Adventure, January 20, 1922 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

14 gloomy eye, muttering fiercely as he dis- covered again and again losses of stores and gear that he had been counting upon for the fitting out of the expedition nearest his heart. For the time being, all thought of punish- ing the rascals who had caused the disaster found no room in his seething brain; the sight of his greater ships, scattered broad- cast along the shores, utterly wrecked; the few paltry small craft still lazily pulling at their frayed cables; most of all, that great store of arms and munitions gone up in smoke, struck him a blow not easy to bear. Carr, his chief heutenant, accompanied him in moody silence, not daring to break in upon Cook’s black ponderings. Apart from the outer huts, four men paced back and forth disconsolately: the captain and three passengers of the last of the pirate’s victims. No need was there for guard over them. Everywhere they looked armed pirates swarmed, too wide- awake under their chief’s searching eye to relax vigilance. As for the girl captive, if she was not sleeping, she was at least so far resigned under Nell’s charge as to re- main in the hut and rest. Cook glanced all around in final scrutiny, then strode to the water’s edge with his mate. “This is a ——fire price to pay fora month’s cruise, Carr. Half the settlement burned, all my seaworthy ships, all my pow- der and small arms! And to balance, what? One plaguey brig taken, with ngt enough booty in her to pay for “powder spent; the schooner knocked to staves— Blood 0’ Moses!” “?Twould have been better had ye sunk yon prisoners too along with their brig, captain. Ain’t no good to come\to us out © that pale-faced, shivering wench. Did ye see the scowl 0’ Mistress Nell Clark?” “Satan broil ye! The wench is mine. Ye have the loot to balance my share. As for Nell Clark, she asks to be treated as a man among us, and by the lord 0’ she shall be. Let her meddle if she dare. Am I the man to be scared of any woman, Steve Carr?” Cook paced the sands awhile, deep in thought, and with each turn he ‘made his eyes revealed more ruin to him. He halted again beside the mate and snarled: “Let no man sleep until I hear from ye what, to the last nail and rope-yarn, is left to us, Count the men. [ll not be cheated Adventure \ out of share of that Nicaraguan booty for this set-back. “We agreed to join Swan, out from En- gland, with ship for ship, man for man, gun for gun, and on equal shares, to sail to- gether to meets the Frenchman off Callao on like terms. Look—” he exclaimed bit- terly— ‘at the equipment with which to carry out our part! So do you be in two places at once, and make every useless dog o’ the crew jump to the whip and let’s lade all we have into our best bottom and leave Aves to the crows.” ‘And d’ye think Swan will accept such a mongrel outfit?” laughed Carr impudently. He thought he saw in Cook’s delay over the punishment of Doggett and Rando signs of unaccountable weakening of will; this lat- est announcement sounded to him, knowing the character of the pirate Swan, like proof that John Cook’s leadership was likely to prove less unassailable than it had always seemed; and the mate, ever watchful for his own chances of leadership, shrewdly ascribed the change to the advent of the pale-face girl whom the captain had claimed. ‘“‘Cap’n,” he leered, “when we meet with Swan on the high seas he’ll take our guns and powder, take the wench from ye and send us all packing. Then he’ll sail away to join the Frenchman 2 “Carr, ye’re the same solid-skulled swab ye ever have been,” Cook laughed without malice. “If the venture gives ye shivers, why, stay behind along o’ Doggett and Rando, my buck. [ll join L’Escuyler with a squadron as promised. ‘And listen. While about the task I gave ye, take a look now and then at the Schoolmaster. Watch the swing o’ shoulder, the leap from the hip, his eye—rummage in that thick head o’ thine and see if no light comes to ye. “Away with ye now, and have news for me by noon. I’m for the schooner, to save what may be saved before she cradles her- self forever in the mud of Aves.” Sa 4” TO THE half-filled schooner the cap- WSN) ( tain rowed himself, chuckling hugely. “J The brotherhood of the Black Flag might be only a brotherhood in name; times had been, still were, when one rover would attack another of the same breed in a slack season for merchantmen, and oftentimes win a richer booty by the act, though certainly purchased at a high cost in life and limb. COnmmicloool< (C@