Adventure Magazine Cover — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

£35 -invariably hurried into the pantry and from the dark locker took out the two bottles of precious wine. Yes, these were the marks of his home-comings, the greeting of the station agent, the silent companionship of this shell of a living ship, the glittering sparkle of the mellowed wine. He stood now at the window of the ticket office leaning across the stained counter to talk with the man inside. “You say some man asked here for me yesterday and then went on to the Wraith? That seems queer.” “Well, he asked ?bout a million questions. Wouldn’t answer most o’ mine though. Said he know’d you well. Big ugly-lookin’ guy. Said he’d got on your track somehow; know’d you was in port. He’s comin’ out to the ship to eat supper with you tomorrer night. Blamed if I ain’t fergot his name,” The agent ran stumpy fingers through lank matted hair, spat reflectively, then said casually— “T b’lieve it was Barker—no, somethin’ like that—um, um, Carter, yes that’s it, Carter.” The glare of the incandescent lamp fell squarely on the old seaman’s face, as it was pressed hard against the brass bars of the window. His voice reached the agent in a strained whisper: ““Carter—was it Cartier? Think, man; was it Cartier, Jean Cartier, a Frenchman, with a beard?” The agent slapped his knee loudly. “Yes, that was it, Carteer. A queer name—I thought—” His voice dropped with his jaw as he saw he was alone. All the long way to the Wraith, in John Mallow’s heart, over and over again came great surges of happiness, happiness such as he had never expected could again come into his empty life. The big mate was coming home, Big Jean! For once, on this return the Wrecker had no thought of his wine, no time to go about lighting lamps, he just wanted to sit in the main cabin and realize things. One light was enough and as he sat there, his thoughts plunged at once into the past, down the long vista of dreams that had drifted away, back through the years of loss and failure, back of them all to the splendor of the South Seas, when he and his partner and the schooner had fought as one. The dim light from the single oil lamp high in its bulkhead bracket seemed lost in Adventure the gloom of the cabin and yet the cabin was no larger than such rooms run in small schooners. And the Wraith was small. So much her seventy-year-old owner ad- mitted, but that was as far as his admission went. Beyond this, admitting became con- tending and fiercely did the old sea-rover maintain to himself the former glory of the black-hulled Wraith—the Wraith that he had commanded in the inter-island trade of the South Pacific, the Wrazth that had never failed him, the Wraith that represented the material gain of a lifetime’s struggle on the sea. In the tired eyes of the captain she was still the swift schooner of the wild island nights, those nights when obedient to his lightest touch on the wheel, almost it seemed, to his very thought, she would creep silently into some remote shallow bay where she had no right to put in, and there quietly riding at anchor, wait for the return of Wrecker Mallow. In the blackness the big French mate would pace the narrow deck, staring un- easily over the dark water, trying to make out the darker shore-line, from sheer ner- vousness swearing viciously in his beard. A vague mass slightly blacker than the night would come swiftly out from the haze of the distant shore and reveal itself a ship’s boat to the silent watchers at the rail of the silent schooner. The flash of an oar blade wetly shining in the fantom gleam of a few straggling stars would show close to the ship. Then as if the sea itself had spoken, would come a low muffled hail and over the side, grim, daring, cautious, would come the gaunt figure of Captain John Mallow. Quickly .the captain would go _ below, straight to his cabin. Again on deck he would give a few brief commands and in the light air the Wraith would head out to open water, gliding easily over the smooth surface of the sea, leaving a faint wake of seething white which stretched in a wide half-circle to the dark shadows of the fading coast. Captain Mallow at the wheel would whisper to the Frenchman— “Tt’s all right, Jean, the pearls are small, but they are quality.” And the mate would answer— “Good, my partner, it is a splendid trip.” Mallow shifted in his chair, started to get to his feet and then as if powerless to van- quish the thoughts of old times, again COMMICLOOOKS Seas J Sey ~~ Ae =< (C@)