Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 61: what you’re looking at

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

Days of Morgan his men, savage-looking fellows, barehead- ed and unkempt, with knives and pistols in their belts, slouched up and gave him a rude salute. He bade them summon the priest, and presently Cochinillo, the pre- tended monk, appeared from the direction of the cook-room, a pig’s knuckle in one © hand and in the other a hunk of half-baked dough. His heavy face shone with grease. With a sigh he thrust the bone and the bread into his habit and entered the cabin, rubbing his hands upon his frock. “HAST thou thy prayer-book about Zaye, thee, monk?” roared the pirate. “8% The little man choked out an in- articulate answer, sending forth a cloud of crumbs and gristle from his mouth that was so crammed with food that very likely he would have strangled to death before their eyes had not the buccaneer rained a shower of mighty blows between his shoulders. “Curse thee!’ cried Captain Morgan. “Thou art always stuffing thy belly. Out with thy book and say thy mumble and jumble over us, and be quick about it! For lack of a real priest you will suit me as well as another.” “Not so fast, Captain Morgan, an you please, sir!’ Nancy’s face had gone quite pale. ‘‘Did I not tell you that I was al- ready bespoken?”’ She blushed and hung her head. ‘Well, not that, exactly,” she faltered, ‘“‘but I have already promised my- self to another. JI can not marry you.”’ ‘“‘That’s what she told d’Ogeron,” splut- tered the monk. “‘Silence!”’ bellowed Morgan. ‘Curses on d’Ogeron, and on you too. Think you I am to be thwarted of my desires because he knew not that a woman’s ‘no’ means ‘yes’?”’ He passed quickly around the table and grasped the girl, though not over-roughly, by the arm. Though she saw in his flushed face and his eyes, wherein lay a light that burned with brilliance, no intent to do her harm, but only desire and love for her, she shrank from him with alarm and uttered a sharp cry that brought the boy Barney to the cabin door, a smile dying away on his freckled face. Not having witnessed the beginning of the scene within the round- house, and totally mistaking the motives and attitude of Captain Morgan, his Irish mouth quivered like a terrier’s. Barney’s admiration for the mighty pi- a9 rate, whose fame in those seas he had been drinking in around the forecastle lamp, van- ished in an instant. His ideas were ever good ones, but in his singularly simple mind there was room for but one at a time. He saw only his friend and comrade upon the defensive before the Welshman, and with- out waiting to inquire into the circum- stances, he bounded into the cabin, and with the spring of a young wolf threw him- self full tilt upon the buccaneer, digging his claws into the man’s brawny throat and feeling with his teeth for his ear. Captain Morgan, giant though he was, staggered beneath the onslaught, which took him so by surprise that it all but threw him off his feet. But he quickly recovered himself, not without effort, and shaking off the lad as a dog would have rid himself of a rat clinging to his nose, sent Barney reel- ing into the partition, where he lay in a cor- ner dazed and dizzy, the blood streaming from a cut over his right eye. ‘“‘Shame, Captain Morgan!’’ Nancy cried hotly, dropping to her knees beside the Trish boy. ‘’Tis but a lad!” “Nay, you wrong me, Madame,” replied the pirate sheepishly. ‘“‘He took me so by surprise I scarcely thought on what I was doing. S’death! He flew at me like a lion.” “He did but go to my rescue, sir,”’ an- swered the girl, ‘‘as he hath ever done since first we met in the market-place at Lille.” “Then he is my friend—and shall ever be. Come, lad, my hand on it.” He held out his huge fist, but Barney, scowling and shaking his head, refused it and climbed weakly to his feet, and stood there glaring at him and wiping the blood upon his shirt. “Nay, lad,’’ continued the buccaneer, “‘but be my friend and you shall never need another. There is a common bond between us—I love your mistress as you do, ay, ten thousand times more. And just now, when you rushed to her succor, I meant her no injury, but was but telling her of my love and asking her to be my wife, that we might go away together to the Spanish Main on an adventure that most certainly would bring riches to all of us. ‘“‘And you shall go with us, lad, and for your faithfulness to her in the past, and be- cause you love her, too, you shall share with us far above your rank and service, and go home to England at last with money jingling in your pocket. Come, lad, say you CoOMmichoooks CO