Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 164: what you’re looking at

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

162 It was impossible to open the forehatch but they dragged a spare spar aft and rigged it with a funnel of canvas, striving like demons until they had got it clear of the bowsprit and dropped it into the sea as the mainsail came down on the run and was smothered by twenty men. ‘The sea-anchor filled, the sloop swung head on, bare-poled, backing before the storm, but riding it, while the carpenter and his assistants strove to stanch the leak where the oakum had worked out of a seam. It was the last flurry of the storm. The wind died away with howls of baffled rage, the sullen seas slowly subsided and, in the west, the sky lifted to a pale streak of chrome. Upon the luminous background showed the lifting topmasts of a big ship, apparently a merchantman. “‘There’s our next craft, lads,’ cried Bane. “Tn with the sea-anchor and up sail again. She heads this way. ’Tis two glasses yet to sunset. We'll sleep aboard of her to- night.” The merchantman came slowly on while the clouds still lifted, trailing skirts of the fast disappearing hurricane. The air was sweet, the sea, still rough and covered with catspaws, a brilliant indigo. The sloop sailed on to meet her, the crew crowding the cabin and lying flat upon the decks, covered with spare canvas. Pistols were stuck in sashes, there was a cutlas for every right hand, a keen knife ready for each left. Bane had. hauled down the shreds of his black ensign and now flew a jack at the peak, upside down in signal of distress. With her torn taffrail, the decks apparently cumbered with dismantled canvas, only three or four men visible, the sloop, going sluggishly, - streams of water issuing from her pumps, gained the sympathy of the commander of the merchantman. The pirates could see him on the poop, speaking-trumpet in hand, and Bane caught the bellow of his voice, borne down wind, shouting for the smaller vessel to come-up and stand-by for a boat. ‘‘She’s no beauty,” said Bane, “but she will serve. She’s gulled! She sees the jack! Not a man of ye moves till I give the word. Then aboard! We'll need no guns. Keep them hidden behind the ports.”’ The two craft drew nearer, the sloop, close-hauled, held too close for her point of best speed by Bane; the ship surging Adventure along with yards squared to the following breeze, her forefoot dripping with brine, rising and falling heavily to the swash. Bane grinned as he spun the wheel, timing his maneuver so that the sloop hung clumsily in the eye of the wind, almost missed stays and came about on the crest of along roller, forging down under the side of the merchantman, apparently in imminent danger of being crushed like an eggshell. Bane knew that the backwash from the ship would hold him off long enough to execute his plan. “Easy, you lubbers,” shouted the mer- chant-captain. ‘‘What sloop is that?” “The Ranger. From the seas!’ answered Bane in the slogan of the freebooters. At the phrase the cabin of the sloop vomit- edmen. The loose canvas was hurled aside and sixty pirates sprang to the rail. A volley of oaths accenting his swift orders sounded through the speaking-trumpet of the ship’s captain. A gun-port swung slowly open, then another, and the muzzles of carronades showed in the opening. “Boarders away!” yelled Bane, leading his men in a spring for the rail of the mer- chantman as a wave lifted them to its level. Grappling hooks were thrown and tangled in the standing-rigging, pirates swarmed through the open gun-ports and chased the panic-stricken servers. Bane’s pistol fire caught the captain in his shoulder. There were a few scattering shots, a clashing grind of steel on steel, a half-hearted resistance from half-armed men and the ship was a prize. Scarry-Dick took deck-command with a dozen men while the rest of ,the pirates swarmed through the ship. THE wounded captain was brought before Bane, lording it in the usurped cabin, gulping port from a decanter. His men had broached some of the cargo and, in freebooting independ- ence, stamped into the cabin, swathed in silks, laced hats upon their headkerchiefs, a bottle in each hand, boastful, anticking like masquerading schoolboys. Bane glanced over the manifest that a trembling purser handed him. “The Neptune, from Bristol, England, laden with bale goods and general mer- chandise,” he said. ’Tis a clumsy hooker, but ’twill serve our turn until a better-lined vessel comes along.’”’ He scowled at the captain, pale from loss of blood, his hands COmicloo C©