Adventure Magazine Cover — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

The Gold Ship “There is no more profit in boucan or in hides. You know how long it took us, and with what hard toil, to gain a shipload, only to lose all in the channel. Misfortune, it seems, has taken pains to buffet us. Weare marked for men who are unlucky. We lose at cards and at dice. We are reduced to the condition of beggary if we are not yet beg- gars. 3 “What to do then? Why, to force the hand of Fortune. To make a bold bid. Since Opportunity avoids us, let us go out and seek Opportunity. Look you, we French hold Hispaniola and this isle of Tortuga; but the Spanish, our enemies, hold the seas. They have taken toll of us, and heavily. Let us adjust the balance. “Their flota galleons carry rich freight wrung from the toil of Indian slaves. Treasures of gold and silver and valuable produce—enough, in one hull, to make rich men of all of us and send us home in honor to our own places. The cause is just—to despoil the foes of our countries and enrich ourselves at one stroke, to accomplish that for which we came to the Main. What say your” “°Tis piracy.” Pierre whirled on the speaker. “Call it by what name you will. If it is piracy to singe the beard of the king of Spain, to avenge the tortures of the Inquisi- tion, the wrongs of enslaved natives, then enroll me as a pirate! Will any feed us on Tortuga for the love of our company? Has the governor, Le Passeur, any love for those who can not pay his tithes? Some- thing like this we must do—or perish.”’ {se THEY caught the infection of his pay spirit, rallying to the flash of his —" eyes, the ring of his voice, thronging together, throwing up their arms with a hoarse cheer. All save the giant. “Brave words,” he said. ‘Do we swim out into the Caribbean and wait for a gal- leon to come by and deliver itself to us? Do we catch flying fish as we go and drink the dew from our beards? When do we start? Speech will not slake thirst nor fill an empty belly, to my mind.” Pierre was swift to see the dampening of their ardor. | “We are not quite to the end of our resources,” he said. ‘‘Simon, the Jew, is in my debt for a buffeting I saved him—per- haps for his very life. He has sworn to 57 repay me. I can get from him some arms, powder and bullets, some provisions and a boat. We do not need much if our hearts are welded to our enterprise. So long as his boat does not leak and has a sail and sweeps, she will serve us. Fortune favors the brave.” Sanderson suddenly chuckled. “Tam minded,” he said, “of what a wise man wrote over thirteen hundred years ago. Eumenius, orator and scribe to Cesar Constantine. Listen.” They gathered round the red-headed chirurgeon with the respectful awe in which they held his learning, their jaws slack as he quoted in Latin: ** “Atque ita eventu temeritatis ostenderant nihil esse clausum piratice desperationi quo navigiis pateret accessus.’ ‘And so, by the result of their daring exploit, showed that wherever ships can sail, nothing is closed to pirates in despera- tion’,” he translated. “I am for Pierre. Let us go and seek out Simon. If he gives us a black cloth and some white bunting. to boot I will make shift to furnish us a fitting flag for the expedition.” “Look you,” went on Pierre, pressing the moment. “I was born in a caul. Beneath a fortunate star. So far my happy hour has not come, but it is close. A wise woman foretold at my birth that riches and honor would come to me out of a golden ship. See, it is stamped upon my wrist.” He held out his forearm for their inspec- tion. Distinct through the sunburn there showed a birthmark that, with little imagin- ation, showed like a miniature ship, high- pooped, full-sailed, golden under the patina of tan. ‘Twice since then has my fortune been read,” he said. “By a breed woman at Port Royal, a voodoo mistress. By a gipsy in Bordeaux. Both spoke alike—of a golden ship sailing on the seas, freighted with my fortune, and of riches and honor and the name of Pierre le Grand! That ship is now upon the seas, my braves. Let us put out to meet it and share its cargo. Within a week, mayhap by this time tomorrow, we may be drinking rich wines and clinking doubloons in other pockets than these rags now hold.”’ They hung on his words, swept by super- stition, inflamed by the hope of betterment, wrapt in the picture his words had conjured COIN DOOKS (© iin