Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

Old Sea Flower rattlines to follow three others aloft to the spar, where the sail flapped in the darkness high above them. A squall blew out of the south and, whip- ping through the rigging, lifted the ship forward with a shuddering leap. There was a heavy thud upon the deck below the shrouds. While the men who were not gone aloft reentered the fo’csle the mate stumbled over, then bent to look at a shape upon the deck. From aloft a voice called— ‘“‘There’s only three of us up.” Called by the mate, the men were gather- ing round, and bending above the fallen. man. : “Get aloft one of you. Help them to roll up that sail,” said the mate, and another hand climbed to the rigging. Two men were furling the weather side of the sail, one man alone on the lee yard- arm. The fourth man joined him there. “Skinny’s killed hisself,’”’ he shouted in his partner’s ear. ‘“Vott’s dot?” called the big sailor, who, working to windward, just caught the speaker’s words. ‘‘Vott you says?” he shouted. The fourth man repeated his words, loud above the wind’s cry, more than a hundred feet up in the night. The sail made fast, the four of them stood in the bunt, and, their individual shapes blurry in the darkness, talked in loud tones; their voices inaudible on the deck far below. On deck the second mate had fetched the sailmaker, who came forward with the carpenter at his heels. The sailors knelt about the body cf the pimply-faced man. “Wot about the old woman, Sails?” asked one of them as the sailmaker came up. The sailmaker looked at him through the darkness, without reply; then knelt at the dead man’s side. “* °F ain’t goin’ to put ’er in the nitrate, 1s he?”’ asked a sailor, and the carpenter glowered unseen. The big man and his three companions jumped from the shrouds to the deck. - Under the fo’csle head the sailmaker plied his needle, the carpenter seated on a door sill behind him. The watch on deck was joined by the men from aloft and all talked, all at once; the watch below, who were turning into their bunks, listening to them, their faces above the bunk edges. Qne by one the watch below slumberec. bd 43 while the others talked till midnight came. At midnight the watches changed places and the sleepers, awakened for their four hour shift, talked of death and of liquor and women till their turn came round to sleep once more at four of a windy morning. They muttered and cursed, and laughed alternately, all of them saying the same thing in the end— ‘‘We waits and sees.”’ Throughout the night Elias, seated at the bedside beside the canvassed form of his wife, nodded in his cabin. At eight bells of the morning the mate blew his whistle, calling the crew out to check the weather main braces that the ship might be brought to a stop. When she lay, idle on the tumbling sea, the men walked forward, moodily, and, talking in low voices, questioned one another. The big man was at the wheel. Soon they came from beneath the fo’csle head, bearing be- tween them the pimply-faced man. At the moment that they rested his feet upon the quarter railing the sailmaker and carpenter, Elias at their heels, stepped from the cabin alleyway door, bearing between them another canvas covered form. They laid it upon the quarterdeck; then com- menced to unbatten and to take off the after hatches. The sailors stared at them, their eyes very wide. The mate spoke to the bearers of the pimply-faced man. “Lay him on the deck. Two of you help get those hatches off.” They stared at the mate, as if not under- standing him, and none of them moved. The sailmaker and carpenter, having opened the hatch, went below, to the top of the cargo—nitrate sacks piled pyramid. wise in the ship’s hold, and already well settled. They cut sacks open and smooth- ing the loosened nitrate, made a trough in it Cr A man in newly dubbined sea boots stepped up to the mate and whispered to him, his voice inaudible to his mess-mates, and to Elias, who with his back to the other side of the hatch looked over the sea. The mate, a scornful stare in his face, shrugged his shoulders; then stepped to- ward Elias. : “They want that fellow buried in the sea, hesaid. — 1 Elias turned slowly about, his open gaze upon the sailors, his head thrust a little CoMmicbhook Wh) © =