Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 47: what you’re looking at

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

Don Diego Valdez young navigator had been rid of fever, and so far indeed was he recovered that he com- plained of his confinement, of the heat in his cabin. To indulge him Captain Blood consented that he should take the air on deck; and so as the last of the daylight was fading from the sky Jerry Pitt came forth upon the captain’s arm. Seated on the hatch-coamings, the Som- erset lad gratefully filled his lungs with the cool night air, and professed himself revived thereby. Then his eye wandered to the darkling vault of heaven, spangled already with a myriad golden points of light. A while he scanned it idly, vacantly; and then his attention became sharply fixed. He looked round and up at Captain Blood, who stood beside him. “D’ye know anything of astronomy, Peter?” quoth he. ‘Astronomy, is it? Faith now, I couldn’t tell the Belt of Orion from the Girdle of Venus.” “Ah! And I suppose the rest of tle lub- berly crew share your ignorance.” “It would be more amiable of you to sup- pose that they exceed it.”’ Jerry pointed ahead to a spot of light in the heavens over the starboard bow. “That is the North Star,” said he. “Ts it now? Glory be, I wonder ye can pick it out from the rest.” > | “And the North Star ahead almost over your starboard bow means that we’re steer- ing a course north-northwest, or indeed north by west, for I doubt if we are stand- ing more than ten degrees westward.” ‘And why shouldn’t we?” “Ye told me, I think, that we came west of the archipelago between Tobago and Grenada with Curacao for our destination. If that were our present course we should have the North Star abeam, out yonder.” On the instant Captain Blood shed his laziness. He was about to answer when a shaft of light clove the gloom above their heads, coming from the round-house door which had just been opened. It closed again, and presently there was a step on the companion. Don Diego was approaching. Captain Blood’s fingers pressed Jerry’s shoulder with significance. Then he called the Don, and spoke to him in English, as had become his custom when others were present. “Will ye settle a slight dispute for us, 37 Don Diego?” said he lightly. ‘“‘We are arguing, Mr. Pitt and I, as to which is the North Star.” “Indeed!” The Spaniard’s tone was easy; there was almost a suggestion that laughter lurked behind it, and the reason for this was ex- plained by his next sentence. “But you tell me, Mr. Pitt he is your navigator?” “For lack of a better,” laughed the cap- tain, good-humoredly contemptuous. ‘‘Now I am ready to wager him a _ hundred pieces of eight that that is the North § Star.” And he flung out an arm toward a point of light in the heavens straight abeam. He afterward told Pitt that had Don Diego confirmed him he would have run him through upon the instant. Far from that, however, the Spaniard freely expressed his scorn. “Vou have the assurance that is of the ignorance, Don Pedro; and you lose. The North Star is this one.” And he indicated it. “You are sure?” “But, my dear Don Pedro!” The Spaniard’s tone was one of amused protest. “But could I be mistaken? Besides, there is the compass. Step into the steer- ing-room and see what is our course.” His utter frankness, and the easy manner of one who has nothing to conceal resolved at once the doubt that had leaped so sud- denly in the mind of Captain Blood. But Jerry Pitt was satisfied less easily. “In that case, Don Diego, will you tell me, since Curacao is our destination, why our course is what it is?” ° Again there was no faintest hesitation on Don Diego’s part. “Well may you ask,” said he, and sighed. “T had hope it would not be observe’. I have been of a carelessness—oh,.of a care- lessness of the most culpable. I neglect observations. It is my way. I am too sure of myself. I depend too much upon dead reckoning. : “The result is that I find today when at last I take out the quadrant that we do come by a half-degree too much south, so that Curacao is now almost due north of us. That is what cause the delay. But we will be there tomorrow.”’ The explanation, so completely satisfac- tory and soreadily and candidly forthcoming, COmicloo \ ) (©