Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

-here. 44 Adventure Purdue knew the other was not afraid, knew that Hasting thought him off his mind. Also, familiarity grown to in- stinct told him that he could not wield a club in the cabin while Hasting was | standing up. MHasting’s calm steadied Purdue to an effort to play his part. “Water! Water!’ he shrieked. “I ant water! Get out of my way! Get out of my way!” “But—but, Purdue—there’s no water Listen, old man, the water’s out in the jug.” Hasting moved aside as he spoke. There seemed no reason to do otherwise. The door stood before Purdue’s flam- ing eyes. The mere mention of water had brought his fevered thirst to torture. away every other madness. He seized the folded sail and dragged it clear. With a jerk that pulled its staple from the thin Biardine of the cabin’s ceiling, he flung the door open. Hasting did not interfere with his hasty crawl half-way into the low opening. It did not look as if a man could hurt himself much in that narrow space. Purdue caught at the cask. There was a spigot at one end. He tried to get at it with his mouth. He had partly succeeded when another of the boat’s terrific lurches swung him so that he loosened his front teeth against the brass of the faucet. He lost patience. Grasp- ing the little barrel with both hands, he started to worm his way back out. In another instant he had it on the cabin floor, and Hasting became ‘alert as he watched. He caught at the signifi- cance of what Purdue was doing—the wrong significance. ‘““Hey—don’t drink that! Good ; man, what is it? You’ll kill yourself. It’s—it’s oil. It’s your oil for the lamps. Purdue!” The man felt himself snatched back from the spigot which he had got open, from which he had caught the first trick- ling drop. He tried to leap up. Hasting was upon him. He caught at Hasting’s wrist and dug into it with his hard, rough nails. Hasting’s free hand de- scended on the back of his head with a blow meant to stun. It took the fight out of Purdve. “It’s water! It’s water!” he screamed, getting a glimpse of the stream that now _ Oh! trickled along a board six inches beyond hope of reaching it. “My At'’s water and yourre letting it get away. Oh!” He ended in a groan of utter agony. Hasting, making sure of a better hold on the man under him, reached forward until he could wet his finger in the trickle on the board. _He put the finger to his parched tongue. }? “Great he screamed as he leaped for the spigot. “It is water!” Maybe it was because he was afraid of the other’s madness, maybe it was be- cause he was trained that way, maybe it was from real belief that the other’s thirst was greater than his own and more in need of immediate relief—at any rate, Hasting drew the keg toward Purdue. “Here, you drink first,” he invited. He sat back and watched the other drink. The relief of his mind left him giddy. The room went around him in black circles. He sat still. VWaguely he sensed _that Purdue was drinking more than a very thirsty man ought to drink. He tried to warn the other. It was too great an effort. He needed his strength to reach that spigot when the other was finished. HEN strength came from an unex- pected source. The cabin seemed fairly to bellow with the roar of a fog- horn. Purdue, his eyes starting from the pressure he had brought into his stomach, drew up from the spigot and leaped to the hatchway. To Hasting nothing else in the world could matter until he had drunk. He stopped only when he felt a sharp pain in his chest from swallowing too fast. The water, having lain close to the bot- tom of the boat and the cold sea just out- side, was surprizingly cold. To his blis- tered tongue it felt icy. As he’ drankt he was conscious of a booming voice. Vaguely he heard the words it shouted. “For the love of cripes, Jess Purdue, what in time you doin’ out here with a sail up and you in the cabin, lettin’ yer ship founder in the trough fike this? Are—are you plumb crazy ?” Then he looked up and saw tec Pur- due, struggling to speak, unable to do it, toppling headlong across the trunk in EOmIcbooks (E@) Lt Pig om ~s ~ _* a ee ee ee ee oe a