Adventure Magazine Cover — page 176: what you’re looking at

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

168 backward, with an exclamation. ‘‘Wot’s the matter, Blood? Wot’s all the noise, eh?” asked Billings. The old man pointed at the bow of the boat and Billings stepped to look. ‘‘“____? he said, staring at the faded lettering upon the bow, “D.” Turning to the old man he asked— ‘Blood, wot the ’s the rest of it?” He beckoned to a man working on the deck near by, pointing to the letter, saying: “Look at that,eh! They’ve changed ’er —— name—changed it, see?” The man, looking up, went back to his work, mumbling to himself. At eight bells, when the watch went below, they stood about the fo’csle door, gesticulating, pointing to the boat swinging clear of her skids; telling of ships that they had known, which, having had their names changed, had met with speedy dooms. During the first dog-watch the wind came up in a stiff squall, with a deluge of rain, and they clewed up and furled the skysail; the wind abeam, and the ship racing while the squall lasted. In a little while it was calm again, the horizon on all sides over- hung by squalls. Tattersall went to and from the chart house, studying the barom- eter. Shortly after two bells another squall passed over her, and she again raced upon her course. ‘Two or three more squalls like this and she'll pick up a steady trade and foot it for home,” said Tattersall, watching her go. That night there was a full moon, silver- ing a motionless sea, over which, in the distance, squalls crossed and recrossed their tracks. Shortly after seven bells, Tattersall, on his way below, stopped to look at the barometer again and, looking out of the chart house, called to the mate. ‘Keep her as she is, sir. Don’t take the royals off her if you can help it. I don’t think you’ll get anything stiffer than what we've had. Call me if there’s any change.” A few minutes later, Nance, walking the poop, was joined by Moses, and stood be- side him leaning on the taffrail. The ship lay, with her yards on the back- stays, on the starboard tack. To windward a black mass was slowly overspreading and obliterating the sky. Eight bells went, and the wheel and look- out were relieved; the voice of the lookout man crying along the deck— Adventure ‘*A-I-1-]-]-1-’s well, ‘sir.”’ And the mate replying with the cus- tomary — “All right.” Billings, leaving the wheel, was relieved by Bock; giving him the course, and, as he did so, whispering: “You wait till we get to Frisco—I’ll show you something then.”’ Going to the bridge he repeated the course to the mate, who, peering into the binnacle, buttoned his oilskins against the torrent that was beginning to fall. Leaving the poop, passing beneath where Nance and Moses stood, he heard Nance’s voice. ‘““*With the rain before the wind tops’! halliards you must mind,’ ” she was saying, quoting an old proverb of the sea. Billings, with the swift instinct of a coward, hesitated as he left the poop; loitering below the boat, thinking to him- self that the ship might spill over; remem- bering that he had seen another name upon the boat and, recalling the tales to which he had listened in the dog-watch, becoming suddenly afraid. As he stood there, directly beneath the break of the poop, where Nance and Moses stood, the squall caught her. It came, unheralded and instant, in one terrific blast. The mate, shouting an order, swung him- self from the bridge; rushing toward the halliards—the ship reeling over beneath his feet, leaving him clambering, his hands out- stretched before him, up the awful incline of her decks; his voice carried away and lost in the fury of the wind. Moses, grasping Nance by the arm, shouted in her ear. “The boat! Get to the boat!” Nance, steadying herself, bracing into the wind, felt a sudden horror upon her; letting him push her toward the boat, shoving her before him, under the bridge rail and on to the skid, shouting the while. “The boat! The boat!” Reaching the gunwale Moses climbed over, and turning, seized Nance by her wrists, dragging her after him. The ship lay asa creature stricken a death blow, trying to go ahead, but held down by the fury of the wind upon her sails; reel- ing far over, her spars pointing to the dark- ness above—hove down, and helpless in the wind and sea. Not a sail had carried away, (© DOOK S CO in