Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 78: what you’re looking at

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

72 a day to cook for the recruits, and they had a fire-place just back of the foremast. In some way they must have smuggled coals below with the desperate intention of firing the ship; and they succeeded. What they had in mind would be impossible to say, but it is very well known that there are many things that a Solomon Islander dreads more than death. It was certain that all of the natives were not in the plot, for many had been asleep; but their terror when the fire got under way was in itself terrifying. It would have been impossible to keep command of the deck if those savages were turned lose on the deck. They had been lured below by trinkets and free gin. The Betty Bly pretended to be a trader, not a blackbirder; and when there was a good crowd below, the hatches had been clapped on, the helm raised and off she scooted. When there is fire between decks the first thing to be done is to clap on the hatches, and make everything air tight in the effort to smother the flames; but even Brannigan, who stopped at nothing, hesi- tated at that. It meant cruel suffocation for threescore human beings. The two pumps were turned on and the gratings flooded in an effort to reach the fire, but it had taken hold and smoke boiled up amid the coughing and screaming of the wild men. “For God’s sake let ’em out!’ Rodgers cried. “They'll have our heads—biff!” Branni- gan roared, with something almost like anguish in his hoarse, coarse voice. “Aye,” said Rodgers. ‘“But——” And he did not answer. It was the truth, and life is precious no matter how little a man may care for it. Besides, they were on the high seas and there would be none to tell the story of what had been done except men who could be trusted to tell it without mentioning the recruits. The black boys of the crew could be depended on. Rodgers did not ponder that fact, that 1s, consciously; but away down deep, he must have felt it. When the boatswain was dragging the hatch covers out, Rodgers struck him back saying— ‘Don’t smother ’em— don’t The poor devils were in writhing fighting clusters at the hatch gratings, gasping for air, screaming. They tore at one another murderously, thrusting out their arms as if to snatch something to breathe. It would 1)? Adventure have been an act of cruel mercy to clap down the hatch-coverings and have their torment over; but instead they were half- drowned by the streams of salt water. Brannigan had no head for a crisis. The best he could do was shout and puff and let Rodgers take charge. Rodgers was cold and unexcitable. He knew it was a suicidal massacre to let the natives out of their fiery pit, but some remnant of decency kept him from taking the brutal measure that might have checked, perhaps have smoth- ered, the fire. All of the natives were burned and suffo- cated anyway. ‘The cries seemed piercing enough to be heard half-way around the earth. The stench of scorched flesh filled the night like the sacrifice on a monstrous altar to Moloch; and before the flames broke through—after all voice and movement was silenced below—the crew of the Betty Bly knew there was nothing left for them but the open boats. There was land to the right of them and land to the left of them; but every beach was dotted with the villages of cannibals. The recruiter and boatswain with five black boys took one boat; Brannigan, Rodgers and the other sailors went off to- gether. The boats separated in the night and nothing was ever heard of the recruiter and his companions. At dawn, which fol- lowed soon after they had taken to the boats, they were out of sight; so it was sup- posed that in some way the boat had been swamped. “Their luck’s better ’an ours, my boy,” said Brannigan as he stood up and stared about and saw two swiftly approaching canoes with slender stems and sterns reach- ing like great swan-necks from the water. “Tf you ever learned any prayers, now’s the time to use ’em.” However it had happened that for one of the few nights since he had been on the island, Webb had not been drunk enough to stay asleep. Some way or other the liquor would not take hold; and he had pulled his mat down to the beach where it was cool and mosquitoes were fewer. As he sat smoking and brooding he saw the speck of fire that grew larger than the torch of any fishing-party; and when he realized that a ship was burning he raised a cry that brought men running to the beach. The canoes were run out of their sheds and into the water, and some two dozen C© MICLOOOKS ©