Adventure, January 20, 1922 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

Tides of Hate Then he called his gunner, and while the angry skies rang with the howling chanteys of exuberant pirates setting full topsails, the captain passed around the maindeck on a search for the armament of the capture. oS me, but she’s well fanged, gunner,” cried Davies. He stood in the deep waist, his hand on a carronade. “See what she has by way of chasers. Blast me, but I think she must carry the metal of a frigate.” The gunner passed forward, and soon re- turned with a grin of jubilation. “A sweet long eighteen, cappen! Oh, a gunner’s joy of a piece! Loaded too. D’ye think the Dons ha’ gotten a scare? She’s armed like a cruiser, yet her’ crew ain’t more than twoscore In——” See in» the abrupt cessation of wind the great topsails thundered in to the masts, not yet mastheaded. Davies mounted the poop, scanning the dark heavens for sign of the breeze which must follow after such a squall, and out of the murk to westward, whence came the first zephyr of ‘the steady wind, loomed a tall shape which the few watery stars revealed as a lofty ship full as big as the one he had made his own in payment for the sloop she had cost him. Shouts and drums aboard tke stranger were followed by the almost magical setting of full topsails and topgallants, while even in the darkness Davies could discern the falling of the great courses. “By Jupiter! ’Tis a fighting ship!” he muttered, and silently motioned his helms- man to edge away to leeward. But his own rascals had not so soon got the hand of their new ship as to have set sail so smartly as the man-o’-war to wind- ward; and while yet the capture slowly paid off, the hail came down in Spanish: “Ahoy, the galleon! What are ye?” “What a plague’s her name?” growled Davies, searching for shot-rack or bucket which might tell him by the painted’ scroll. “Galleon ahoy! Who are ye?” came the hail in Spanish again, and the warship ' squared away and ran down toward them. “Madre de Dios!” roared Davies in des- peration. It was a good guess, since one Spanish SUDDENLY the squall passed, and 25 ship in every four was named for the Virgin under one title or another; but it proved in error this time; and while excited pirates sought over the stern for glimpse of a name, from the warship’s bows a gun crashed out and a shot passed across the captured ship’s deck. “Then, blast me, ye shall have it if ye talk fight,’ swore Davies with sudden resolve. He cupped his hands, faced along his decks, and roared. ‘Give the Don his answer, gunner! Man the guns, lads, and mayhap ’twill be two ships we have to meet Swan with—or none. “Rouse out the Dons from the hold, bullies. Set ’em to work making sail; and you, Nell—” accosting the woman as she ran from the great cabin companion, alarmed by the shot— “do you stand watch over the Dons and sée that they play us no trickery.” Himself taking the helm until he had gained a position less perilous than im- mediately under his foe’s lee, Davies peered through the brightening night for a sight of the warship’s strength. What he saw in the first clear glimpse made him catch his breath, for the ship he had chosen to fight loomed a thousand tons, and her fore- castle and high poop bristled with pikes; her maindeck grinned at him across the water with a double row of open ports in which he saw the lighted matches of the gunners. “But a prize worth the taking,” he mut- tered fiercely. ‘‘A prize that may yet sway the balance for me.” “Hoist away on deck!” roared a pirate aloft, who had loosed the main-royal. “Sway away!” cried Nell in answer, urging on her cowering Spaniards. And up the yard went, to a mournful | tune indeed; and at midmast it stopped, for the warship’s ports belched flame and iron, and the ship’s decks were a shambles in the wake of the royal-halyard fairleader, where a dozen Spaniards crumpled under the iron of their own countrymen. A long splinter flew from the mainmast and struck Davies squarely on the breast. With a grim laugh he kicked aside the fallen wood, fetching a deep breath involuntarily at his escape. But it was not personal peril that. he was concerned with in that mo- ment; it was rather the fear that another such shot might bring down his spars - S COMMICGLOO© (C@