Adventure, November 1915 — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

The Gold Lust thought she was in herroom. Then I heard a noise in the galley and, thinking it was Selim, I went out to talk dinner with him. She was there. She had unscrewed the oil container from the stove and was sprink- ling it over the floor and walls. I jumped for her as she struck a match, threw it down and ran forward. Before I could follow her the blaze stopped me. A breeze was coming down the companionway and I slammed the galley door and shrieked. What happened to her?” “‘She’s aboard with her precious brother by this time,’”’ said Addams. “We sighted the schooner just as she went below. She got to work while we were all on deck. You must have hurried her up and prevented her from thoroughly soaking the woodwork. As it is, we’re not badly damaged and they’ve been delayed, picking her up. It was a desperate trick. We’re well rid of her. Thank God, you’re safe.” “Then I have been some use to earn my passage,” asserted’ Peggy, pale but ani- mated. “If I hadn’t ‘been a girl you wouldn’t have sent me below and the fire might have got away from you.” Addams smiled at her. In his heart he wished her, brave and plucky as she was, safe ashore in Honolulu. Not merely Hen- ley’s shots, but Tuan Yuck’s masterful re- pression of present hostilities seemed to him ominous signs of a probable and desperate struggle before they won free with the treasure that had lain waiting under the sand for sixty-five years for ownership. CHAPTER XXI THE TREASURE ISLE HE breeze faltered as the sin went down and at midnight the Wavecrest ran into a windhole, slatting aimlessly about on the breathless sea till morning. Far be- hind them, barely seen from the masthead, ‘ Addams picked up the Lez Lehua, doggedly on their tracks. All forenoon the fickle breezes played with them, filling them with alternate hope and disgust, and all day long the Lez Lehua _ haunted the horizon, sometimes rising under the impulse of a partial breeze until her sails were plain from the deck, then, as Atolus favored the W avecrest, falling behind again. There was nothing to do but make the Oe nee een i eer ers aka Now iewedsee ns . SS... =’ hie re8 == _ a o7 best of it. They were in the region where the northern and southern trades are in constant dispute, and great patches of neu- tral, wind-forsaken sea halt the mariner. It was a gamble between the two boats in the lottery of the winds. At times, while they rolled with slack tackle and slapping sails, failing progress enough for even steerage-way, they could see, half a mile away, a sharp squall ruffling the sea, and, struggling to reach it, behold it suddenly vanish as they touched the margin of the breeze. They learned more of Tuan Yuck while they waited for weather favor. The head of the Quong Sing Tong had made a fortune in the days of the island monarchy by pur- chasing from the powers behind the throne a monopoly of the opium traffic. Under the bargain he smuggled and they closed too eager eyes, including their own. Hen- ley had been one of his aides, and the house by the cemetery, with its secret tunnel, one of the main rendezvous of the smugglers. American acquisition had destroyed Hen- ley’s usefulness with strictly-carried-out regulations, and he had wandered afield. Tuan Yuck, a large part of his revenue cut off, remained in Honolulu, still rich and, among his countrymen, powerful. Natur- ally, Henley, with none too much money to hire schooners or men, had applied to his former leader who had, Addams surmised, taken hold with a firm hand, promptly rele- gating Henley and his immediate associates to secondary positions in both the share of the expedition and the loot. It was Tuan Yuck that Addams feared. The wily Oriental’s methods were not of the blundering sort that Henley would have employed. He would work out moves and counter moves rather as an expert chess player would handle a problem, content to wait until the last moment for the master stroke. Addams realized the Chinaman’s abso- lute disregard of life, and determined, with Peggy on board, to avoid all life-and-death issues, even at the hazard of losing the gold. In actual combat they would be outnum- bered and outshot four to one, and-he knew that Tuan Yuck would leave no traces, once he got the upper hand. There was one hope—to reach the island far enough ahead to enter the reef, secure the gold and leave before the Lei Lehua arrived. But that hope was dwindling with EOLPMIC WOOKS ——_, © wr re oe we he . : A ee (E@)