Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 183: what you’re looking at

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

The Pirates of Andrus Island through the gloom, for while he could see Parut’s boat against the lights of the water behind, Parut only had darkness ahead of him. In a few minutes the outrigger was along- side. There were only two paddlers in the big canoe with Parut, which gave the white men plenty of room to lie out in the boat and be well concealed when it drew near the Gospel Argonaut. “Is the woman on shore?” asked Doxey as he crawled up over the gunwale and, dripping, twisted himself into the boat. “Prempuan, tidak,” said Parut in Malay, which was, “‘woman, no.” Parut was barely visible in the stern, being squatted on a low box at the feet of the paddlers. “And the maarlim—the mate?’ asked Doxey. “He is not on the land,” said Parut in Malay. ‘No boat has come. We took good care to watch, tuan.” “All right. Paddle down toward the schooner, but take care that you approach her from the side away from the lights, that we may watch her for a time without being watched ourselves. We must know how careful they are on board as to what ap- proaches.” Parut gave the word to the paddlers and, sitting on mats in the bottom of the boat, Wade and Doxey exposed only their heads over the gunwales. . The boat swung slowly in order to get in between the schooner and the outer reefs, to bring her to bear so that she would loom between Parut’s boat and the lights ashore. The sound of music and singing had sub- sided. The voice of Jessup, preaching fervently, came over the water. But there were stretches of silence, for Jessup spoke a sentence and waited for it to be translated and the voice of the translator did not carry to Parut’s boat. Thus Jessup’s voice came intermittently, with long pauses, as if he had to think what he should say next. On the schooner there was but one riding- light visible. It appeared to be a lantern hanging under the quarter-deck awning; and this lantern seemed to be shaded by a length of canvas hanging loosely from the whipping overhead. The progress of Parut’s boat was slow, but it was gradually worked out behind the schooner, where it was not exposed in the light tracks glimmering over the bay. Some 161 of the fishing boats had also worked back to the lower end of the bay, guiding them- selves according to plan and in accordance with where Parut’s boat would be. Some went between the schooner and the shore, while others swung farther out beyond Pa- rut. In this way, there seemed no plan on foot among the boats, only a careless dnift- ing about of fishermen. Doxey had warned Parut that care must be taken against any maneuver that would look like an enveloping movement against the schooner. If Jessup or his mate sus- pected anything wrong, the whole game would be upset. The boats simply drifted about, the fishers casting nets or pulling in fish on their lines. Only Parut’s boat was allowed to attempt close work with the schooner, and that moved about with seem- ing aimlessness, the paddlers stopping now and then to cast a line. Within half an hour after Wade and Doxey had been picked up, the outrigger’s paddlers were hauling in fish within a hun- dred feet of the Gospel Argonaut. And they lay in the schooner’s own shadow to sea- ward, so that Wade and Doxey had a good view of the quarter-deck. They could see -Mrs. Jessup, still wearing her sunbonnet, sitting in a deck-chair reading under the lantern, her back to them. “I wish we could locate the whereabouts of that mate,’’ whispered Wade. “If he’s below in the cabin, and he must be, we’d' run into trouble if we boarded now. He. might pounce upon us from anywhere.” ‘“‘All I can make out in the waist is a couple of heads over the bulwarks,” said Doxey. ‘And I’d say they’re native sail- ors watching us.”’ “T’ll bet that’s where the mate is,’’ de~ cided Wade. ‘‘He’s in the dark there, with the sailors, keeping watch. I can see some- body move from side to side every little while. The fishing boats make him nervous and he’s keeping a careful eye on us.” Occasionally Mrs. Jessup lifted a stick on which was tied strips of paper, and drove’ away the insects attracted to her reading lantern. Over her shoulders she wore a silken shawl, and she held an edge of it when she fanned herself with a big palm- leaf fan now and then. The hymn-singing had started on shore again, and the heavy voice of Jessup boomed out over the shriller voices of the singing natives. Comicbook © 5}