed to intimidate natives, and there was mo- mentarily a quiet and hush when its thun- dering echoes died away. But shouts rose. The shouts were from Banoo, Nauma and Chief Ghorki calling their warriors home, for Williams had been picked up and had told them to go back to the beach. The shouts set the howling and yells loose again. The canoes turned beach- ward with much the réluctance that children show in leaving a street-fight, and cries of derision at the “‘white’’ boats for fleeing gave the natives a sense of victory. “We're lucky,” said Jackson in a throaty whisper to Grogan. Grogan loosened a big, big sigh of relief and some thick profanity, too. “The old man wouldn’t believe it; so we might as well say nothin’.” “R-r-right,” said Grogan as he put out his hand to steady himself against the side of the Bebe as the boat came alongside the ladder. The Samoan sailor who had overheard Williams speak to Banoo had told Grogan, and Grogan had told Jackson, and they, being men who had often crossed Williams’ trail, did not doubt that the sailor had been. right when he claimed that Williams had said to the savages on the jetty— “If I don’t come back, blow up their ship at dawn!” vil WILLERBY held a council of war. A number of things were decided. ; ae decided them. The others ac- qwiesced, no matter what secret misgivi they may have had. agi First, however, everybody wanted to know of DuBeque how on earth he had Con oA _M™managed to get Hurricane Williams on board the Bebe. "oes % # o~