Adventure Magazine Cover — page 137: what you’re looking at

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

The Dream's End Again Arnie had no reply. And aft by the mizzen-shrouds Captain Loman deliv- ered him a sincere man’s oration on the subject of the modern jack-tar’s decadence. Every new crew he shipped, he complained, acted in just this manner. _ “Don’t you ever sign on an old crew again, sir?”’ Arnie was moved to ask. “Never. I’d not have them. What’s sailing coming to, do you think?” “Money,” said Arnie. “Profits.” He said it without thinking. ~ “Ah, but there’ll be no profits with finical crews,” hastened the captain. ‘Selfish as rats they are, the lot of them. No pride in the ship; no esprit de corps. They sulk; they answer back; they handle. sheets half- heartedly. Why, see now. ‘There’s the Sound to make in a week or primage cut in half. That’s my lookout and yours. Money stolen out of our pockets because these devils won’t have pride about themh. How do you like that now? The mate shares too, you know.” “Pd as lief my share went into better food for’ard, sir,’’ Arnie stated. This suggestion he spilled on impulse and quite without mature consideration. It was the ex-forecastle-hand in him crying for justice and a captain’s sympathy. Had he stopped to reason, he must have found him- self still sadly out of tune with the demands of the calculating world, with the creed Lelona so clearly showed him. And Captain Loman gaped until his jaw sagged and his eyes popped. as vorable wind, swept northward lke a gull. The beauty of her whispered to Arnie’s soul; the grace of her supple heeling was a glory unspeakable. He had known ships that chattered and grunted and groaned; not one that mused sibilantly BUT the Samson, pursued by a. fa- and purred and sang in a vibrant ecstasy. | In four days they had made eight hun- dred miles—and never a studding sail in sight. Then the breeze freshened and came on at half a gale. A sailor left some rigging uncoiled on the deck, whereupon the cap- tain fell victim to a fury of nervous vexa- tion and knocked the offender cold. The crew received a jorum of stinking skouse and in a body flung it over the rail. Arnie’s own watch, having waited two days for a tot of grog, tumbled up at the call of eight bells of the morning watch and, ignor- x 127 ing the order to furl topsails, lined up cups in hand and waited. The captain had in- ~ stituted a program of punishment for the crew’s grumbling. No grog, he said. To Arnie came with grim irony the thought of his possession of a quart of the whisky he detested, and the poverty of these fellows who craved a habitual indulgence. Rules of shipboard stirred him to motion. Inwardly revolting, he strode forward and - * administered the heavy hand of authority. His lacerating wordsand bruising blows they accepted alike with no whit of animosity. Afterward he retired to the poop-rail trem- bling and gulping. And the Samson skipped before the half- gale like a white-robed cherub and picked sweet harps and sang melodiously. Hard days for Arnie; the hardest of his life. Mantled in austere authority, he knew the hurt of forcing obedience. It stung him to think how he charged on to extra money, from extra money to the dream’s end; while these undreaming drudges asked of the world fresh food and a swig of rum—and got curses and enraged blows. He could not get out of his mind the remembrance of that thrill of satisfaction vouchsafed to him in the hand-grip of ten men just such as these. With what earnest inner ear he listened . once more to Lelona’s convincing voice: ‘Yo’ mek beeg hombre—gre’t maunay— beeg sheep—an’ me. Yo’ get him; be heppy. Odders do sam’ t’ing.”’ He knew she was right and that, being right, she would not wait long over his stupid forecastle habits that in more than seventeen years had yielded him nothing, absolutely nothing. Unhappiness born of lonesome speculation—that was his portion. The sour taste of the burning whisky lifting him into —— He had put all that aside. He had something to fight for; he had Lelona, companionship, a And here, with the weapons of his fighting keen-edged and powerful in his grip, he gulped and trembled when he used them. Perhaps he was not equal to it after all. Perhaps he was—as Captain Loman’s gap- ing surveyal of him intithated—as crude and ridiculous and impossible as these dregs of humanity that never dreamed at all. He had been disgusted with the little minds of the officers under whom he had sailed; they seemed to know so little and remember nothing. Yet he could not measure even to their stature. 0\(0\(0) com>