Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

THE ROARING HORN | 79 walked to the starboard bulwark and for a minute stood gazing off in the direction Tondern had indicated. *‘What ye make of it, b’y?” the cook demanded. “Don’t see anything but a little smoke.” **Well, smoke or no smoke, what odds?” And Chubbock went on with his.culinary labors and his wooing of the Muse. The smoke continued to increase, to drift on a little easterly fan of breeze that presently began ruffling the sun shim- mered ocean. On the quarter deck Leadspitter squinted with an ugly eye at that far drift. “‘She’s comin’ up thick now, by Jolly,” Bohannon commented. “That there smoke looks to me like it meant trouble.” “Yes, sir,” agreed the mate. “That ain’t no steamer. That’s a ship afire, or the like o’ that. If it ain’t, by Judas Priest, I never see one!” “Get me my long gun.” “Yes, sir.” And Leadspitter went down the poop ladder to fetch it. Back again in a couple of minutes with the biggest telescope aboard, Leadspitter handed it to the Old Man. Bohannon scrutinized the smoke with a certain interest, then passed the glass to Lead- spitter. “See what you make out of it!” “That’s a ship afire, sure, sir,” the mate reaffirmed after intensive study. “But she’s the devil and all of a long ways off. What d’you think, sir? Stand down for her, and see what we can do in the way of rescue or salvage?” Bohannon shook his head. “We got no time to be gallivantin’ all over the ocean to pick up fools as ain’t got sense enough to keep their ship from burnin’ up on ’em,”’ he decided. “And as for salvage, out here, not a chance!”’ *“Ain’t nobody can haul us to looward for not standin’ by, and that’s a fact,” muttered Leadspitter. “No way to prove that’s a ship afire.” “Right. There’s plenty o’ these here soogie-moogies aboard us as’d like to make trouble, in port, but they can’t do nothin’. So let the ship burn, by jolly, if that’s what it is. Let her-burn—what odds?”” By this time a little stir of interest had moved the watch on deck, and such of those below as were not sleeping. Out from the deckhouse lagged a few ex- hausted, dishevelled men. Hatchet faced Antoon—he had been a taxi driver ashore —and Cultan the “rock scorpion”, once a bumboat -man at Gibraltar, lounged along the rail, together with Broadfoot the negro, Gorley the Cockney, the Finn Paavola, and Jubal Tabry, he of the gammy leg. Tyson watched, too; and from the carpenter shop looked out the mild, huge mustached face of Chips Solomon Moon. Like Chubbock, Moon was a Newfoundlander. His especial pride lay in the boast— “I’m a grandfader in seven places; I am, so!”’ Now, like the men on watch who stole an occasional glance at the smoke, they centered all attention on that far off happening. With sun dazzled eyes they | blinked at the drift of dun vapor that, smearing the southwest horizon, gave hints of some sea tragedy there. Voices murmured: “Ship afire, wot? Wish to Gawd ’twas this blinkin’ one! H’anything for a chynge!” . . . “Gee, that must be a hell of a lot 0’ good money gone blooey, when a ship burns up!” . . . “Say, ifa guy could find a boat with everybody gone off an’ left it, like dat—” this from the gangster—“dey might cop a lot o’ good hooch an’ stuff, huh?” . . . “Oh boy, she sho’ am burnin’ some!” Thus Sam Broadfoot, the cross eyed negro. OHANNON now sent Tondern aloft, with a glass bandoleered over his shoulder, for reconnaissance. “Lay aloft to the foretopmast head,” he ordered, “and have a look at that smoke. Let’s see what you make out.” From his lofty perch the Dane care- fully took an observation. “Well, how ’bout it?” called the skipper. “Nuttin’ but smoke, sir,” the Dane’s comnlicloooks.com