Adventure Magazine Cover — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

{22 “Your spiritual legs are smashed all right. How about the piracy of it?” “Eh? I b’lieve in takin’ wot the Lord ’E sends an’ in forgivin’ henemies yer can’t lick —but not till arter you’ve tried ’ard.”’ “Well you old gray-bearded hypo- crite, you’re good for heaven anyhow, no matter what you do. That hop-head says you jumped straight at the gun and—”’ “Aye, Will—” light twinkled through the pain in the old fellow’s eyes—“a wicked man like Tom, ’is soul so black an’ all. It’d ’a’ been wrong to ’ave ’im meet up with sudden death.” “Now you be quiet and don’t talk so much. You start a hemorrhage inside of you an’—” “T think o’ Job, Will. An’ when pain comes it’s like a tussle to see which o’ us ’Il win.’’ “Jobe” said Heddon derisively. ‘Job talked too much about his troubles. You, I’ve yet to hear a groan out of you except when you’re asleep. Not much then. You take the pain like a man.” “Wot the —— yer think I am? A womin!”’ II OO LUNG, the withered old cook, was a man of mystery; and not the least of the mystery about him was how he found time to do twice as much as anybody might have expected, working from before dawn until late at night; but more than that, he was always cheerful, and his clattering tongue was the only cheerful sound on board the bark, but his pidgin-English was almost unintelligible. He waited hand and foot on little Po-Shu, had somehow dried and pressed her clothes; from somewhere he had brought out Chinese clothes for T’eeay Layeen, and though T’eeay Layeen showed almost a friendliness toward him, the old cook remained still merely the willing busy cook, and found time even to care for the two dull animal- like coolies as if they were his brothers. “Who is that fellow?’ Heddon asked bluntly. T’eeay Layeen answered: “The worthy son of a river woman.” ‘‘What distinction’s in that to make you treat him like an equal? Is he a fellow pirate in disguise?”’ “‘A scholar, who speaks the language of scholars. I have questioned him.” Gordon Young ‘And cook on a white devil’s ship! You Chinamen are queer fellows.” Woo Lung’s father had died when he was an infant; his mother, a woman of the breed that has given birth to heroes, bent every effort to make of him a scholar that he might rise to political eminence, relieve the poverty of his relatives and make proud the spirit of his father. His quickness at learn- ing attracted the interest of a famous scholar who took him into his home as a son. Three times the young man went up for the examinations and failed; his mother died, presumably of disappointment. Woo Lung suspected that the lords of examination, who had means of knowing what they were not supposed to know, would not see merit in a Canton sampan woman’s son; so, to satisfy his own doubts and make a little money, he took the name of a rich man’s son and advanced straight to the degree of Kyu-jin, and the rich man’s son was re- warded with honor and even appointment. Woo Lung, greatly embittered, sank to drunkenness, then to salt smuggling, was deported, and after many wasteful years went among foreigners. At last he came to the belief that gods are greater than men, and love a man more for what is in his heart and head rather than in his purse; and so he renounced greed and evil ways, and though he became hardly better than a coolie the gods warmed his heart with cheerfulness; and though too he had none of the precious books, he needed none, but would lie awake and repeat to himself pas- sages that he loved from the classics. Questioned by T’eeay Layeen, he had proved his story by his knowledge. After that Heddon, too, eyed the old cook with something like respect, as if even with the difference of white skin and yellow skin between them they were yet of the same embittered brotherhood; but Woo Lung had won to the greater wisdom—there was nothing resignedly cheerful about Heddon. Life on the bark was quiet enough, al- most ominously quiet. Vioux hid himself away in one room, drinking heavily and venturing out only furtively, afraid of Hed- don though Heddon let him have whisky; Madame remained broodingly secluded in another, and was fed from a tray that the cook brought three times a day to her door. Abdul sullenly did nothing. Heddon one day knocked the negro Zudag end over end. The fellow had COMiCooo C SS C@