Adventure Magazine Cover — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

28 evening when Helen, frightened and des- perate, rushed from the companionway and asked where was the steward, the ‘Chinese steward. “He promised to help me! To hide me! ‘Tell them you saw me jump!’ She waved a frantic hand toward the black molten "water. Tyler thought she was fleeing from a dog to a snake by running from a white man to a yellow man. The average Chinaman may be trusted implicitly any place but at a gambling-table and with a woman. But this old silent steward was of a different fiber than most men, white or yellow. But the important thing that Tyler told me was that the mates, Swanson and the second officer, were spreading the feeling among the ruffians that there was no reason for allowing me to cut on their treasure trove. That meant a certain danger, but I do not mind admitting that I welcomed it. My room had been searched and I had been watched. Swanson wanted to find __the copies of the maps. Perhaps he thought I had too much sense to keep them on my person, as that would probably be the first place anybody would have the first impulse to look. Perhaps he and his men would have tried to overpower me, to search me, when so ordered by the captain, but Tyler had spread my name and reputation—and Tyler had a vivid imagination. Too, that name and reputation was not unknown to some of them. Moreover, I had in that cabin given them no chance to take me off "my guard. A man has to use up about half of his life’s blood writing a record of loyalty and true faith before I trust him. I liked Tyler, for instance; I believed in him, but I wouldn’t have trusted him very far—though so far as I ever learned he was as good a friend as a man could want. I play a lone game—go just as far alone as it is possible. . It was well into the morning when I lay down, again in the steward’s cubbyhole. I did not undress, for dawn would come in an hour and I wanted to be up and see what was going on, though I had nothing jn particular in mind to do. I did not go to sleep. There was too much movement about; not too much to disturb sleep, but too much to disturb the _ peace of mind of one suspicious as myself. Feet were shuffling about, voices muttering. 4 Adventure A quiet rap came on my door. I started to answer, but caught the words * back. The approach to the door had been rather stealthy. I would wait. The door opened. Whispers. There was more than one person there. My name was softly called. I did not answer. I was lying on my left side; my hand touched the handle of the gun that nestled in a skeleton holster on my stomach.: I was ready—or thought I was, but a terrific blow fell through the darkness and nearly shattered my right shoulder. I was at once almost smothered beneath the weight of men. I can shoot as well with my left as with my right hand. This dexterity has been acquired by the left hand after long effort, chiefly because it is the right hand that fellows, looking for an excuse to shoot first, watch. But I could use neither. I was in a bad way and very foolishly struggled. A few years. ago a similar surprize was made on me, and I pretended to be unconscious, and presently two of my assailants were themselves un- conscious—permanently so. But in that cabin I struggled, foolishly. And I was choked and beaten and gouged, and it seemed as if my clothes were being literally torn from me. There is nothing, nothing that can be done to me personally that is so infuriating as for people to paw me. I don’t want anybody’s hands to touch me at any time. And when I am manhandled, my temper swells up like the poisonous throat of a cobra. But my gun had been taken away, and I have no doubt but that the handle of it is what some fellow used to strike me on what he thought was the head, but which was only my already pained shoulder. I have never been knocked unconscious more than two or three times in my life. That was one of them. When I came to I found the old withered steward staring down into my face. In his hand he held a tumbler of brandy. Much of it had been ‘poured on my face, and some of it. trickled between my teeth, and I felt almost strangled. I don’t know how long he had worked with me, but he seemed to think his duties had just begun. He offered me the rest of the brandy but said nothing. “Why don’t you talk?” I demanded. He opened his mouth: he was a mutes Eomichboo “S (E@)