Adventure, February 1917 — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

92. plain was the outline of Slade’s fast launch, the Black Snake, cutting the sea like a tor- _pédo boat not a mile away. HAROLD dodged down again like ad a hare in its form. ; “Have they seen us, Dad?” he called across the sand-spit, terror in his voice. ‘Perhaps they haven’t. We could _ get over to the boat and lie hid in her among all those big bones—they’d never know if they weren’t looking.” “They mightn’t have seen us,” said the captain, bending low under a mass of skulls and jaws. ““They mightn’t think of coming here. It’s on the road from Jamieson Is- land. Ten to one ee only Slade and her coming back. “Why, don’t be SO scared, lad. What could Slade do to you? You’re within your legal rights.” “Slade’s a beast,” -called Harold over the sand spit. “He told me once that I was an interfering little beggar, and that if he caught me-snooping about after any private affairs of his, he’d give me the damnedest hiding I ever— He would, too. He’s a triple-distilled beast. I—I can’t face the brute! He doesn’t understand me.”’ The boy seemed to be working himself up into a panic. “Easy as she goes, son,” came the cap- tain’s voice. “Slade won’t meddle, my lad, while I’m about.” “You won’t always be about,” shouted Harold, ‘‘and he’s sure to know by now about other things, let alone this. I'll hide. You can stay there if you like. I’m going to get across that creek to the boat; it’s the only place where you’re sure not to be seen as the launch turns out for Scratchley. I won’t go back there. You'll have to take me away in the whale-boat. I—” He was running along the sand, among the bones, bent double, as he spoke: the captain could not hear half of what he said. Had he heard, the thing that happened had never happened. Page was a failure and a drunkard, but . he was a seaman who knew the sea, and he could have told any man who asked him— or did not—what was likely to be found in a narrow deep channel running between a reef and a sandy cay—a channel that must, in the nature of things, be full of fish, and of those tigers of the sea for whom the fish are prey. st Ee / , Adventure But Page did not hear. He went on pick- ing up stray bits of ambergris for a minute or two, and then, finding that there were no more about that spot, lifted his head a little and began to move cautiously toward the shelter of the boat. One could only reach it either by a long crawl round, or by the short cut through the channel. | It never occurred to Page to take the lat- ter. It never occurred to him either that any one else would. But Harold, never observant about the | things of the sea and ships, though helived on the one and in the other, had made up his mind—so far as any one in a state of utter panic could be held to have a mind at all—that the only way to safety was to be found in swimming that brief passage of enclosed waters, borne up by his bag of ambergris, which he knew to be lghter than water. The sun was swinging low to the west; its rays struck red on the water, as he ran down the shelving beach and plunged in al- ‘most immediately overhead. And in the midst of the red, far out, but yet far too near, rose as. Harold splashed clumsily out into the channel, the black, swift-moving, pointing finger of Death. He saw it—too late—and screamed a hideous scream. He stopped swimming and began to beat the water with his hands, still screaming—screaming. The captain heard it, and his heart turned to water within him. He ran down the _ cay, crying out and waving his arms in a mad, vain thought of frightening off the horror. He saw it all. Just as his frantic feet touched the water’s edge, the black finger reached the: beating, screaming form, and with one last . cry that seemed to tear his throat open, Har- old went down. When the Black Snake, five minutes later tore into the opening of the reef at full speed, those on board of her saw a spread- ing stain of red upon the waters of the chan- nel, a stain that was not the red of sunset. They saw something else—Captain Page with his mouth and one eye drawn askew in the paralytic attack that had been so long | impending, seated on the sand, laughing and trying, with a cracked voice to sing: The sands and yeasty surges mix In caves above the dreary bay And on thy ribs the limpet sticks And in thy heart the scrawl shall Play: com (C (C©@) | .IOOK