Adventure Magazine Cover — page 132: what you’re looking at

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

| a on the crest of a two-foot wave. 3 Shave the Jersey market-gardeners used to park their vegetable-wagons on the four A.M. trip. Mr. Budlong, the chief, who had been leaning out of the engine-room door to watch the bombardment, pulled in his head and z 3 _ slammed the door just as the prone and wrath- ful Jonathan Gifford slid past head foremost The captain was using language which/ the admiring but _ prudent Mr. Budlong chose to interpret as a _ “full speed astern.’ As he reversed his engines the Hoboken pitched the other way barely in time to save her skipper from being swept overboard astern. Fetching up against the side of the gangway, - Captain Gifford sat up and looked behind him. ‘The ebbing flood had left the deck and every- area upon it painted thick with evil-smelling _ slime; his own uniform, his hair, his very mouth and nostrils were full of the foul stuff. “Framed BS in the far end of the gangway he saw a sunlit, rapidly receding vision of Fort Moseby with the Confederate flag flying more jauntily than ever. Neither side had fired a shot. This is the of a way to fight a war!” ; Z . spluttered the eighteen-twelver. < 2¢ 2 ¢ . BA ) eid ’ aro boa MA 7" of vy . P“Qppe Bele 2. © ti > Me " oy :. oa > y tie ™ A ee | 2 4 ‘i. es pal 8 + , eo hae \ pe See via mre “h ets ¥ 0) a wad see he ae PF ER ies aa se f 4 a - re Mal! am.) tat: )! 2 ‘gcd as .WORDS similar to those used by Jona- than Gifford, more softly accented but # equally harsh in tone, were being spoken at that same moment by Colonel Montague wer Ashley, C. S. A., the gallant commander of Fort _ Moseby, to his cousin and second-in-command, Captain Carter Vance, on the subject of mines, or as they were called in those days, torpedoes. “Why in the name of common sense—and fo’teen other things—didn’t you wait till that thus-and-so Yank was right on top of_that demijohn of gunpowder befo’ you touched it off? Then you’d have busted him wide open instead of baptizin’ him and’ scarin’ him so he’ll never come within toe-nail reach again. Fo’ ——’s sake, Carter, what was ailin’ you?” “Buck-fever, colonel—just plain buck-fever. Like what a hunter gets when he starts to shoot his first deer. It was my first try at torpedoing a ship, and all of a sudden my hands took to shaking so powerful hard that befo’ I knew it I’d brought the ends of both wiahs together and closed the circuit. “Soon as I’d done it I was all right again and ready to catch that Yankee with the next torpedo when he started to turn around. ’Stead of which he went scootin’ backwards like a water-bug on a pond. I’ve never seen any steamboat act thataway befo’,” declared Cap- tain Vance. “Must be one of those new double-ender gun- boats they’re building fo’ river-work,” decided the twenty-year-old colonel. Neither he nor his cousin had ever been a hundred miles from their native city, and the conventional type of ferry-boat, though in- Adventure vented fifty years before by that versatile News BS Yorker Robert Fulton, was still unknown at — Port Caroline. But the young men of that town were anything but backward when it = SY came to fighting. “Carter,” continued the ecsned in calmer tones, “I’m getting mighty tired of sitting here — slapping mosquitoes and watchin’ that no-ac- count Yank parading up and down the Sound all day and lying there with a light burning all. night as if he owned the place. Last week he captured that schooner-load of lumber we were counting on for barracks. I’m going to com- mandeer the Southern Belle and pay Mr. Yankee a visit some time in the dark of the moon.’ “That old shingle-work river-boat wasn't built fo’ rough and careless usage,” cautioned his cousin. into locofoco matches—and set ’em alight.’’ “It’s going to be a surprize visit, Carter, and in the dark, as I said.” “Wouldn't you like a nice gnar-tenieds to ring the door-bell with?” asked the captain solicitously. ‘I’m powerful short of detonators, but I reckon I can fix you up.” - “Thank you kindly, Carter, but I’m sort of prejudiced against these modern improvements. — ag eo right now. I’m going to take a hundred of our fightin’est men and give ’em a chance to use. oe their bayonets and bowie-knives.” Hit] Southern Belle bore steadily down on i the one bright spot in the otherwise ‘ unbroken darkness of an overclouded night— the riding-light of the Northern gunboat. The once white paint of the river-steamer’s tall topsides was daubed over with the’ blackest mud; her forward deck was packed with gray- clad soldiery. More than one young infantryman, nervously ‘handling his bayoneted, unloaded musket—left unloaded by Colonel Ashley’s orders—kept thinking of his last mid-Summer night’s voyage on the Southern Belle. Moonlight on the upper river, scent of magnolias from the banks, her face beside his as they sat together, over there by the rail. Summer of 1860—two thousand years ago! Nearer and nearer they drifted to the light ‘and its long; wavering reflection in the water. Still there came no challenge, nor any other _sound, from the anchored craft. Straining his. eyes to catch the loom of the enemy’s squat hull, each soldier began to visualize the imagined outlines of impossible naval monsters bristling “One solid shot would smash her | <i . DRIFTING silently with the ebb, the ~ with masts, funnels and enormous guns. Nearer — and nearer—now they were close alongside. The imaginary war-ships vanished; but where | was the real enemy? “Colonel,” whispered the aged skipper of the Southern Belle, “there hain’t nothin hyar but: <S) -COMMICLOO© com: Me ) Pied ? ‘ ‘o , ce - > Pape Pi tra 4 Rs er Ate “wos wet y3 i A ey 4 fe ec bn P fe te ; + ety , ye eee pete a Va. aD ed ® hh es Ot # 7s " ‘ 1 wel SK hd, wee ee m2 by J ad Aegis wT fermi’ er bes 4 : “) * (ay se 4 “by we ° ‘fi eB iG iy’ iy ; XT ty PY ib x 5 om, Win Xs " L * . pat f SS oo a “Fis Lk oa < —_ | 4