Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 56: what you’re looking at

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

wie fm 7. oA Pe > ot “i? ss parualha ne a a Sgr os A a Mont ona a at a te 1 Bn LB, Me BAL OT te Y* geht Matt ae ee ce ir Pe z oe eae C a a ® 42 which he suffered. Purdue was lacking in neither imagination or other varieties of thought. These had kept him strong ~to wait for the big drink that would be . to swallow. his the moment Hasting had gone over- board. Now his thirst was intensified by the knowledge that, between hith and the big drink, lay a stronger man than he, ready to be the one to die if need be, but hardly to be counted on to take know- ingly and calmly an entirely unnecessary death of slow torture. \ URDUE fought off the thirst, strove to forget it. For a little it seemed that he had succeeded. .Then it came back again. As the boat breasted a wave aslant, a drop of salt spray touched his lip. He caught it with his tongue, tasted its salt. For a second or two the fog above turned red -before his eyes and spun about him; the gray of the water below was brown, and it swayed as no ocean ever swayed. His brain was cracking already. He snatched up the empty jug, pressed it to his lips, held it, waiting for the precious last drops. They came, seemed to dry up in his mouth and leave nothing for him He hurled the jug over into the sea. God! He oughtn’t to have done that! He ought to have kept that jug to show how empty it was when he got back and they demanded that he account for Hasting. How would he prove that he hadn’t deliberately destroyed the supply of water? Going mad! ! He had no right to be thirsty as that yet. He had drunk his fill not six hours ago, and more than half a cupful within the last half hour. It was all imagination. Once more he got possession of himself. He sat still and tried to devote his whole attention to - the task of steering to avoid taking the combers of the waves into the cock- pit. The task did not need his whole attention. How was the other standing it? Maybe he had succeeded in going to sleep. Purdue put the boat about and got on the other side. From his seat he could look right through the cabin-door into the face of Hasting. Hasting’s eyes were closed. Asleep! Asleep! Now! Adventure was she? ” Hasting’s eyes contracted; he shifted his position and licked his lips. Asleep nothing. -him! him! him and his cant about suicide! Of course he couldn’t—wouldn ‘tesleep. If he did, what good would it do? - He wouldn’t stay asleep while a man dragged him away from that bulkhead and its door and hauled out the cask. He studied that door. There was no chance of get- ting into it, not without moving Hasting a good three feet back. The door had worse effect on him than the jug had had on Hasting. Behind it was, not a swallow of water, but gal- lons of water—gallons—gallens—plenty to drink and drink for hours and plenty to leave for other hours. Just behind that door—just behind that... Bah! He’d kill the dude. was he afraid of? He’d slip in and tap him over the head hard enough to... To get his cabin floor all smeared up with blood, to have some of it seep down into the bilge where he couldn’t get to it and clean it off in a hurry, where they’d find it and take it to some chemical place and analyze it and . He must quit this! He must hold on to himself! He must! He must! Maybe he wasn’t as strong as Hasting but he was a lot tougher. He must outlast him. He’d still be strong enough to drag him What | a away from the door, to get the cask | where he could drink from it after the soft city landsman was far gone in un- consciousness. Of course he would; of course he could. He must! Must! It was Rose—Rose Gardiner and Gardiner’s fortune. His for an hour of this—or two hours—or .. . He couldn’t stand three hours. wouldn’t stand three hours. He Rose—who Gardiner—his money—what were they? What was anything but water—the water in that cask behind that door? ; He did not leap up and start for the cabin the first time or the second or the third that he went round the cycle of mental agony and physical torture. He was a strong man of strong will. He had the physical resistance of a seaman— that resistance which carries men of the sea through days of clinging to spars in icy waters, weeks of starvation and even thirst, hours with their clothes frozen to GComichboo = ee —— —- = > = = tem, “ ~ le ware *- Woe Pe ft Tore ee a. <S7GOM? i > ae,