Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 172: what you’re looking at

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

170 the corvette. So Bane kept on the steady line for the center of the Jumentos. He was taking a chance on Tom the Turtler, who now stood at the wheel. They had been out from San Domingo a week. Todd had performed his duty with thoroughness. But he was not popular aboard. Bane welcomed him as a perfect helmsman as well as special pilot, a man who could get the last fraction of a knot of speed and keep his course high-pointed by the trim of the sails and the feel of the wheel. But, with the pirates, Hampton, the man who had sailed with Kidd and sponsored him, was practically his only associate. Todd had tried to mix with the rest, pend- ing the development of his hazy plans of revenge, but the grim determination that invested him looked out of the eyes that Denton had said were like those of a shark and the reckless pirates seemed to sense him as one even more desperate than themselves but not one of them. There were whispers of his being a Jonah. The practical jokes that were played upon a newcomer fell flat before perpetration, checked by Todd’s steady gaze. Sometimes a pirate crossed himself and muttered about the “‘evil-eye’’ when Todd looked at him. Scarry-Dick Denton watched him with suspicion, he knew that. Any day that danger might break and the quartermaster remember him as the Turtler of Green Key who had shot hogs. ‘Todd’s vengeance had not assumed a definite plan. Circum- stances perforce guided him. He found it hard to mask the hatred in his eyes when he spoke to Bane and his fingers itched to close about the pirate’s throat. Mary had not been quite dead when he reached her. She had spoken a few words, enough to let him know that Bane had been the chief aggressor but to Todd’s fanatic mind, crazed with grief, the whole crew were guilty and were to be brought to the ac- count. He could easily have killed Bane first, and after him, two or three more per- haps before they stopped him, but that was not enough to pay for the murder of his Mary, herded by the butchers to kill herself and save her honor. He thought of blowing up the magazine at first but Bane knew his business and not only was it guarded, night and day, and dur- ing a fight, but, whenever Todd showed a disposition to go anywhere about the ship by himself, he found a pirate close beside Adventure him. He shrewdly suspected that, once he had shown the passage through the Jumen- tos, they would gladly rid themselves of him, by fair means or foul. The suggestion of Jonah aboard such a ship was one that would not down. Andhe could not change his eyes. He tried to glaze them with indifference but his hatred showed. He caught sight of himself once in a triangle of looking-glass and almost started at the malignant countenance he saw, grim, relentless. There was one man aboard who had tried to pick a quarrel with him, a half-breed, part Carib, part Spaniard; known as ‘‘Spanish” Jack, noted for his knife-play. Denton had. interfered, threatening the man with irons and Spanish Jack had slunk away. Todd guessed that the quartermaster had inter- fered only to preserve the holder of the reef entrance and that sooner or later he would have to deal with Spanish Jack. NOW he held them all in the hollow of his hand. He could wreck them and the sea would do the rest. But even then he was not sure of his vengeance and physically he ached to be an active in- strument, to come to grips with Bane, at least, and let the life out of him in a red tide. “One scrape of her keel and I blow off the top of your head!”’ Scarry-Dick was beside him, openly sus- Picious, a pistol in his hand. Todd smiled and glanced once at the quartermaster. It was the glance of a man without fear, thought the quartermaster. The look of one who did not value his life at a groat, a menacing look that seemed to hold the smoldering flame of a threat against all the world. Something had seared all the humanity out of it. It sneered, it seemed to read his mind, to seek out the dirty corners of his soul and regard its foul- ness with a scantily veiled contempt. It was the gaze of a man without asoul. The gaze of a devil. Denton’s grip tightened on his pistol-butt. For perhaps the first time in his blustering life the quartermaster was afraid. The skipper is a fool, he thought, glancing over his shoulder at the corvette. There was a puff of white smoke from her bows that formed itself into a ring and blew away in rags to leeward. A round shot plumped into the sea, geysering up half a mile astern. The chase was closing. COmicloo® CO