Adventure Magazine Cover — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

Plunder chosen from all of us, making the place our headquarters until such time as we may wish to leave these seas, after the cry dies down that this exploit will surely rouse.” Horton, half-seas over, gazed first at Avary, then at Neill and Fulke with his mouth open. He closed it as he sucked down a goblet full of wine, blinking his eyes at his commander. | “Tis a rare plan,” he said. ‘We have the heels of anything in these seas. If your sloops are overhauled you can claim to be _peaceful traders; and, finding no booty aboard, they must clear you. Nor can you sail fast enough to avoid chance of being caught up before we reach Madagascar. ’Tis a long stretch, and we may all be held in the equator drift long enough for the pursuit to sight us.” “But we'll all keep company and close consort for as long as we may,” capped Avary. “If we run, we'll draw them away from you and they’ll never catch us, you can lay to that. So we’ll meet and give them the laugh at last.”’ ‘“That’s what comes of having a skipper with brains,” put in Horton. “One who looks ahead. Curse me, I’d never have thought of that.” Avary looked at the mate-and the latter winked at him slyly. Fulke and Neill approved the scheme, and the chests from the sloops were set aboard the next day. Avarv called a general mast at noon. The sloops were only showing their topsails above the horizon, far to leeward. The Duke, bowling along in the fine breeze, was under shortened sail, not to drop them entirely. “Bullies all,” said Avary, ‘“‘we’ve made arare haul. There’s enough treasure aboard us now to make us all happy. If ’twas all ours now, what should hinder us from going to some country where we are not known and living ashore the rest of our days in plenty? But we have done well for a first strike. Doubtless we shall never achieve such another. We must be content if we are let cruise this side of Africa. “There’s booty worth close to fifteen thousand golden pounds apiece in those three chests. That is, if it were all ours. Should anything happen to the sloops, should we part company and not rejoin, why ’twould be all our gain and their loss. But they should have thought of that before they brought the stuff aboard. 21 “For my part, I confess to temptation. The more I think on ’t—how much better is fifteen thousand pounds than five, of what a great fortune that would be in America—the weaker grows my resolution.” They had caught the irony of his talk and they were laughing. Avary said little more, but left his leaven to work itself out and went aft while the crew broached a cask of liquor they had taken from the dhow and toasted the distant topsails of the consorts with jeers. ai strengthened, and Avary ordered the reefs shaken out. Daybreak showed only empty horizon. The mask was openly tossed away, and The Duke rang with laughter as the men discussed the new names they would adopt in America where they would live in affluence and honor all the rest of their days. Their admiration for Avary increased as he disclosed his ideas for their safe dispersal. He suggested Nassau or New Providence in the Bahamas, being newly settled, as their best port of call. “Tt is none so long since we left Corunna,” he argued. “It may be just time enough for a description of The Duke to have reached the New World. So let us sell this ship at New Providence to the merchants there. I will pretend she was equipped for privateering, and since she has not been a lucky ship the owners have empowered me to dispose of her to the best advantage. Then we can buy a sloop and so to Ameri- ca—to Charlestown, belike, or to Boston as you will. So we will wipe out all traces and laugh at the world while we take our ease.” The sailors preferred the golden bars and coins to the gems, complaining that they were like to be bilked of the true value of the latter. Avary purchased a lot of them with his own share and a half of gold, flattering himself he could dispose of them more easily and to better advantage than his men. They sailed their way across to the Carib- bean, gambling and drinking, some half stripped of their shares by the time His- WITH nightfall the breeze _paniola was sighted. At New Providence The Duke, renamed The Good Adventure for the sale, was disposed of and the sloop secured. It was late in August when Avary stepped on the dock at Boston with a dozen of his COmiclboooks (C@