Adventure Magazine Cover — page 110: what you’re looking at

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

104 Though his body, quite as much as if tied to the stake, was in the midst of a flame-like pain, for the moment he forgot the pain, the opium-hunger, everything, except that the hand of a mad woman was upon him; and, confusedly, he begged to be turned loose. Madame took away her hand and pushed at him, though the push was like a blow; then, rapidly: “Go away! Gofrom me! You are a fool and a coward! Pah! Miserable smoke- fiend! And if you say one word to anybody of me, the pipe, the can, everything—into the sea it goes! When you have done what T tell you, then come to me! But not till then! Now go ’way—away! Pah!” Denasso, walking unsteadily, much as if he had become suddenly blind, went off, turning this way and that; then being amidships he sat down on a hatch and put his head between his hands. IV HAT night young Raeburn, who slept on top of the deck-house where it was coolest, had a dream, or at least he thought it a dream. Bad dreams were nothing new these nights; and as best he could he fended them off by trying to be drunk when he went to sleep; but this was not easy as it took more and more liquor to make him woozy, and liquor was more and more hard to come by. But being an unscrupulous rascal, he had snooped about until he dis- covered where Old Tom had stored a bottle against the hour of need. He took the bot- tle, then generously shared it with Old Tom and Abdul, saying he had stolen it from Vioux. Tom complimented him on being a proper lad; and even the surly Abdul who did not care much for whisky, after a drink or two, patted the youngster’s back, nearly knocking the breath from him. Raeburn, as his share, took care to get a good sleeping potion; then he climbed to the deck-house, lay face up on his pallet, winked at the stars, and, with some effort, did not sing. Such times as he had broken into song, Heddon came to inquire unfriend- lily why he couldn’t die without making so much of a fuss about it? Saying, too: “Old Bill has enought to put up with with- out being troubled by your —— drunken yowling. Shut up.” GORDON YOUNG Raeburn, of course, couldn’t afterward remember just when he had dozed off; but somewhere in the twilight of drunken sleep he seemed to be awakened by a hand that shook him; saw, or dreamed that he saw, a frightfully haggard face in the starlight that in a vague unreal way seemed to be Denas- so’s; and a voice not at all like Denasso’s, which was usually so gentle and lazy, spoke huskily, with anguish, as if even dream- specters at times suffered pain. The next morning when Raeburn awak- ened only the merest traces of the dream confusedly remained; and these only be- cause it had been a most distressing sort of nightmare in which he seemed to have seen Madame not as a woman at all, but as a bald hideous monster, whose teeth were all knives, and with those frightful protrud- ing teeth she snapped at men in the dark. The spectral Denasso had seemed trying to warn Raeburn to look out for her; had urged him to warn Heddon and Pelew to watch out for her. The specter had said it could not appear to them, that it could appear only to a friend; and in vanishing it seemed to have said something about not re-appear- ing again, ever. Raeburn’s head ached a bit; his mouth seemed lined with dry cotton, and he had the rueful feeling that he had better go to bed sober if, drunkenly, he was to have such nightmares. He sat up, rubbing his head and eyes, try- ing to think. From the forecastle he could hear coughing and grumbling voices, as if men who had slept badly were reluctant to awaken from even bad sleep to daylight that was worse than any nightmare. Ab- dul, who bedded himself on the main hatch, was still asleep. His rumbling snores could be heard. Abdul could snore as he pleased, in peace. No one dared awaken him. For- merly chunks of the galley stove’s coal were thrown at him through the dark; but never after the time when, thus disturbed, Abdul took an ax from its rack, went to the fore- castle, rousted everybody out, and said that if the men didn’t leave him alone he would “chust chob off eveypody’s headt in two!”’ Raeburn now could also hear a far-off tinkling rattle and clatter in the galley. Woo Lung did not seem to mind heat or work, but from before daylight until long after dark, puttered busily, often humming, always answering cheerfully, with a sort of COnmiclbooks.c© 5}