Adventure Magazine Cover — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

as H, WILL? Wotis—” Old Bill’s \ aged eyes were not quite so good as he tried always proudly to make out, and in that blur of rain he could not see clearly. “The Jack-Girl, Bill, with Wal- scher on her. Old Davy too, Id say. Somebody must have reported us out here,, and here they come. Aye, the luck some rascals have! Here they get us all, Chinks and girl too. Prison.” Something very hke a shudder went through Heddon, and his hard face grew black with a starmg frown as he seemed to peer at himself tramping across the prison yard in leg irons. He dropped his hand on Bill’s shoulder, turning the old fellow about, then eyed the ghostly bark for a moment before he said: “You an’ Tom there have followed the track o’ the winds too long—prison cells’ll be coffins to you. Pll say it now—may not have the chance later. They'll chaim us apart most likely for fear we’ll break away together. If the repentance of such a fool as I’ve been is any sciace to you, you —— old Jeremiah, take it! But this is it; now listen close— You an’ Tom turn witness against me, understand? They don’t need witnesses, so what you say won’t hurt me any, and’Il help you lads get off. Jack here has youth enough to get him off, at least with something light. But you and Tom swing over to the Crown, an’ tell your yarn against me. Understand?” Old Bill glowered with increasing wrath, and as if at last struck by aged palsy, trembled. He clawed down at one side of his beard as if to tear it from his cheek. He opened his old nearly toothless mouth and made vague angry sounds, then spit a cheekful of tobacco juice on the deck :o clear his mouth for speech. In nearly fifty years of sea-work, Bill Barnes had never be- fore spit on the deck of his ship. His. jaws quivered. “Me! Mean’ Tom! Turn agin ye, Will ’Eddon? Not to save yer worthless soul from ’ell, we wouldn’t! Arsk chat o’ shipmytes! You ain’t the man I allus. thought, no’ow! I got too much faith in Godhamighty, Will ’Eddon, not to think as ’ow ’E damns neck- deep in ’ell the man as fails a friend! It’s in the Bible so!” “Don’t be a blasted fool!” “Fool? Aye, you’re that! Repen’ant? Aye, me an’ Tom ’r disapp’inted in ye, Gordon Young Will! It’s awright f’r to be repen’ant, Will, at times—but, lad, dom’t never be repen’ant ’fore ye’re licked!” “Licked!” said Heddon, stung, half angered. ‘Ona sinking ship with the crew against us? And the bark there, with armed men on her? We can sink but we can’t fight! Shall we scuttle her an’ go down? That what you want?” “No, no. Course not. But—” “Well,” said Heddon, not loudly but in a way that made them know he meant it, “I would choose that before I’d land im leg irons for half a lifetime. But man’s the suffering fool to think something good lies just ahead.” ‘An’ it allus does, Will, allus,” said Old Bill coaxingly. ‘As sartaim as there’s a God, lad, there’s none in ’ell but cowards! None but them as ’as quit ’opin’ an’ fightin’. I seem faith move some orful big mountains, lad, for them as kep’ on fightin’!”’ “(Jaeer old duck you are. But you, Jack—Jacques, I mean,”’ for Heddon would jeer however bad his luck, ‘‘cut five years off your age when they question you. With your gift for lying, you ought to go scot- free. I mean it, boy. You wriggle out of this —— mess any way youcan. Hear me?” The worthless, lazy young Raeburn swore at him, with feeling, mdignant. Whatever the boy might have said had Heddon first taken him aside and explained, Old Bill had shown the way to answer such a proposal, and so he answered. “Then somehow we'll break jail an’ steal a boat. to get off the island,” said Heddon, frowning thoughtfully in the way that often meant trouble for some one, usually for hin- self as much as anybody. “Not—Pm not going to prison, not for putting a fist in Walscher’s eye an’ a gag in Old Davy’s mouth. No!” Heddon turned away with the preoc- cupied frown still on his face and went to the schooner’s side to see what was going on. “Aye, lad—” Old Bill spoke with a grave air of satisfaction—“that’s more the talk wot.a man as knows ’im ’spects to ’ear from Will ’Eddon.”’ Tit SEA-LADDER had been slung over; the boat was hauled in along- side. IHfinits tossing the boat had touched the side of the schooner it would have been splintered; the Chinese fended GOniGboo Cc SS C@