Adventure Magazine Cover, October 10, 1921 — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

52 Luzon PHILIPPINE poUISLANDS ohne {F & oO © vs CHD Wy, one” “He keeps doing it—Gibbins—and acts quéer.”’ “Queer? How queer?” I pressed. “T don’t know. That’s what his mates say. They can’t explain it. It’s the way he draws they don’t like—the same picture over and over again, rough like, with a pen- cil.” “And they say a man’s crazy because he draws a picture?’ “But—he doesn’t know when he’s going to draw it, that’s the trouble,” said Fea- royd. “And the worst of it”—he lowered his voice—‘‘he’s never seen the place he draws—that spot with the palm-trees—nor nobody else has ever seen such a place.”’ “What do you mean? He doesn’t know when he’s going to draw it?” I demanded. “Do you mean to tell me that Gibbins ~ doesn’t know what he’s doing?” “That’s what the mates say. He gets a pencil in his hand, and the pencil just makes the picture—a rough sketch, but plain enough. It’s in the night it comes on, they say—he wakes up in the night at sea and draws, and looks wild and talks wild.” “T’ll admit it is queer,’ I said. “You see,” resumed Fearoyd, warming up now that he had caught my attitude, ‘it’s so much worse because of what hap- pos could be in those waters. - somebody begins to talk about it. Adventure pened out here some eight years back. The ship Creole Queen foundered in a typhoon somewhere on the Zambales coast. Gib- bins was out here at the time, mate in a home ship. He was going to marry Allie Nessler, daughter of old Cap’n Nessler— and she was lost with her father in the Creole. “Gibbins had bought his duds and had arranged for a parson, and the coming Sun- day he was to marry the Nessler girl. The jimmycane swept along here, and come Sunday the Creole Queen was two days over- due. Gibbins hung around all dressed up waiting for tite Creole to come in—but there never was a stick found out of her. She must have been somewhere off the Zambales coast when the typhoon struck—and it’s only off the Zambales coast that Gibbins makes his pictures.’”” Fearoyd shivered. “T see—the Zambales coast. Gibbins runs up and down there with the Bangor Maid,’ I remarked. “Yes, he’s got a contract to carry hay for the government to a calvary post in Lin- gayen Gulf—took the contract cheap so he He’s just come down from there in ballast, and the word went out this morning that his mate, Sol- lars, has quit him—got out of the schooner the minute she was inside the breakwater, and handed out the picture they were all looking at when Gibbins came in. ‘“’That’s what Gibbins is doing round here —looking for a mate. That’s why we all keep still. We want him to get a mate—if he doesn’t he’ll lose his insurance. Sollars says Gibbins is—well, Sollars is done for the same reason the others quit—this busi- ness of the pictures.” | “That’s all twaddle'’”’ I snorted. ‘Just sailormen’s fool superstitions! They’re all making a lot out of nothing!’ “Then you ship with Gibbins,” said Fea- royd. ‘You may not think much of it, but Sollars is scared—and he’s no fool. The last I saw of him he was in the Flagship Bar getting himself pickled so he can forget it all and get himself on an even keel again. He’s jumpy—if you run into him, better not talk to him about it.” “To you believe all this?” I asked. “‘No—nobody believes it,”’ said Fearoyd. “That’s what makes ’em all so mad when But they all cleared out when you began to ask ques- tions. I tell you, Wilks, it’s not a popular subject to bring up around here.”’ cConmiclbool Cc C@