Adventure Magazine Cover — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

652 he must quit the steamer, and a deck-hand rowed the pariah to the edge of the flood near to a point where the sight of a slush- lamp said very plainly: “I am the cheer of a _man.’’ Be, AT NINE the Samaritan made his sf ¥) willinastyle peculiarly hisown. He “called into the cabin the cook, the en- gineer, the deck-hands and the gentlemen of leisure who had, in the search for him, probably for the first time in their lives become energetic, and there verbally trans- ferred the T7zlpa and her trade to the mate and the supercargo. ‘“Ve’ve all been called as witnesses that this day, the twenty-seventh of September, eighteen seventy-nine, I’ve given the T7ilpa an’ two barges at Echooky, an’ the book debts, an’ trade, an’ all to Jim Drake an’ George Garth, so help me Gawd.” And they all said they witnessed the be- quest, and the ceremony was over. Only Drake and the supercargo were to watch the sick man that night and when the cabin was cleared of the others he lay on his pillow quite exhausted. They suggested sending to Louth for a doctor, but he said, ‘A doctor could do him no good—he was cast right enough,’ and so they fed his flickering strength with brandy. Despite his exhaustion, he insisted on giving them full particulars of the trade. In this way: “There was a man on Burrabogie who owed twenty-six shillings in seventy- four—nex’ time you’re on the ’Bidgee collect it—I don’t reck’lect his name, but ye’re bound to find ’im—he was a little cove with a wart under his ear and a ginger beard. When ye’re up that way, too, leave a bag 0’ loolies with the super at Benduck; ’e’s got a lot of babies an’ one of ’em useter cot- ton ter me quite reg’lar. An’ alwus give a nip to the puntman at Wilcannia, and he’ll drop the rope for yer any time at night.” He fell into a half sleep towards midnight, and the watchers turned the lamp-light low. The change of light seemed to awaken him, but although he spoke again he did not regard their presence. “Up at Crismus Island there’s the cunningest water-hens Adventure you ever see and when the old Tilpa——” And again—“ Yer can drive this yer T7/pa over a four-foot-six bar, an’ she draws four- foot-seven.” And yet again—“ the Saddler! Vil beat her to Echooky blind- fold!” At two o’clock in the morning he awoke out of the present to the memories of his old life—the little Devonshire village, Maria Is- land, Norfolk, the beautiful hell of the Paci- fic, of the boy Hitchins, of Peter Wells, of old Bendigo, and then, as he came to the association with the supercargo, he made Garth’s tears well anew. “That vermin can’t be yer father,” the Samaritan. And then he ‘For I love you, George, my bo’.”’ ' He lay there with his brain strangely active, thinking and sorrowing for the life that had known nor wife, nor child, nor friend—for, of even the love George Garth held for him he was as uncertain as a girl with her first sweetheart—sorrowing for his wrongs a little, but glad to know the long journey was to end at last. He had known only the embraces of the gyves and the caresses of the flogger’s lash, and the memo- ries made him break into words anew. ‘“‘T’ve had a hard life,” he said. ‘A hard life it’s been; an’ only me an’ Gawd knows it—only me an’ Gawd.” After that he lay very still for the night and most of a day, and when he awoke again the flood had retreated to the river and the Tilpa was stranded on the plain. Like her Captain, she would never move again. In that hour before the dawn when the wind, laden with the death-fog, springs from the river, the Samaritan spoke with a mate- rial tongue for the last time. “Only me an’ Gawd knows it—only me an’ Gawd.” And as the first rose spire of the dawn leaped from the land-rim and tinged the stranded steamer and the haggard earth with light, Stephen Been received his abso- lute pardon. In the new joy of the world reprieved for yet another day, the watchers seemed to hear the song of the New-born swelling triumphant. said added, Se GoOmicdooksEeo 5}