Adventure Magazine Cover — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

64 _ Before it reached the horizon line the sun plunged into a mass of cloud that com- pletely obscured it. Night fell swiftly. The land vanished, the sky blended with the sea. Pierre ordered the sail taken down and for a time they drifted while he kept the bow to the waves with the tiller and an improvized sea-anchor made of oars lashed together. THE galleon, showing now only as a cluster of fixed lights, was slowly bearing down upon them. Pierre made his plans and gave his orders while they murched the last crumbs of the food they trusted would prove only an entrée to something more substantial and appetizing. Committed to the reckless enterprise, Pierre was fully sensible of all its hazards. He was spinning a coin with Destiny. One side meant lingering imprisonment, perhaps torture and the Inquisition, if not death. That possibility he thrust aside and made what preparations he could to curry favor with Fortune by boldness. If they en- countered strong opposition and the fight grew too hot, his men might try to retreat. That he would cut off by sinking his boat beneath him—as another commander once had burned his bridges. He determined to attack while a part, at least, of the Spanish crew would be at supper. He detailed his men under sub- leaders, to the best of his judgment of their fighting ability and character. A _ cross- eyed, wild-tempered Irishman named Fallon he told off to capture’the powder-room. “See you, Tom,” he said. “You should find it amidships on the gun-deck. Take seven with you—choose your men now, quickly, and get them together beside you. Tremaine, you’ll take seven more. Make for the fo’csle, hold ’em up by surprize, disarm them and clap ’em under hatches. De Blois, take you three and carry the wheel. Taque, you, with your brother and two more, clear the deck of the watch. “T’ll attend to the afterguard. They'll be in the cabin over their wine. Remy will come with me; and Michel Otard, " Renton and Grey. Alec, you'll follow to the cabin when you’ve finished your scut- tling. “We'll board aft at the break of the poop, to starboard. She’s on the port tack and she’ll not be shifting. When she’s ours we'll put her about and sail up Channel Adventure tonight. Tomorrow we'll wake Tortuga with our guns and give them a scare till we break out our flag. “Draw all your pistol charges and re- charge. Try your flints. quick. Now, muffle those rowlocks, and out oars. We'll row to meet her. Pull soft, lads; show no seafire in the strokes.” To Pierre the deed was not so much one of piracy as warfare. As long as history ran, the men who dwelt on the southern slopes of the Pyrenees were at bitter enmity with those on the northern. It was the bounden duty of every Frenchman under Louis the Thirteenth to kill any Spaniard under Philip the Fourth, as every Spaniard equally felt himself entitled to hang every Frenchman. In Tortuga there were not only French— there were English, Irish, Scotch and Dutch, all equally pariahs in the eyes of Spain. _ And in Europe, the Thirty Years war was on. So Pierre meant to capture the galleon as speedily as possible, in one swift rush, aided by hot lead and cold steel. They met the galleon’s course a little ahead of her bluff bows. Gazing upward they caught the glint of the sprit light on the steel cap of a sentinel, took another stroke and caught at the sloping sides, easing themselves sternwards. Sanderson pulled out the boat’s cleaning plug and tossed it away. He made swift work with his saw while the water gushed in and the overladen pirogue began to settle. The night was hot and the gun ports were open. The muzzles of the culverin projected. Along the run ran bilge molds, there were chain-plates on the outside of the rail, deep carvings on the walls of the after cabin, all good as ladder rungs to desperate men. They had thrown off their boots, those who had them, and they sat silent, clutching . their cutlases, ground to razor-edges before leaving port, pistols ready in sling and belt, taking great breaths of anticipation. Between the foundering pirogue and the galleon the wash ran suckingly, charged with pale phosphorescence. From the open cabin windows there came the clink of glass and metal, scraps of short sentences. Pierre’s hand encountered a rope like a boat fall, Above him he saw a crane rigged for taking small boats inboard. He clung to the rope, then passed it down for- ward, finding the second fall. The water Fight hard and © GOMIIGooOO S Co