Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

150 enchantment. Crude native catamarans with bamboo masts and cotton sails scooted along the coast. Small thatched huts, hardly larger than dogs’ kennels, were disclosed in the jungle by the nearer view. Suddenly the Aladdin curved ’round a palm-covered promontory, and we entered the harbor of Colombo. Again the shock of disappointment, the loading and un- loading vessels, the smoke-belching tugs, the clamor, the strife, the mad rush of trade. But also the exquisite charm of the East, the domes and spires, the gor- geous temples for grotesque gods. Thompson was standing in the engine- companion when I went forward after the ship was moored to the wharf. ‘Hello!’ he called out shrilly, “do you know what Penny has been telling me?” “No,” I lied, “what has he been telling your” “He wants me to make a fool of myself. He says the captain is crazy, and wants me to notify the harbor authorities, or cable the king, or something of that sort.’ “Well, are you going to do it?” “T am going to attend to my business, and that means taking care of the engines in this ship and not reporting the captain.” He walked forward with me. “Penny only wants the command of the ship anyway,” he continued, “and I’d rather be hanged than help him. He expects some one else to do his dirty work and get the glory himself—the sneak!”’ He swore viciously. f AFTER a week in port, the Alad- gh | din started on the last leg of her Es long trip half-way around the globe. The coast of Ceylon, the palms, the pictur- esque rocks of the southern shore, sank into the ocean behind. The lighthouse of Great Bassas gleamed fitfully, sleeplessly, in the night until that, too, disappeared. The heat was intense, relentless, in spite of the monsoon, in spite of the sea, in spite of the swift sure motion of the ship. It was bearable for a well man, but hell, and worse, for the sick. And Captain Findlay was sick. Daily it became more apparent, more irremediable. And we were helpless. We knew how to handle a ship, but a man, like Findlay—no—that we had not learned. The only remedy for illness we knew was quinine, and one can’t admin- Adventure ister quinine for a sick mind, a mind haunted by phantoms. I have seen men in physical agony, seen them suffer, seen them die; but nothing that I had seen before was so pitiful, so tormenting as this unfounded, growing terror in the captain. It seemed to grip his soul with inquisitorial mercilessness, to put it on the rack, to quarter it. It became steadily worse, nourished as it was by the heat; but still it did not kill. The look of profound misery on his face deepened, became like a mask in fixedness. He ate little; he slept not at all; he read his Bible in the daytime without getting any apparent comfort, and spent his nights on the bridge pacing back and forth rest- lessly, always searching the sea with strained, glowing eyes. For long periods he would remain silent, then he would talk incoherently, fragmentarily, about “Estelle,” ““Martha,” “‘my wife,” and “my children.” The strong man babbled like a child. I was puzzled about ‘Estelle’ and “Martha” and their connection with “my wife’ and “my children.” They were ‘always associated in his speech; a con- nection there was, obscure, but vital. I asked Duncan. He didn’t know. I asked Pennington. He professed to be ignorant. It was Findlay himself who solved the riddle, partly at least. He seemed more cheerful that night, though not more sane. He talked to me, slowly, confidentially, staring at me with bright feverish eyes that sent chills crawling down my spine. “T was reading in the Bible today,” he said, leaning over to me, “‘and I came upon a great passage. It said that those that seek shall find. It was immensely comforting. You know,” he lowered his voice perceptibly, “you know I have my wife along on this trip, and my grand- children, Alice and Winton. They are Mary’s children—Mary is my daughter— and they are going to England to go to school. “But I have been much distressed lately for the children are hiding from me. I can’t find them. I have been looking for them a long time. They are playing a prank on their granddad, the little beggars. I am worried about my wife, too. She looks funny. She looks just as she did forty years ago when I first met her. Her hair is combed straight back, and she is Go 0)(0)(6) ANG So(CO)