Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

Days of Morgan Spanish girl’s habit. And I concluded that you had brought them off with you from the Oxford, when she was blown up.” ‘‘Why, and so I did, to be sure. Captain Collier passed them to me a moment or two before the explosion which killed him took place. I remembered no more until I found myself in the sea.” “You must have thrust them within your shirt to save them, and so come off with them safely.” ‘Tis possible.” *¢ Tis likely.” “Tis lucky, too. Those papers contain pardons for such as Captain Collier might wish to favor, for so he told me.” ““Ay, that is true,” said Captain Stilling- fleet. “Pardons in blank; leastways they were in blank.” “Werer’’ ‘See, I have filled them out in the names of those among us who need them.” *‘And generous of you, I call it, too, to think of them and try to aid them,” she said. ‘Sometimes, Captain Stillingfleet, I have thought you did not have a heart. And it was clever of you to think of it, too.” ‘‘Necessity sharpened my wits.” “How sor” “After we had got rid of the prisoners, the men fell to grumbling before the mast. They feared we did not have enough treas- ure to buy pardons for all, and were hot for seeking more. In desperation, I thought of this scheme, and so wrote their names down upon the pardons. This satisfied them, and so they came back to England at last, willingly enough.” “Can they return in safety?” “Ay, under the king’s name they can walk the streets of London free men, and none may touch them.”’ ‘And with gold in their pockets?” ‘That is as may be,” he answered. But this did not disturb her, for, thought she, if there was to be war with Spain again . below the tropic, she and her men could profit from it as well as any. Presently she added: “Let me take the papers, Captain Stil- lingfleet. I would examine them, for they have set my mind at rest upon a subject that hath been causing me great perplex- ity. They were walking now into the round- house, where Nancy, seizing a quill, while Captain Stillingfleet stepped out for a mo- 67 ment to issue some order, contrived to scrib- ble something upon them which he, upon taking the packet from her and returning it to his pocket, failed to observe. What to do with the black man, the one who had assisted the Fleming in their es- cape from d’Ogeron at Tortuga, also gave her great concern, for that she had prom- ised to transport him back to Guinea she by no means forgot; but the negro, a very intelligent and honest fellow, set her mind at rest upon this score. Coming up to her one day, when they had passed the fishing fleets in the Channel, and were in sight of the white cliffs of Dover, he besought her, with so many manifestations of devotion that she was touched, to take him into her service and let him abide with her in Eng- land, that she consented. “But how comes it, Kololo,” for so he called himself, ‘‘that you would rather go into England with me than return to your own country?” she asked. ‘“‘“Me no find my country any more,” he answered. ‘‘My country move all about,” from which she understood that the tribe to which he belonged had no fixed abode, but was nomadic. “But haven’t you a wife in your country, Kololo?” she insisted. ““Me have wife long time—no have wife now,” he returned, rolling the whites of his eyes at her so ludicrously that she could not forbear to smile. ‘“‘Some mans have Kololo’s wife now. Kololo get plenty more wifes, one, two, three, maybe. Kololo rich now.”’ By this he referred to the fact that he had been awarded his share of the spoils, as one of the men before the mast, and in- deed, he had proved himself a natural sailor and very nimble in going aloft, even in the roughest weather. Nancy tried to explain to him that people in England had but one wife, but he either would not, or could not understand this. So she gave it over and consented to take him into her service, at which he seemed hugely delighted. They arrived at length in the Thames on an April afternoon, and came at last to an- chor at London. Then such a stir was created as had not been known in England since good Queen Bess had gone aboard the Golden Hind in Plymouth Sound to brave the wrath of Spain and make of Francis Drake a knight, for word of the treasure stowed away in the CoOMmicboooks CO