Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

THE ROARING HORN 85 black as, on the average, was Bohannon’s? “And just what happened to old skin- flint Mellish when he got my letter?” murmured Bohannon. Robustiously he chivvied this idea about. ‘Hope he hada fit and fell in it, the old pirate! When he found out his precious nephy was aboard and going to the rocks o’ the roarin’ Horn, he must have been a subjeck to be tied—God stiffen him!” Most delectably Bohannon imagined Jason Mellish, shaken and sick with panic, cabling to Lloyd’s in Buenos Aires, instructing them at all hazards and expense to get Roderick Tyson off the China Girl before she should clear from that port. Or, still, better, the captain figured to himself that even at this very moment old Jason was aboard some steamer bound for Buenos Aires, there to intercept his ship and rescue the one being whom, in all this world, he loved. “That there letter o’ mine, I left with my friend in Brooklyn to be mailed a week after we'd sailed, that’s a’ready takin’ old Jason all ends up,” mulled Bohannon with keenest pleasure. he’s sendin’ Tyson to die with the rest of ’em, he’ll go crazy and roarin’, by crook! I’ve paid all my scores aginst Tyson and the old man, too, and then some, eh what? The only thing he loves, on earth—the thing he’s doin’ mebbe twenty- - five murders for—and then the nephy goin’ to Davy Jones with the rest of ’em! Crazy and fit to be tied is what the old boy ’Il be!” Bohannon took another drink and with vast contentment sucked at his pipe. Never in all his life, violent and cruel though it had been, had he once con- summated a plot of vengeance so coldly malicious, so cruelly successful. “Let him cable his damn’ head off,” thought Bohannon, smacking his mental lips over this vengeance, even as he smacked his physical ones over the whis- ky. “Let him go to Buenos Aires and wait for us. Longer he waits and more he cables, the better. Let him stew! Much good it’ll do him, by Godfrey dia- “When he found out. monds! I won’t put in at Buenos Aires, whatever. No, sir! Not that port! We got no wireless; he can’t get in touch with us. We'll put in at Bahia Blanca, instead. There’s where I'll get hurt, or somethin’, and quit the ship. “So there won’t be no news of us, at Buenos. And- he'll wait, wait, wait.- He’ll gnaw his fingers to the old bone, Jason will—go crazy, die ravin’. I'll have the laugh on him! Tll have my twenty thousand, and all scores paid. Smart idea, eh? Smart as paint; damn’ smart, if I do say it, myself . . .” reveries Leadspitter broke with a knocking at the captain’s door. “Hello, what’s wanted?” “Sighted a small boat, sir.” “Have, eh?” Pause. ‘‘Come in, and let’s hear about it!” Leadspitter entered, red haired and red necked and generally red with prickly heat and unpleasant emotions. “T knew you was takin’ a caulk, sir, or I’d of reported it sooner. Reckon it’s boat off that ship we seen burnin’, yes- terday.” “Do, eh? Where away?” “She was off to west’ard, sir. Dead ahead, now. I took it on me—you bein’ asleep—to run down to her.” “So? You took a hell of a lot on you, I must say!” “Yes, sir. But you know yourself, sir, you can’t leave a boat at sea.” Lead- spitter had become unusually apologetic. “If you did, an’ some one was to perish, you know what they’d do to us.” “Mmmm! Yes,” growled the Old Man, blowing smoke. “But, shiverin’ top- masts! We don’t want no truck with boats. We ain’t in the life savin’ busi- ness; not much! However, I reckon you done the only thing to do. Only, we got all the trouble we want, as ’tis, without— but no matter. How many men aboard her?” “That’s the devil of it, sir. We ain’t sighted no men at all.” “What? You don’t mean to say you [= the midst of these enjoyable comicloooks.com