Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

80 GEORGE ALLAN ENGLAND voice drifted down through the brazen heat. ‘‘Nothin’ else in sight, sir.”’ “All right, lay down!” “Some poor gozaroos havin’ it pretty knobbly, over dere,’ judged Moon. “Same as we’m like to get, afore we’m to port agin.” “How so?” asked Tyson: “You, not knowin’, an’ you a sailor- man?” the carpenter exclaimed. ‘Us wid a cross eyed man aburd, an’ you not knowin’ we’m in fer a hard punchin’?” Tyson laughed. “Of course,” he agreed. ‘Of course!” “You might laugh an’ you might make a joke on it,” Moon affirmed, “but I “niver de divil iver seen a ship wid a cross eyed man aburd as could hold a straight course. We’m goin’ to have it bad, some o’ doze odd times, or ’m ’way off de line!” _ “Every ship catches it first or last.” “Right, me son. °*Tis a proper hard life, seafarin’. Ye been follerin’ it lang?” “Quite a while.” Tyson fired his pipe. “Y’ ain’t ralely de owner’s nevvy, is you now?” “Yes, Iam. Straight goods.” ‘An’ you layve de Old Man knock you sinseless off de poop, nigh to hell’s alley, an’ niver done nothin’ about dat?” The carpenter’s mild eyes widened. ‘Howlin’ swile cats, me son! I can’t fadom out dat!” Tyson shrugged and rather grimly smiled. “Only a plain, damn’ fool strikes back at an officer, aboard ship,” he remarked, in hardly more than a murmur. “It'll all come out in the wash, Chips, when we make port. Don’t let’s talk about it, please.” \HE ELOQUENT smoke banner gradually faded on the far south- western horizon. Still the idlers watched it, sucking at pipes, spitting, lazily speculating who the victim might be; and ever, idly creaking, the old China Girl rolled with slow pendulum swings upon the sea of molten emerald and azure glass. The little easterly fan of air that had sprung up, offering some hope of relief, once more died away. Not even wetted fingers, held on high, could find a hint of breeze. Restive, grumbling, the crew put in a weary time. Bohannon, between nipping rum and cursing, made himself venomously ugly. A few flying fish, flittering aboard, were welcomed by the cat—the only man aboard permitted to walk the poop on the weather side with the captain. Lying out on the martin- gale, Saunier the Miquelon “Frenchy” reported a pilot fish, believed by sailors to be a sure sign of a shark hanging about the ship. This caused uneasy bodings of a death on board, among some few. Indolently the off watch men yarned, smoked, talked of wreck and _ peril, watched an occasional filmy purple Portu- guese man o’ war trailing its poisonous filaments through the clear brine. The advent of a school of porpoises, leaping with swiftly graceful joy, aroused fugitive interest. Frenchy, having sighted some bonita, came inboard for a harpoon and a coil of heaving line from the boatswain’s locker. He succeeded in striking a fairish’ specimen. But when the meat was tested (as usual with bonita) by putting a silver coin into it, the silver turned black. Wherefore the fish had to be flung over- board, and curses followed it. Had the bonita been good, it would have made a welcome addition to the ship’s wretched tucker. For wretched enough it was, in all conscience, and daily getting worse— all save in the cabin. “The after guard, they’re géttin’ the good stuff, all right,” grumbled hook visaged Antoon, the ex-taxi driver. “‘Ain’t old Abey Buzzard, the stewart, carryin’ grub aft every day, we'd give an eye to get. a-hold of?” Dully he swore, as the group lounged in the shadow of the deck- house. ‘Their swill is better’n what we get, cockroaches an’ all. Damn’ good care o their guts them bulls aft are takin’! “Many a long necker o’ rum they’re gettin’, too,’’ asserted Stackhouse, the man from Maine. A thin scrimp of a comicloooks.com