Adventure Magazine Cover — page 125: what you’re looking at

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

Treasure caught three chickens out of a coop and was taking them to Madame. He refused to return them, then picked himself up and went into hiding. One of the chickens flew overboard; the others were put back in the coop. After that just as fast as pigs and chickens could be eaten by the crew they were killed. ‘“‘Feed that —— snake our chickens?” said Heddon. ‘‘Notmuch. If he gets good and hungry maybe he’ll eat her!” Pelew, after a few nights aft, had grown tired of living like a gentleman. Nobody aft was talkative enough for him. Woo Lung cheerily rattled his tongue, but Pelew could not understand pidgin-English. Pe- lew had also taken rather a liking to Tom Wateman. It amused the burly Pelew that one so slight and bandy-legged would be so truculent, for Old Tom stepped on the tails of the men forward as if he were twice the size of any of them. Pelew liked women, but he hardly got a peep at those aft. The French woman stayed in her room, and young Raeburn seemed to be the only white fellow who ever got a word with the shy Chink girl, he and that hop-head, Denasso. T’eeay La- yeen was courteous enough in an aloof way, but showed a lack of enthusiasm in talking of the treasure that he was to bestow on Pelew. So Pelew went forward into the forecastle where he felt more at home. He would swagger aft to stand the mate’s watch, re- lieving Old Tom, and with a great blast of voice give orders. But if it was a case of all hands, Pelew would rush to the work, scramble aloft, be the first out on a yard, or go bouncing along the deck with the men at his heels. He was, as he had said of him- self, a good sailor; but many times when the weather was bad he would call for Heddon, night or day, and say bluntly: ‘““Mister, what’s best to do you think?” The men in the forecastle were rather content; they were having more to eat than ever before in their lives, stiff jolts of hot hquor three times a day and more often when the weather was nasty, so that if there was much reefing and taking in of sail they went at it cheerfully. Besides, as they said one to another: ‘‘Ain’t we got a share in this here voyage?”” When wet there were plenty of clothes for a change, since they appropriated the chests of the Jack-Girl; and when not working, they loafed, smoked, 123 told stories of what they would do with wealth, and gambled noisily—losses to be paid for out of their respective shares in treasure. Pelew ordinarily, on a ship where he had won the right with his fists to be cock of the forecastle, was a ferocious bully; but now as first mate, bunking and eating forward— something probably no other first mate ever did—he was not, except in occasional flashes of temper, unreasonable. He did not want anything to happen to the ship— “our ship,” he called her. The men were afraid of him, and were willing to be humble that he might keep in a good humor, but they were not such fools as to forget how he had treated them on the Dragon, or to think that he wouldn’t do the same to them again. But they, too, did not want anything to happen to “‘our ship.” Il LD TOM had been kissing glass lips, which, as everybody knows, are as faithless though hardly so intox- icating as those of flesh. “Tt’s Old Bill bein’ so bad hur. stand it!” “Yes. Your getting drunk does him a lot of good,” said Heddon. “After we get treasure, I’ll never touch another drop. Never!” “Then what good will it do your? You’ve no. other way of being happy.” ‘°Tain’t so. I don’t like the taste o’ strong drink—”’ ‘No, you just like the feel of it under your belt. I’ve noticed how you hold your nose to put it down.” “You're the cussedest man I ever liked,” said Old Tom, blinking angrily. He was cross-legged on the deck, knife in hand, and though half drunk the blade of his knife chewed quite skillfully at the long heavy piece of wood he held. “What you going to do with those war clubs?” Heddon asked. He knew very well what Tom, who had broken out a doorway to get the jamb of teak wood, which he had laboriously sawed in two, lengthwise, was making. ‘These here are props for Bill. carvin’ of ’em, so they’ll look purtty.”’ Raeburn, drowsily smoking, sat before Tom, at times holding the wood as told, taking the place of a vise. TI can’t I’m E@ DOOLK (C@