Adventure Magazine Cover — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

Pearl-Hunger Mea THE boats dragged the Loftus Figs Mork nearer and nearer. Salvador McGree, broad, massive, tremendous, stood on his quarter-deck and the men near him appeared nothing more than children, so much did he stand above them; but children who, somehow, had got old ugly faces. He was grinning; the teeth flashed white under his black mus- tache. His head was bound with a brilliant scarf, its ends falling across his shoulders. At times there was the glint of the loop ear-rings. As his ship came nearer his eyes ran over the Gloria, along the rail, and his dark eyes rested repeatedly in long glances on Margaret. Heddon sullenly watched. Close by, Raeburn had finished loading the rifles and had placed them in a row, muzzles up, against the rail. “Hoy-ho, there, Will Heddon!” McGree roared, lifting a giant’s fist. He was not unlike a merry pirate pleasantly hailing a helpless craft he was soon to scuttle. “Still looking for trouble, I see,’’ Heddon answered sullenly. “Oh, ho, that 1s one good name for a woman!” McGree turned his head and stared to- ward Gloria and Margaret, mostly at Margaret. Then, tauntingly— “Where’s all your crew, Will Heddon?” “You must know—or you wouldn’t be laying alongside!”’ McGree laughed, deep-chested, amused: “We're coming aboard, Will Heddon. Salvador McGree would have a friendly talk with you!”’ “‘There’ll be dead among you if you try it!” “Oh, ho! So that’s the welcome you give old friends, Will Heddon!’ McGree roared, laughing. “Whoever that sailed with you was friend of mine?” Heddon demanded. “You are so good friend, Will Heddon, that for a long time now I have been trying to come up with you.” “Then why,” said Heddon, “did you leave Lianfo in such a hurry?” “Oh, ho, but next day I put back to find you, and you had gone. It was Will Hed- don who had left in so great hurry! Ah, ha! So that is the woman. I didn’t think you would be a woman thief, Will Heddon. Why, you are as bad nearly as that —— black scoundrel, Salvador McGree!”’ o7 He laughed and struck his huge breast. “You know then that we have no crew, but remember that we still have arms, McGree!”’ “Bah,” said McGree, contemptuous. “Ts that the way you pay lawful debts? Shoot somebody?” “Tt’s the way I’ll pay you for how Ben- nings died if you don’t shove off!” “Ha! So?” McGree roared, excited. “You believe that lie too? If it was to kill Bennings I wanted, I would have—- so!’ He made a furious quick pantomime of tearing something to pieces. “Salvador McGree has a black name, but when did he hire men murdered? Who says that of him? You saw blacks from my crew among the natives that attack. They were run- aways. I-swear it. I do not hide behind blacks to kill people. No! I kill them myself, so?” He drove his huge fist into a palm, and glared. “But you keep a bunch of cutthroats at your back to help,” said Heddon, who could not be humble, and would not let McGree think that he had fear of him. “These pigs? Bah! They are nothing!” With a contemptuous side sweep he struck the man nearest him, knocking him to the deck. The others jumped back quickly, and laughed. The man arose, grinning. They were used to his tyrannical humors, half- loved him for them as if they had pride in his hugeness and strength with which he over-rode everybody, themselves too. “They are lazy pigs. I keep three to do the work of one man.”’ “Well, what is it you want now?” said Heddon. “Much, it is much. To even old tricks on you. When I found I had —— French pearls, I put my ship about and went right back into Lianfo. But you—a-ha! So that is the beautiful woman. Here—” he flung something—“I give you back this!”’ The small circular object cut through the air and skittered athwart the Gloria’s deck. It was the frame from around the portrait. The picture, he had kept. The ships lay not fifty yards apart. One boat’s crew sat idly at their oars, look- ing up at the Gloria. The crew of the other boat were clambering back on the deck of the Loftus Mark. Old Wateman had taken a rifle and, filling his. pocket with shells, had gone up Go DOOK 1 @)