Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

16 quarter, she fell off her course, and the sea broke over her as she lay in the trough and deluged her with a flood of water from the forecastle aft to the binnacles, the shivering sails cracking like thunder, just as the mas- tiff, on three legs, its body covered with blood, leaped again for Yellow Eyes. The wave struck them full, and man, girl, and dog went down in a heap together. Nancy’s head hit the gunwale, so that she lay quite still with eyes closed, and that all thought she had been killed. Barney and Cherie were quickly at her side and bending over her. “Mon Dieul’’ cried out Cherie. woman!” The great crowd was suddenly silent, as they picked her up and carried her into the cabin, Barney’s face gone white as chalk, and Pierre’s eyes blinking and snapping at a faster rate than they had ever blinked and snapped before. As for Yellow Eyes, his salt-water bath had taken the fight out of him. He slunk forward, his yellow eyes like molten gold, his tongueless gullet distended, so that those who saw him turned their heads and shud- dered, and some of them fondled the dog affectionately, and bound up its wounds. “Te 3s: & CHAPTER V BRAS-DE-MORT WO days later they dropped anchor in a little cove on the southern coast of Tortuga, their voyage at an end. The night had been one of wretchedness and misery for Nancy, who had recovered consciousness to find herself among the women in the cabin, where a bunk next to Cherie’s had been found for her. She needed no one to tell her, then, that the secret she had guarded had been discovered, and apprehensions on this score filled her with fear, the more so, since she asked in vain to see Barney. “Captain Jean’s orders,” was all the ex- planation she could receive from Cherie, who fretted over her like a grandmother with a new baby. But although she was good to her, and nursed her tenderly, she dared not disobey, nor did any favorable opportunity offer for the boy to be smug- gled in to her, a thing that she was most de- sirous of, in order that she might ask his advice, having always found him wise be- yond his years. Adventure As for herself, no cajolery nor subterfuge could induce her to disclose her identity. She kept her mouth as tight as wax. “Forgive me, my dear,” said Cherie, ‘‘for the exclamation which destroyed your in- cognito, but it sprang impulsively to my lips. And now, I fear, I have done you a grave injury—put you in greater danger than you were in before.”’ “I know you meant me no injury,” re- plied Nancy, “for you have given me assur- ances of your friendship that I can not doubt. But for your quick wit in passing me the sword I should now be—overboard, I guess, by this time.” She shuddered, but smiled again. “TI dare say, though,” she added, ‘‘that my misfortunes will be no more in one réle than in another. And now that I am in my proper person once more, I shall know the better how to act for my protection. Per- haps as a woman I shall be better off than as a boy.” ‘“‘That,”’ answered Cherie, with a shrug of her shoulders, ‘‘depends a good deal, I should say, upon whether you prefer to work for a man as his slave or his wife. The wages, I imagine, are the same,” she finished bitterly. Nancy sat bolt upright at this. “Wife!” “Ay, they’ll have us one way or another, you may be sure.” The girl said nothing more after this, but Captain Jean coming into the cabin pres- ently, she drew him aside. ““May I not have your consent to go on deck, Monsieur?” she asked. “Or have the boy Barney come here to me, that I may speak with him, my friend, upon the situa- tion in which I now find myself?” ‘The consent is not mine to give, Made- moiselle,” he answered. ‘Monsieur d’Oge- ron has come aboard, and is in command, He has heard your story, and is most anx- ious to speak with you. It is to fetch you to him that I have come.” “Who is Monsieur d’Ogeron, that you, the Captain, should take orders from him?”’ demanded Nancy. “He is the Governor and Major of the island, Mademoiselle, and since he is su- preme here under the French West India Company, his word is final.’ ‘“‘Then I fear ’twill be but a waste of time to make of you a request that lies even nearer yet to my heart,” the girl answered. CoOMmicboooks (CO