Adventure, December 3, 1920 — page 137: what you’re looking at

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

Plum Duff Along toward morning the weather cleared. The sky got sweet as a bell and the stars come out and laughed at us. But I knowed the old hooker had got her never-get-over. She listed something wicked, so that when we stood on the leeward side of the bridge we was standing plump over open water. But that child was brave as never I seen. as how she didn’t care whatever happened. Be split if I did! So we set down under the leeward rail and waited for what was coming. And we talked considerable about nothing in particular. I found out her name—Elsa. I says it over once or twice. Tried to get her to call me Mark, but all she’d do was laugh. Pretty foolish we was, I reckon—me being old enough for her father. Pretty soon she dropped asleep. And I just sat there with my arm around the little cuss and grinned in the dark. It was not a bad way to go, at that. I might have gone asleep myself. It was quiet on that bridge. Things seemed to have smoothed out a lot. And if we had to go— Split me! The world’s afire! A great old light was on that slanting bridge- deck and on her cargo-masts and rigging. I jumps to my feet—and there lay a monstrous bright eye of a search-light a couple hundred yards to leeward. “Wake up, wake up, Mrs. Dobey!” says I. She jumped on her feet and grabbed hold of me for fear of that great light. But they switched it off us down to the sea alongside. Then we seen that search-light land on a ship’s life-boat about half-ways between them and us. And the glare being out of our eyes then, we took note of a great big hulk there to leeward, sheer high-sided and lit up like a hotel—a passenger-boat she was, and a monstrous big one. Somebody in the lifer hailed us. Faint it come above the wash and roar, for the wind was still fresh and the seas wicked. “Aboard the wreck!” I grabbed the skipper’s big megaphone. “Hillo, the life-boat!’’ “How many aboard?” “Two—man and woman,” says I. “Have ye no gangway ladder?” say he. “We be derelicts, not house-painters.” “You'll have to jump then and take your chances,” he come back. ‘And be quick about it before the both of us founders,” says he. “Jump nothing!” says I at that. “Stand by and I’ll show you a trick,” says I. “I’ve been shipwrecked before,” says I. “The you have!” says he. “Now guard your tongue, man. I’m telling you there’s a lady aboard.” No answer. She smiled and said. 127 All this time I’ve been ripping a couple life-preservers off the bridge rail. Then I ducks below and fetches up a heaving-line. I lashes the two preservers together and one end of the heaving-line to them, and the other end I makes fast toa stanchion. The child watches all, and claps her hands when that the idea gets her. Then I hove the preservers well out to lee- ward. And after a bit I seen by the slant of the line they had floated out clear of the ship. “And now if you'll put your pretty arms a my neck,” I says, “T’ll be taking you ome.” WE WAS famous from the moment we set foot on that grand ship. Fine ladies and coots in white pants clusters around us and puts all manner of fool questions till a tall bloke in blue with gold stripes come pushing through the crowd very dignified. “What ship is that and who are you?” And I had the truth on my lip when that blessed girl stamps neat but silent on my foot. “That’s the Betsy Lass,’ says she. “My brother and I took passage aboard her for— for Tampico. Can you take us there?” “T’m bound for Southampton today,” laughs he. ‘Some other time perhaps.”’ But at the word Southampton my heart begun to rock. For I knowed of a little to- bacconist-shop could be had for a song, a matter of a mile out on the High Street, with a garden aft and ramblers over the companionway. “Southampton or Tampico makes little odds,” says I, “so long as my—sister and me is still alive.” Then the women took her below and the men took me and rigged me out in clothes the like of which had never touched Mark’s back be- fore. And when I come out on deck, there she was—and I’d never knowed her if she’d not of smiled. She held out something to me. I seen it was a hat. ~ “T’ve got one,” says I. . “No, this here is a collection—for us,’’ she says. ‘‘There’s nigh five hundred dollars in it,” she says. Plainly I seen that tobacconist-shop! Well, we walked up and down the decks of that grand vessel. And I got to thinking of that Duff and how he got what owed him. I looked down at this slip of an angel at my side and thought of the hell she’d lived through. Duff was a coot, thinks I, and a dirty hound nor one half a man. But he sure was plum Duff for me. So I kids myself into light and care-free manners, as was my custom, and holds her soft little arm tight, like I will never let it go. _ “Will we go to Valparaiso, my dear?” I says. “Be split if we do!” says she. COMIC DOO KS (E)