Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

44 fortunes, and with them those of her friends in England, was still uppermost in her mind, and she wished to talk with the boy about her plans. . “Hark ye, Barney,” she said, when they were well alone. ‘Thou hast been a faith- ful friend since the night we first met in the market square at Lille. Now, here we are, lad, our lives saved for the present, to be sure, and God be praised for that, but on a course that will never fetch us to Eng- land, I fear. What do you counsel, lad?” “Counsel?” “‘Ay—what to do next, lad. Here we are in the Spanish Indies. Well, we can’t stay here, can we?” *“‘Why not?” demanded Barney. “T have business in London—urgent busi- ness, that has been delayed already, I fear, far too long.”’ ‘Then in that case I would give it over,” answered the Irish lad, his eyes sparkling. “‘Give it over? Ah, that I can not do.” “We have a fine ship,”’ protested Barney. “Faith, Mademoiselle, what more could a body want—plenty to eat and to drink, and the whole wide world ahead of us. I want to see something, I do.”’ “Ah, Barney,” she smiled, “thou hast been a very man, indeed, but I fear thou art a child at heart. Life is made up of far more serious things than thou wot of.” “Mutiny, for one thing!’’ NANCY wheeled at the sound of | that voice—his voice—and he was standing there, looking at her quiz- zically, his blue eyes smiling, yet troubled, too. “Mutiny?’’ she demanded. “Ay, mutiny! The men are rapidly get- ting out of hand. To hear them talk, one would never imagine that they were lately in a dungeon cell, with a rope around their necks, and the hulks staring them in the face. They will have this and they must have that. They can’t make up their minds as to anything, and they won’t let any- body else do it for them—the beggars!” “T thought you were the Captain,’ she answered. ‘“They have obeyed you hither- to.” ‘“‘When it suited them, and then only be- cause they are lost without me. As good sea dogs they are as ever sailed out of Plymouth, but there isn’t a navigator among them. I have them there!”’ Adventure “Thou shouldst have no trouble in com- ing to terms then, methinks.” ‘“‘Ay, if they didst but know it. They are such fools, they have not learned yet that not a man among them can take an observation or lay off a course.” ‘“‘Where would you take them, sir?”’ “To England.” “To England!” Surprise and delight mingled in the look that Nancy gave him then. Her eyes danced with joy. ‘“’Tis where I, too, would go.” “By St. Bride of Douglas! I can not bend them to my will, what with the Span- ish crew between decks that we must have an eye to. They will have naught of Eng- land, nor can I prevail upon them to make for Port Royal, where I could find a ship for home.” ‘Will not gop” ‘“‘Nay. Nor doI blame them, seeing that their lives and liberty are at stake.” ‘‘Their lives and liberty? But Port Roy- al is an English city, and Jamaica an Eng- lish colony, thanks to Cromwell, and what- ever England takes she never relinquishes. I had not heard we had lost this place.’’ “Ay, ‘tis English, well enough,’ he smiled, ‘“‘but the men would rather see the devil himself just now than Governor Modyford.’”’ He made a motion as if to place a noose about his neck. “A dozen of them would be hanged,” he finished short- ly, “and another dozen sold as indentured servants for the debt they have taken leg bail for.” ‘“‘And thyself, sir?” she asked, and then lowered her eyes, for she had not meant the question as he had taken it. “‘T am on His Majesty’s service,” he an- swered, his face flushing. “‘Forgive me. I did not intend——” “‘Nay, I am as ragged and unkempt as these other tatterdemalions. Your thought but does justice to your intelligence.”’ ‘On His Majesty’s service?” She looked at him with eyes full of innocent wonder. *‘A queer place for the king to have busi- ness.” ‘Such a series of mishaps have brought me thither I could not tell you of-them in a month,” he blurted out at this, wagging his great Saxon head like an angry bull, petulantly, childishly. ‘“Mishaps!” ‘“‘Ay, I should be in Paris this blessed in- stant, and here I am, a derelict, adrift with CoOMmMichoooks (CO