Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

+4 forward, so that they invgluntarily drew toward one another, their backs to the railing. Voiceless assent in his gaze he looked at the mate, who returned at once to the sailors. They lifted the pimply-faced man and laid his feet on the rail again; then stood waiting, their faces abashed as they watched Elias, who staring back at them as if he did not see them, gazed beyond them. A sudden sea, a sharp browed swift run- ning swell that broke to smother round her counter, lifted the ship, and Elias, steadying himself with a hand on the hatch coaming, looked down to the sailmaker and carpenter on the nitrate below. The mate laid a hand on the poop ladder, while the sailors, thrown one against another, grasped brace pins and one another’s arms. The swell ran forward, a lather round the ship’s sides, and, as she steadied, the bear- ers of the pimply-faced man _ recovered themselves. They stood blank-faced and dumb while their dark browed mess-mates murmured. The pimply-faced man had slipped from their grasp and was gone to the sea. “Go forward,” said the mate, a suspicion of satire on his loose lip. } While they stood irresolute the head and shoulders of the sailmaker appeared above the hatch coaming, and, with the carpenter, he looked out upon them; the carpenter’s eyes on a level with the hatch. The mate and Elias were raising the form from the quarterdeck and laying it upon the hatch coaming. As the sailmaker and carpenter took it from them a sailor, pushed forward by his fellows, his eyes on Elias, walked slowly to the mate and whispered to him. The sailmaker and carpenter were laying the canvas covered form down in the nitrate trough. Others of the crew joined the spokes- man, whom the mate was ordering forward with impatient gestures. Elias, become suddenly aware of their proximity, peered at them from colorless eyes, his face thrust a little forward—after the manner of a bear that sniffs. Rising from the hatch the sailmaker and carpenter stood to his either side. “Go forward, all of you,” said the mate, a ring of uncertainty in his voice; as if he were afraid of their insistence. The big sailor, leaving the wheel to itself, Adventure ran to the quarterdeck and descending the ladder opposite the gathered company joined them from behind and thrust them aside. “You goes to keel us all—vee not stand for dot,” he said. The ship, her main yards laid aback, lay easy on the sea; her helm useless until her yards be trimmed. The second mate watched from the poop. “Vee goin’ to put her in de sea,” cried the big man, and pushed through his fel- lows till his face was close to the face of the mate. The mate, his lips a little parted, stepped backward behind the three old men and left the big sailor face to face with Elias. The wind was falling and a momentary sun shone brightly upon them all. The mate, biting his lip, went to the poop to look down on them from beside the second. The sailors watched their spokesman, and ‘Elias with the two old men at his side. ey THE sailmaker and _ carpenter > stretched out their arms, in front “wl of Elias, and stepping a little for- ward took the big sailor by his open shirt and flung him backward, so that he stag- gered among his shipmates. “Get forward all of you,” called the mate from the poop above, while the second whispered to him— ‘“‘He’d ought to bury her over the side.”’ As the stumbling man regained his feet Elias turned away and went to the alleyway door. The sailmaker and carpenter, their faces blank as windless topsails, stepped toward the crew, who fell back. “Vee ain’d goin’ to stand fer it,” said the. big man, retreating before them, his face to their faces; but the others went forward, so that, left alone, he turned and followed them. Looking back over his shoulder he cursed the two old men on the quarter- deck, who, ignoring him, replaced the hatches and battened them down. Side by side the two mates went forward together, and called to the men to square the mainyards; but the inen glowered at them, speechless, from the fo’csle door. In their midst stood the big man, who said, over and over— : ‘Vee ain’d goin’ to stand fer it.” Day drew on, with a falling wind. By CoMmicbhook A) (© =