Adventure, January 20, 1922 — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

Tides of Hate Joint it, and clap it into the pickle soon’s ye win aboard again.” Through the night the crew toiled over the fires. At dusk a party of Indians crept cautiously down to the beach, wondering at the intrusion. They crept back with terrible tales of leaping, bawling, \ blood- smeared creatures dancing among heaps of red flesh in the light of the flames; devils surely, and of a devil ship. mie AT DAWN Davies ordered all =4*2 hands on board, for the little that was known of the Straits warned him inevitably of perilous changes and vagaries of weather. Already, coming up on the heels of the pale sun, an ominous bank of white cloud seemed about to spring out of the eastern horizon and overcast the sky. The anchor came up to a cheery shout that told of men full fed and forgetful of the past hardships. Topsails fell and were sheeted home; the great yards went up with a right good-will, and out of sheer jubilation Davies fired a gun. Like an echo back came a muffled report from the Narrows. Men glanced aft at Davies; his head was cocked sidewise in doubt. ‘Twas the echo,” Carr decided aloud. “No, sar; dat ain’t no echo; dat’s anudder gun,” asserted Goliath. “Look at the fog!” cried Nell, shivering at sight of the white cloud that now had mounted until it lipped the lower limb of the sun. Another gunshot came down the wind, and another. Then a short, sharp can- nonade followed, and in the vague recesses of the Narrows a ship appeared, then a second, and they were firing into each other bravely enough. The fog crept down be- tween the shores of the Narrows, blotting out the ships but not the sound of cannon- fire. “Tis Cook of a surety,” mused Davies. ‘None other is likely to venture the Straits at this time. Who is the other? Is it that scurvy bulldog again, or have Swan and Cook fallen out.so soon? What say you, Goliath? Did your sharp eyes detect aught to tell us?” “Dat Cook’s ship fo’ sure, cappen. Leastways she’s a Spaniard an’ a gun ship, an’ ’tain’t gwine to be no udder Spainer in des yar seas I reckon.”’ 5I “But the other?” “Ah only knows dat’s a stranger, sar. Mought be Swan, all de same. Ah nebber see dat man nor his ship nudder. Don’t make no diff’runce dat I see.”’ “Not much, with that peasoup fog rollin’ in through the gut 0’ the Narrows! Up wi’ you, and soon’s ye get yer head above the heavy mist sing out how bears the Straits as far as ye can see. A mariner who’d sailed the Straits told me that once ye made through the Second Narrows Eliza- beth Island loomed up, and then there’s nigh to eighty mile o’ good straight sailing due south, where all that’s to do is to keep the lead a-swingin’ out o’ both sides.” “Dat’s blin’ man’s nabbigation, sar,” grumbled Goliath, mounting into the rig- ging with less than his usual alacrity. “De debbil lib not far frum hyar, so I been told.” “Might as well sail blind as seeing, if that’s so,” laughed Davies. “Anyhow, ’tis blind navigation even in daylight unless a man’s passed through before. Sing out, man, and come down grinning again. Moses! Look at that fog!” Rolling along after them like a tangible. thing, the gray fog filled the Straits, covered the sea and wreathed up and around the lower masts of the ship. Out of the heart of it boomed a single gun, like a gun of dis- tress, again and again; then silence until Goliath bellowed down from his perch— “Clar watter fo’ bout a mile; den de |?? XX island, sar! THE fog dispersed before Cape Ae Froward thrust out its forbidding head. Thereafter passed thirty bitter days, days of biting sleet and shrieking blasts, of snowflakes thick as goose-feathers that filled the deep waist of the ship and froze into a solid mass before cursing sea- men could clear it; days of endless rain that streamed from yards and sails, solidifying into glittering Damoclean icicles; and, worst ’ of all, days of crashing thunder and blinding lightning that came down upon the wings of the southerly gale and brought the addi- tional terrors of whirling snow and bullet- like hail. But men well fed and of growing faith in their commander battled stoutly against the elements of Nature, and the Cadiz won out past grim Pillar’s twin spires into CORnNICLOO (C@