Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 41: what you’re looking at

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

Days of Morgan Without deliberately becoming a co- quette, for there was something in her soul too simple and sincere for that, she had de- termined to keep this young sea-captain at his distance until she chose, when he had earned the boon, to take him into her heart. She could not now be sure whether he avoid- ed her, or seemed to avoid her, because she had first shown an indifference to him, or whether it began with him. Doubt as to this first found lodgment in her mind late in the afternoon, but the ex- citement incident to the sighting of the ship and the hurried completion of the longboat drove what resentment she might have felt away. She was a girl once more, as eager for the rescue now at hand, as she supposed, as Barney himself. Barney was one broad grin from ear to ear at the prospect of getting something to eat, for he, like Nancy, made no doubt that in a few hours at most they would be picked up. Cherie and Bras-de-Mort, after the manner of newly married folk, had kept much to themselves all day long. During the storm the little Parisienne had remained terrified in the round-house, where her hus- band had placed her, and although he had himself rendered his share of service in han- dling the ship during the frightful gale, or hurricane, through which they had passed, he evidently considered himself above ship- building, or else felt himself incompetent to join in that labor, for he had spent the day at Cherie’s side, as attentive as any cour- tier. To be sure, he had busied himself with the repair of the musket which Nancy had brought away from the castle, and which had been broken in the confusion of the taking of the ship, but while this might not ' have been considered a full and generous participation in the general work, under the circumstances, seeing that his efforts were fruitless, and the musket remained as use- less when he had expended his energies upon it as it had been before he began his tinker- ing, the men good-naturedly winked at what in another, with the exception of Jim Rim- ble, the fisherman, would have been resent- ed as¥shirking. At the capstan, abaft the mainmast, he made a little awning to pro- tect her from the sun, and here ensconced her upon a chest as if she had been a queen upon her throne. Here he sat by her side, or sprawled at her feet. Two lovers, thrown together by the hand 39 of fate and set down, man and wife, on the shattered wreckage of a ship that was like to part them as suddenly as they had been made one! Nancy, knowing how much these two derelicts would find to talk about, the questions they would ask as each probed the history of the other, forebore to intrude upon their privacy. The excitement over the sighting of the strange sail scarcely disturbed them. They joined the noisy, breathless throng at the rail for a few minutes, and then returned to their bower, arm in arm. As the sail rose higher and higher above the vast expanse of tumbling sea, the men speculated among themselves as to what she would prove to be. Now and then one of them would leave the busy group gath- ered around the longboat and take a squint at her as she came up, which she did slowly enough. Toward evening, just before night settled down around them, and the brilliant tropic stars were lighted in the casements of Heaven, Bras - de- Mort, tearing himself away from his bride for a moment, joined the exhausted men, now laying down their tools, and waving his arm off toward where the last faint beams of the sinking sun had shown the stranger to be, shook his head dubiously. ‘We shall miss her, after all, Monsieurs,” said he. ‘“‘Why, how now, Master Bras-de-Mort?” asked the Captain. “She’s ca’med off, sir,’’ interjected Jim Rimble. Bras-de-Mort scrunched his shoulders by way of assent. ‘‘And by morning, when it freshens, she’ll like as not be off upon another tack, and then, adieu!” he finished. , “Right you are!” cried the Captain. ‘““Men, we must put some oars into her. If the ship can’t come to us we must go to her. Fall to, you sea dogs, and turn us out some oars. But first we'll have another pull at the water butts.” » He doled out a dish of water to every man, and they drank their scanty portions and eyed the casks from which it came. But the Captain stood guard over them, and cursing their luck they went back to the new task he had laid out for them. The brilliant equatorial moon gave them all the light they needed, and the heat was less intense now, so that they managed well CoMmicboooks CO