Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

Days of longboat drifted down her side and grated along her chains, and about twenty of the men, with Jim Rimble and Pierre, and Bras-de-Mort, at their head, weze in her shrouds in a twinkling, and over her fore- castle, upon the deck, where they met the bewildered Dons with their stout staves and axes, laying about with them furiously. A fusillade of shots was poured into them, and some of the English went down, but by now the rest had clambered over the side, and, gaining the deck, came to close quar- ters with the Dons. They fought desperately with their cap- stan bars and pikes, and a cutlass or two that had been dropped by the wounded Spaniards, but the musket fire told upon them, and they were being driven back when Nancy, who had been among the last to leave the longboat, burdened as she was with Three-legs, finally gained the deck. Covered with blood which streamed from their wounds, gasping and panting, the fierce light of battle raging in their feverish eyes, the English retreated step by step. The Spanish Captain, who had been asleep in his cabin, came up now in all his armor, and taking in the situation, he cried— ‘“‘Death to the English dogs!” He drew his rapier and the sun sparkled and flashed upon it. ‘There surged then into the memory of Nancy the stories of her childhood. Her father and all her kinsmen had fought the Spaniards at home and in the Low Countries, and so there flamed now in her dark blue eyes a light that Algernon Sidney would have loved. “Ho! men, ’tis sink or swim now, my brave comrades,” she suddenly cried out in a loud voice. And, leaning over the side of the ship, cut with an ax the painter which — held the longboat at the bow, and set it adrift, and then called out again, ‘“‘St. George for England!’ The English, seeing their boat far astern and knowing that there was now but one thing to do, did it so lust- ily, and with such fresh energy, that they drove the Spaniards back, and forcing most of them below, begging for quarter, the ship presently struck. The Captain, the Devon Captain, that is, for so she called him, took the quarterdeck, and mustering enough men to man the ship, sent Pierre to the helm, and gathering way, they went off before a freshening wind, in possession of as fine a West-Indiaman of Morgan 43 170 tons and fourteen guns as would glad- den the hearts of any shipwrecked mariners in Christendom. The men waited but to seize all the weap- ons they could lay their hands upon, as well muskets and pistols as cutlasses, when they made a rush for the great cabin and the bread-room, and threw themselves like ravenous beasts upon all the food and water they could find, so that they were like to gorge themselves to their death, see- ing that they would heed none of the re- monstrances of the Captain. They broke open the hold, too, and bringing out some casks, staved in the heads. ‘“‘Victuals and drink!’’ cried Jim Rimble, leaping about the deck in a frenzy of joy and excitement, a gobbet of meat in one hand and a pewter mug of wine in the other, ‘‘Victuals and drink!” He rolled his eyes at Nancy. His weather-beaten face, seamed with a thousand wrinkles, was red- der than any sun had been able to bake it. ‘“‘Ah! my lady, victuals and drink are the best things in all the world. Fine! Yet I like not these sweet Spanish wines—would rather have a pottle of good old English ale. Ay, that’s a drink for ye!’ “Have a care, Jim Rimble,’’ admonished Nancy. ‘One should be prudent after a long fast.” But she might as well have talked to the mainmast, for all the effect her advice had. Now that the ship was theirs, and they had food and drink in abundance, the men were not disposed to take orders from anybody, save those that were required for their own safety and the navigation of the ship. Observing that Cherie and Bras-de-Mort were as gluttonous as any, and that Bar- ney was making up for lost time with a ra- pacity that threatened to burst him, Nancy turned her attention to them, to such good effect that they, and a few of the men, more prudent than the rest, were finally wise enough to heed her warnings, the sound- ness of which was apparent in no very great time, when so many of the men were taken ill that had another fret of wind come upon them the ship must have been lost for lack of hands to trim her sails; while the Spaniards might have retaken her but for the precaution that was taken of batten- ing down the hatches upon them. Nancy ate but a scanty breakfast, and then, returning to the deck, drew the Irish lad to one side, for the question of her own CoMmichoooks CO