Adventure Magazine Cover — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

30 hurled him flat on the deck. Almost at the same instant, there was the snapping ‘report of an automatic, and a bullet flat- tened itself against a ventilator cowl. I glanced across the estuary toward the pilot-boat. It was a mile away, nearing its cutter, and the pilot did not turn his head. O’Day started, stood upright for a moment, drawing another bullet from the fo’c’sle and then ducked like the rest of us. May-sing bending over the prostrate Chi- nese was speaking to him in his native language. As she drew the knife from her sleeve and tapped its point on the deck at his side, he turned, got on all fours, and went over to the wheel. “Tf I speak, he understands,” she smiled at us. ‘Suppose you set course, captain?” ‘“‘Are we going out with this gang?” asked Burns, horrified. ‘Unless you’ve some better plan to sug- gest,” growled O’Day. “Do you know what we've got aboard?” “Why in name didn’t we get another crew?’’ asked Burns. ‘‘Because I didn’t know until we were out in the stream that we’d the gold aboard,” shouted O’Day, “and because I knew that if this crew got ashore, we’d not get another in time to sail at a moment’s notice.”’ Burns opened his mouth to speak again. “We can’t make another Chinese port now because we’d be detained and the gold confiscated,” roared O’Day. ‘‘Whatever I’m doing is the only thing to be done. For —’s sake shut upand let’s carryon. I’m captain here until I’m murdered.” ‘“We’ve got women aboard,” said Burns. It was the thought of Sylvia that had driven him to this unheard-of course of questioning the captain’s wisdom. ‘“‘And they’re turning to and doing some- thing while you’re standing whining there,”’ said O’Day, pointing out the course on the compass-card to May Sing. “T’m not whining,” said Burns. oa | 9? 1 AT THIS instant, just as O’Day vq rang the engines to half speed, there ™ arose from the deck aft a terrible cry in the voice of Mackenzie. Rushing to the aft-rail, over which Sylvia Parsons was already leaning in an attempt to get a shot at the struggling group below, we saw that two Chinese, hidden in the cabin which had been occupied by the doctor, had sprung out on the engineer as he passed on his way Adventure aft, and that they were now trying to drag him forward. Before any others of us could move, Burns was half-way down the ladder, the bandage slipping over one eye with the violence of his movement. “T’ll show whether I’m a coward or not,” ‘he cried as his feet touched the deck. One of Mackenzie’s adversaries turned to meet this new attack, a knife in his hand. Burns’ foot shot up and kicked the weapon to the boat-deck, where it lay glittering in the sun; then, after one terrible left to the man’s face, he caught him by the waist, raised him aloft with unnatural strength, and hurled him over the side. The other man, releasing Mackenzie, had turned on Burns when I slid down the lad- der. Before either of us could get to grips with the Chinese, however, a bullet hummed down from the top of the steps and dropped him at our feet. We turned to face forward just in time. Half a dozen Chinese were rushing aft upon us through the alleyway under the bridge-house. “Get to your engines, Mackenzie!” yelled O’Day, clearing the ladder, it seemed, at a bound and knocking the leading attacker flying into the scuppers with a thrust of his shoulder. ‘‘We don’t want your fire- men = The next moment he was at grips with a deck-hand, holding his arms to his sides while he forced his neck backward to the breaking-point; and Burns and I were try- ing to hold off knife-thrusts while we backed to the ladder. Only one of these men had a revolver, and Sylvia brought him down as he was taking aim at Burns. The doctor, I learned afterward, was leaning over the forward bridge-rail with a Martini he had snatched from the rack in the chart-house, keeping back the rest of the fore-guard. O’Day’s man fell to the deck with a limp thud. Spinning around on his heel he caught two of the men facing me, and brought their shaven heads together with a sickening crack that laid them both sense- less; and a moment later all three of us were back on the bridge-deck unhurt. On the steps of the ladder lay the man Burns had grappled, unconscious. The man who had tried to knife me was staggering forward howling with the pain of a broken arm. All three of us were utterly exhausted. Burns lay down on the red-hot COIN DOOKS (©)