Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 168: what you’re looking at

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

166 crashing through the undergrowth. She plunged into the thicket and sped through the flimsy door of their tiny house. There was no effective fastening. In one corner was her trunk that she had brought from home in Tom’s sloop. ‘The pistol was in it. She had asked Tom for it—he had a pair of them—and he had shown her how to oil and load it for their target practise at floating bottles in their playtimes. She tossed back the lid, kneeling at the trunk, found the weapon and turned, des- perate, as Bane flung back the door and entered, the leering faces of his fellows close behind him. 7 “No partridge, but a hawk,” said Bane, panting with his run. ‘Nay, pretty, put up that pistol. Hell and fury es The pistol roared, the tiny room was filled with the acrid gas of the discharge and Bane staggered back, a bullet in his upper arm, while the girl stood at bay against the wall. The pirate captain lurched forward, his eyes relentless and Mary Todd struck at him wildly as he beat aside her arms with bruising blows and swept her off her feet. “T’ll tame you, my beauty,” he cried. “Aye, and trim you to my liking before I’m through with you.” He heard the guffaws of his men as he roughly handled her. Her clutching hand caught his arm where she had wounded it and he swore as the imbedded bullet grated against the bone. The next second he flung her from him. She had found the knife in his belt and struck at him, the blade glancing off a rib. _ She crouched in the angle of the wall, her eyes filled with the blaze of madness, her torn dress showing her heaving bosom, the knife still in her hand. As Bane, blind with pain and fury, strode toward her and the rest closed in, she clutched the handle with both hands and drove the steel into her own flesh. A gush of blood stained her gown, she gasped and wilted into a pitiful, crum- pled heap. There was a shout from outside. A man blocked the sunshine in the open doorway. ‘The king’s ship is in the offing,” he cried. With an oath Bane swung out of the hut. The men were gathering about the boats, rolling the filled and empty breakers. The man-of-war was coming up rapidly under press of sail. Already her topgallants and royals showed. The dull boom of a gun came faintly as she signaled to her consort Adventure that the chase was sighted. The oars of the pirate’s boats bent as they raced back to the brigantine. In ten minutes they were aboard and the vessel sliding through the water, striving to gain the windward gage of the pursuit. A few relinquished casks dotted the beach and bobbed in the shallows. An hour passed before Tom Todd came back, un- conscious of what awaited him, half a dozen agoutis in one hand, his gun in another. He stopped for a moment in a clearing, watching a brigantine that slashed through the seas at a long angle, puffs of smoke com- ing from the Long Tom at her stern and the after guns of her larboard battery, while a ship, smothered in canvas, replied, head- ing in to intercept the other. The topsails of another vessel showed on the horizon. ‘‘Pirates,’’ commented Tom aloud. “I thought they had all surrendered. She sails like a witch. She’ll clear if nothing carries. Mary! Oh, Mary lass. Come up to me and see the fight.” There was no answer. He caught sight of the casks and trouble leaped to his eyes as he rushed down toward the hut. Midnight found him piling the last coral slab above a mound in the clearing. The cairn was high to thwart the land-crabs and rooting beasts. Dawn saw the turtler’s sloop making across the Bahama Channel toward Cuba, Todd at the tiller with rigid face and eyes that held an introspective gaze. Once he looked back toward Green Key, an Eden no longer. Then he hauled in the sheet and brought the sloop a point closer to the wind. CHAPTER V THE INN OF THE GOLDEN GALLEON A thirsty throat, a speedy boat, A skipper that’s a-daring; A parting glass, a loving lass, And off we go sea-fa-a-ring, And off we go sea-faring! A sail in sight, a chase, a fight, A hold with riches laden; A speedy tack and we come back Each to his waiting ma-a-i-den, Each to his waiting maiden! "THE big room of the Golden Galleon at Santo Domingo, the principal port on the southern coast of the island of the same name, rang with the repeated last line of the COMGHOO C©