Adventure Magazine Cover — page 68: what you’re looking at

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

o4 “Wot’s it got to do with us?” he re- peated. “It’s got a lot. Ah doot if we make Japan—let alone Victoria.” “We'll try,” said Micky sadly. “The Russian says we can clear at nightfall. ’E and ’is crew are coming aboard then. I tested the steering-gear. It works. Who got steam up?” “Three coolies who are sittin’ in the en- gine-room waiting to go ashore. Ah bor- rowed some cut-plug from them—enough to last the voyage—if it lasts. They can’t talk anything but pidgin English. Their clothes are not worth taking—or I’d of taken them.”’ Micky McMasters rubbed a bristly chin reflectively. He stared at Mike Monkey’s faded outfit. He swung his gaze to where Red Landyard stood on the forecastle deck, directing a gang of coolies who were clearing away wreckage which had fallen about the capstan. “This Russian,” he said with an anxious ee at the dark outlines of the shore, “this man who hired us at a thousand rubles a week is some kind of a big labor captain or prince. ‘The coolies salute him. The two Tatars standing guard at that shed ashore bowed when he spoke to them. There’s a whackin’ mystery ’ere!”’ “Ah thought ye would get yer foot in it when ah saw ye chinnin’ with that Russian on the mud flat. He is a smuggler!” “No! ’E don’t look like one.” “Looks is only skin deep. He ought to be skinned—with his thousand rubles a week.” ‘°E ’as nobody to navigate the ship, and the tea ’as got to be taken hover the western Pacific.”’ “Tay? Ye are daft? D’ye call that tay?” Mike Monkey pointed a scornful finger at the boxes piled around the fore-hatch. He spat to the bridge-deck. “That ain’t tay! That’s opium or hashish or fireworks of some sort. Ah never saw tay boxes with Russian letters on them.” “There is good tea grown in some parts of Russia.” “It’s grown! Aye, it’s grown! Wot’s to prove this cargo growed there. It may have been brought to this cove in a sampan —it may have been brought in a Chinese junk—it may have——”’ “Vast with your ‘may-have’s!’ low to the boiler! Get be- ’Ere comes a caravan or Adventure a funeral. They’re Russians of the prov- ince of the Don. See their beards and their robes. There’s the big fellow who hired us. ’E’s a bloomin’ juke, that’s wot ’e is! Kow-tow when ’e comes aboard.” “Ve told me to go below.” “Urry hup! Never mind the kowtowin’. You walk straight and take my orders until we get on the ’igh seas.” The first engineer fluttered a pair of pale lashes in the general direction of the squad of Russians who were winding around the shore shed. He climbed down the rusty bridge-ladder and glided for the engine-room companion. He went through the single grating and thrust his hands into the broken pockets of his dungaree trousers as he eyed the three coolies sitting on the crank-shaft of the cross-compound engine. “On deck!” he roared at the chinamen. “Ve all get on deck, and don’t show yer mis- erable faces here again. Ye’re discharged! Ye built my fires in Oriental fashion—up- side down with all the Japanese coal on the grates. Ye left me nothing but clinkers and salt water in the boiler and leaking gaskets an ) The last yellow man stared down through the grating on his way to the deck and departure. ‘Plenty much you learn by and by,” he said softly—too softly. “Plenty much——” Mike picked up a rusty spanner. He had drawn this back when there sounded the raucous clang of an ancient gong in the engine-room. Micky McMasters, wasting no time, had rung for quarter-speed for- ward before the Russian crew were well aboard. ‘ Two men came down the engine-room ladder in awkward fashion. They blinked at Mike. They stared at the engine as if it were an idol in a temple. They stroked their whiskers. ‘““Are ye coal-passers?”’ asked Mike. “Passengers.” “Wot?” “We are passengers.” ‘Ah asked ye if ye are coal-passers?”’ Mike Monkey pointed toward the low door through the bulkhead which separated the engine-room from the stoke-hold. “Get forrard!”’ he rasped. the skipper rang for a turn on the engines? D’ye know there’s only thirty pounds ov steam ?”’ The Russians moved toward the stoke- “D’ye know | Gomicbooks.co =)