Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 165: what you’re looking at

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

On the Account bound behind him, faint but resolute. The brave look in his eyes provoked Bane’s unruly spirit to a gale of unreasoning fury. “Well, you dog,” he demanded. “Why don’t you beg for your life?” The captain smiled. “You have already tried to take it, you murdering pirate. I ask nothing from your kind of cattle.” Bane’s brows closed in a black smear of wrath. “You swim for that, you —— rogue,” he cried. “You have long since been damned,” said the other evenly. ‘‘And, as surely as I swim, so some day you will swing from the mast that knows no deck.”’ Bane’s gaze could not hold the dauntless look of the prisoner. He hurled the de- canter at him. It smashed against the wall as the captain swiftly moved his head and the rich perfume of the wine filled the room. Bane drew his pistol from his sash, his face convulsed with rage. “Damned, am I? Then I will send you first to hell to greet me when I come!” He fired pointblank in the other’s face so that the powder gas scorched it and the grains blackened it about the cruel hole be- tween the eyes. The captain spun about and fell. Bane took a step and spurned the body with his foot. “Over with that carrion,” he ordered. “It grows dark. Strip the sloop. Set those cravens aboard.” He nodded to- ward a group of shaking passengers. *‘Bring in the crew.” The sailors of the Neptune before him. “Look ye,”’ said Bane. ‘‘I want no forced men aboard my craft. Free men and equal are we all. Join, and, as ye prove, ye get a full share. ‘That—or aboard the sloop with ye.” The men interchanged looks and shifted on their feet. Then one stepped forward and another until but a dozen remained, including the officers of the captured vessel. “Good,” declared Bane. ‘‘Set these stub- born fools aboard. Send me the quarter- master.” Night found the Neptune heading under the stars for Green Turtle Bay, the sea- scooped crescent of one of the smaller Ba- hamas, the leaking sloop far astern, the old buccaneer crooning at the wheel. were herded 163 His ribs shall make a cage for fish, His flesh a sea-snake’s meal, His eyes a mermaid’s dainty dish, His—— His voice broke off in a croak as he gazed upward. A star had fallen athwart the heavens. “Tis a bad omen,” he muttered. “A bad omen. To kill in fight, aye, that’s one thing. But to murder in cold blood spells evil. *Iwas not so in Kidd’s time. A fall- ing star is a Summoned soul!” His superstition-ridden imagination saw in the meteor the spirit of the dead captain speeding for judgment. ‘“‘Tend your course, there, you one-eyed crab!’ shouted Scarry-Dick as the Neptune swung off and the clews of the topsails shivered. ‘Aye, aye, sir! Crab, am I?” he said be- neath his breath as the quartermaster fol- lowed up his reprimand with a string of oaths. “Yet have I claws that can nip.” He shifted the spokes, peering at the bin- nacle. He was the best helmsman aboard and he resented the rebuke. The shadowy sails rustled softly above him, he could hear the hiss of the wake above the songs and shouts of the carousing pirates below and presently he took up his own song again. The broken blade that spilled his life, Lies rusting in the ooze The maid that hoped he’d call her wife, Another love must choose; Yo-ho! Another love must choose. Yet while he lived, his life was full, A merry wight was he. With ne’er a moment that was dull, A-sailing on the sea, Yo-ho! A-sailing on the sea! CHAPTER IV TODD THE TURTLER & pee ‘TODD lived on Green Key. Most of the turtlers only existed but Tom lived, for he was not alone. A maid from the Carolinas loved him well enough to consider that with Todd the lonely islet would be Paradise enow and their honey- moon on their sea-girt Eden was only three weeks old. Todd dried the turtle flesh and stripped the shell and sometimes took a sloop-load of live tortugas to Puerto Rico or even to Jamaica for trade. The Green Key, rank CoOMmicasoo (©