Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 167: what you’re looking at

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

On the Bane. A bullet had bitten his forearm and he was in an ugly temper. ‘We have little time to spare. The king’s ship may have guessed our tack. Get the water-breakers ready for a landing. I'll go ashore. For once spring-water sounds better to me than brandy. That cursed crease burns like fire.” gE MARY TODD, looking up from her —— laundrying, gazed with delight at the picture of the brigantine, bril- liantly enameled by the sunshine against the blue sky and bluer sea, rising and falling on the long billow with a grace that was all her own. Even when it was evident that the ship was heading directly for the Key she felt no alarm save a vague wish that Tom would come back before they landed. Other ships had called there for water, Tom had told her. She held no thought of pirates. They had heard from another turtler, passing on the news, that the free- booters had all surrendered, or were about to surrender, at the Island of Old Provi- dence. The brigantine came up into the wind, held there while two boats put off and rowed swiftly toward- shore, and then cruised off-and-on, awaiting their return. The girl supposed that the men would know where-to look for the spring. They could easily find it. Her newly-wedded shyness dominated her curiosity. She did not wish to meet them without Tom beside her. If she stayed they might give some- thing in exchange for the water, a bolt of print-stuff, perhaps, and there might be news. She might send home her half- completed letter. But she was Tom’s wife and a ‘delicacy she could not express held her back. She slipped off into the palmettos, unaware of the mark her lightly going figure made in its white gown against the vivid green. The boats divided, one coming straight for a landing near the spring, the other with quickened stroke, racing toward a little cape, Bane urging on the rowers. ‘‘A partridge and a sweet one,” he said to his second in command. “Ye should have seen her through the glass, man, bend- ing over the clothes she was washing. Slender and supple as a bow. <A young one ‘and alone. ’Tis not often we see the likes of her. She’ll be the turtler’s woman.” He spoke the last sentence softly and his companion looked at him curiously. There Account 165 was an unspoken rule against women aboard Bane’s ships. ‘‘They raised the devil among the men,” he said. But a commander could break his own rules and there was a gleam in Bane’s eyes and a flush in his face that showed passion long re- pressed by force of circumstance, suddenly aroused. It was none of his business if the captain sought a plaything. He would break it and cast it aside presently. A discarded woman among seven score conscienceless devils would have a hard time of it but his own soul was cankered with the rest. De- cency as a pirate’s attribute was a thing to be mocked at. The first boat, towing a long string of empty water-casks, touched the beach and the men sprang ashore, eager to fill and get back to the ship before the slower but heavier-metaled king’s ship should appear and cut them off. The shot-holes in the sails were not the only ones the Venture had suffered. There were a dozen or more cursing, wounded men aboard, swearing at _the rude surgery, and five had “‘given up the keys to their lockers.” Bane’s boat touched sand. He jumped into the shallows, followed by all but two of the men, who paddled the boat back to join the watermen. The pirates ran through the palmettos at an angle, eager to herd the ‘“‘white doe’’ of the skipper’s fancy. Bane was in the lead when Mary Todd caught sight of the line and sensed the nature of their quest. Her face paled and her heart began to beat in a wild tattoo of alarm that sud- denly gripped and possessed her. She turned to run deeper into the woods, seek- ing Tom, calling his name as she fled. A grinning ruffian rose from back of a bush, his arms outspread, giving the view-halloal Others were closing in from right and left. Bane, his teeth showing through his beard, sprang forward to grasp her. She doubled, frantic with fear. Where was Tom? Again she called his name, though it taxed her scanty breath, and the pirates took up the cry. “Tom! Tom!” they yelled derisively after her until her fear included his danger. These men were pirates! There was a pis- tol in their little thatched hut, hidden in the trees. Perhaps she could reach it be- fore those others by the shore noticed it. The men ran whooping behind her, cComiclsoo ©