Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 161: what you’re looking at

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

On the Account and six good companions and within the year ye shall see me scattering gold in Puerto Rico and treading the deck of a ship that can fight and sail with any on the seas! ‘Get out the pannikins and broach a keg of rum, boys. We have work before us.” While the cabin-lads, dusky Bermudian natives, set out the liquor, Bane pressed home his arguments, made more potent by the effects of the strong, raw spirits. ‘We will transfer into the sloop and be through the East Passage at daybreak and leaving these whining curs to await the governor’s pleasure. Follow me and I will undertake to shape a course that shall lead you to ease and plenty. Let the others lay down, they leave us the greater pickings. What is it, lads? The freedom of the seas— or will ye turn farmers?” A red-headed ruffian, lacking one ear, cleft by a cutlass, roared out his answer as he drained his pannikin and passed it for more. ‘The rest joined in his resolution. “Aye, we'll stand by you. A gold chain or a wooden leg!”’ CHAPTER II THROUGH THE EAST PASSAGE [ WAS within an hour of daybreak when the crew of the Swift Return sweating with their labor and the liquor freely served to them, had transferred themselves to the little sloop of fifty tons, carrying with them the possessions they most valued, and stores, with all the ammunition they could stow aboard. The guns of the Swift Return were charged with double, round and partridge and the vessel set afire. The sloop dropped slowly down towards the East Passage, the crooked, shallow channel of which could not be at- tempted before dawn. The broader harbor mouth was still blocked by the fleet though there was now sufficient. water for the deepest-drafted ship to cross and it was Bane’s hope that the vice-admiral would send in some ships or boats to investigate the blaze. “Tf luck holds she will burn down to them,” he said, “‘and scatter a few of them ; 2 hell. Since we can not use her, we'll sink er.”’ Faint shouts came from Nassau where the thousand pirates were celebrating the advent of the king’s pardon. The low-lying 159 island of Providence was a blur against the skyline. A faint breeze wafted the sloop closer to the tortuous passage that formed the backdoor of the harbor, through which Bane meant to achieve his freedom. He had ordered lights out and silence, for fear they might be boarded, and the crew sprawled on the over-crowded decks talking in whispers, fired with excitement and Jamaica rum. Bane stood near the tiller, gazing back at the flaming Swift Return. A cutter put out from the Rose man-of- war and was rowed swiftly toward the land with instructions to investigate the cause of the red glow that pulsed behind the head- land fringed with palmetto that hid the Swift Return from the view of the fleet. The fire had reached the gun-deck and the starboard and larboard batteries were scat- tering shot across an area brilliantly il- lumined by the blaze. Bane swore through his beard at the fail- ure of his plan. Then he saw the cutter come into the radiance, pause and swerve widely about the Swift Return in a course that would bring them close to the sloop. He gave a swift order and two boats bristling with men were soon in the water, making with swift, choppy, noiseless oar- strokes toward the cutter. ‘“‘We need a messenger,”’ said Bane, with a chuckle. “We'll take the king’s officer and send him back to the fleet after we clear the passage.” The cutter, making for the shore, was intercepted by the two boats that swept up, one on either side, from the darkness. The odds were fifty to ‘ten. The lieutenant, see- ing the gunwales gripped by twenty pairs of hands while a voice to right and left hoarsely demanded his surrender, disgustedly gave the word and the freebooters returned aboard triumphantly as the sky began to gray and showed the sullen rollers slapping on the sand spits and coral bars that guarded the passage. The breeze ehenciiened and the sloop, close-hauled, nosed her way through the winding channel. The sun rolled up, leap- ing clear from the rim of the sea and showing the fleet driving under half-sail across the bar into the harbor, nearly a mile away. ‘Up with the Roger and fire a gun,” shouted Bane. A black flag slipped up to the masthead and broke out its sable de- flance as a twelve-pounder roared, scaring COMmiclsoo (©