Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

160 the breakfast-hunting birds. ‘The cutter trailed at the stern. “Into her and back to the fleet with you,” said the buccaneer to the sulky lieutenant. “Tell your commander and. Rogers, the king’s jackal, that Bane and his lads are away. If they want to test the speed of our heels or the gage of our guns, let them come after us. It is a fair wind for a race and clear weather for sighting. Cast off there, or we’ll cut you loose!” The king’s men were in their craft, dragged with lifting stem behind the sloop. ‘“‘Give us our oars,”’ called the lieutenant. ‘Scramble for them and be —— to ye,”’ cried Bane. A cutlas-stroke severed the line as the oars were tossed into the sea and the pirates swarmed to the rail, mocking the crew of the cutter as they recovered, one at a time, their means of progress and, at last, setting a quick stroke, rowed back for the passage. “Now lads, it’s ho, for Hispaniola!”’ cried Bane. ‘It will be an hour before those lubbers get after us. With the wind abeam and the good start wecanlaughatthem. It will not be long before we’ll take a better ship and then we'll carry out what has long been in my mind. ‘“‘Now that those curs ashore have sur- rendered we’ll have the trade to ourselves. We'll find some place among the Keys where we'll set up a fort, some spot among the reefs that has a score of exits and but one entrance. That shall be our capital where -we’ll all live as kings in our own principal- ity and be in debt to no man.” CHEER after cheer went up as the Gp course was changed and the sloop, reaching faster and faster, headed for the Spanish Main. The gage was cast. They were outlaws now beyond redemption. Bane had voiced their prime ambition, to set up a kingdom to which they could go between raids, with loot and women, forced from prizes or picked up in Puerto Rico, hoydens as reckless as themselves. There were plenty of towns where they would be made welcome when the coast was clear, to go swaggering, hip-booted, clad in silks and velvets, roaring out their songs, stampeding the citizens, boarding the tav- erns, paying freely for unlicensed privilege with broad pieces of eight, looting a quiet plantation, perhaps, and marching away to the crackling of the gutted buildings and Adventure the shrieks of women borne off across their shoulders. A gay life, a devil-may-care existence with hell for the hind-most! A short life and merry one until they danced the last jig with the hangman’s knot behind their ear or went down fighting on slippery decks. There would be an end to it, of course, but, while it lasted, they would crowd it with excitement and Bane was a lucky leader and a brave one. A man of good family, it was whispered, though none dared question him. They bowed to his superior education. It was good to have a captain who could sling the lingo as he did and who was the first across the rail when they laid alongside. The old ruffian who had prated of Kidd had come on deck, his head bound in a bloody rag, maudlin with the rum that Bane sent him as a salve for his cracked pate. He was a favorite aboard for his tales of earlier raids and he was greeted with rough jests as he made his way aft to where Bane stood at the taffrail watching for signs of pursuit. The captain greeted him evenly. “Well, old dog, can your tongue still wage’ The man’s one bloodshot eye gleamed without resentment. ‘‘Waste no more good liquor on the out- side of my head, Captain,” he said. “T sent you a pannikin. So then, there’s no ‘ill-will, You had these fainthearts wavering with your prate of Kidd in chains. Blood and fury, man, must you conjure up a croaking vision to spoil good sport in the making?” “T am nigher the end than you, maybe, though ’tis likely to be a short shrift for boy and graybeard in this calling, Captain. So we are to sea again, with yon poltroons in Providence on their marrows before Rogers. The sea is ours. There is but one life, look ye, and that’s the life of a rover. No ill- will, Captain, that another pannikin will not soak up.” He rolled forward, growling in a husky bass a song that his fellows took up in chorus. The Roger to the peak and the ocean to our lee. A-sailing down the coast of the High Barbaree. And it’s ho, for the life of a rover. The landsman lies a dying with the parson by his side. The freeman goes a sailing at the turning of the tide. eee a sheet that’s trailing, a breeze that follows eet. A cause in my good right hand, my boots upon my eet. COmMicloo ©