Adventure Magazine Cover — page 41: what you’re looking at

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

Yellow Treasure deck and closed his eyes. gallant attempt to brace up, but failed. His strength was at an end. How, at his age, he had so far stood the strain, was beyond me. He leaned over the rail and stared around the blazing, shoreless expanse of the estuary. The pilot-boat was a mere speck to the north. Save for a steamer whose smoke smudged the horizon, it was the only ship in sight. On our starboard quarter Tsung- ming Island was receding into a hazy patch. “‘Carter,’’ said O’Day, in a voice that lacked all semblance of vitality, “‘we’re dead men. We can’t go back, we can’t go for- ward without food, fighting all the way against these odds. We're going to die at sea within ten yards of enough gold to make us all millionaires. I’ve done my best. I’ve done my duty; but there’s a curse on us. There’s a curse on that gold! We're all accursed! Accursed!’’ Then suddenly his knees crumpled under him and he fell to the deck, breathing heav- ily, just as Fraser had done when at last he keeled over—played out to the last deuce. Burnsand I picked him up and, staggering under his weight, carried him into his room and laid him in the bunk. We turned to find Fraser opening his eyes, wakened it may be by some psychic warning of his new respon- sibility. But while yet he lay there, staring at us dully, the doctor rushed up to the door. “The Chinks have ducked below,” he said. ‘““There’s some deviltry afoot. Where’s the ammunition for the Martinis?” “Top right-hand drawer in the chart- house,” said Fraser, like a thick-voiced automaton. ‘‘Here’s the key.” “Tt’s gone!” cried the doctor. “The lock’s been forced, and the drawer’s empty?” As I sprang over to the drawer in which O’Day had kept his revolver ammunition, Burns, with a face of horror, darted through the door toward his cabin. By the time I had assured myself that all the boxes hidden under the captain’s shirts had disappeared, he was back. “Mine’s gone, too!” he cried. “You needn’t look, Carter. They'll have made a clean job of it. Fraser, we'll have to put back. This is suicide.” “What did the old man say?” asked Fraser, in the same thick voice. “He said to carry on,” I answered, “but he didn’t know “Then those are the orders,” said Fraser, O’Day made a 3I fumbling on the settee for his cap. “I’ve no authority to change ’em. Carry on!” “But when they rush us,” queried the doctor, “I’ve got three rounds in one of my revolvers; there’s a round in each of the rifles, and these boys may have six shots between ’em. What are we going to do in face of fourteen Chinamen amuck?” “Make every shot tell,” said Fraser, starting for the bridge. “‘And then?” asked the doctor. “Pray!”? shouted Fraser, a sort of wry smile on his rugged face. “Pray!” Vill THE afternoon watch wore away; ae all of us on the bridge; May-sing peem=s still standing by the almost ex- hausted helmsman; and the signal-cannon, for which we had found one charge and a collection of scrap-iron, poking its nose through the forward bridge-rail; but there was no sign from the forecastle. Alone this time, Doc Parsons had risked a trip to the galley, to find that everything capable of being used for food or in the prepa- ration of it, had been removed. Over the engine-room tube, Mackenzie reported hun- ger in the engine-room, but peace in the stoke-hold. “They were fractious,” he said, “but ah gev the steam-cock a bit turn an’ they’re quiet the noo. Good-by, if ah dinna see ye a again.” ‘““They’re waiting for night,” said Fraser, as he put the tube back on its hook. “There’s no need for us all to be here. Who’s freshest of us?”’ “Tam,” I said. The doctor had changed my bandages while I was unconscious, and they had not come adrift like Burns’ in the scuffle on the deck. I suppose really I looked quite as haggard as the others, but it was no time for argument even if we had had the strength. “Can you take the dog-watches, then,” asked Fraser, ‘while the rest of us sleep?” I glanced at May-sing whose bright black eyes were fixed on me, and nodded. At that moment the Chinese at the wheel toppled sidewise and fell. The sudden movement almost got the ever-ready knife into his back; but he had genuinely fainted. Fraser cut the rope off a life-belt, tied his hands and feet, and pushed him into the shade. COMmicaooa S © inn