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 CHAPTER XII AFTER THE CALM me|HE bark, with the Jonah off her, aa| can before wind and rain for days; and when the clouds parted, the wind held on, at times gusty, again light as a maiden’s breath, which as every one knows can blow men this way and that. Heddon, short-handed and reckless, drove her along. True, he kept an eye on the barometer, and this told something, but gave no warning of the whooping squalls. They had some bad half hours, but when the men lifted their voices in anxious grum- bling, Heddon said jeeringly: “Tt’s luck as saves a man from harm— saves any man. And if you’re not lucky, you're better drowned!”’ Pelew had changed a bit for the worse; he remained by far the best sailor, and took even more trouble to show that he was, as if thus making it plain how nearly worthless the others were; and showed off, too, with risks aloft that would have put any other man overboard; but he seemed to care less what ill-feeling and quarrels with the crew might bring upon the ship. He particu- larly abused the sailor Haskell, taunted him, cursed him for a lubber. The way of a treacherous woman with a man may have had something to do with Pelew’s discon- tent; but more than this was his awareness that all men thought he had been a coward when the python was loose. As if to prove his courage, he was on edge for a fight with anybody, and would almost demand it if he found any one staring at him. Oddly enough, he seemed now half-way, but hardly more, to like Heddon; and though Pelew would not let any one stare at him, he often looked with a blank sort of puzzlement at Heddon, from behind his back. One thing was certain, Heddon was reckless enough as a skipper to satisfy even Pelew’s lawless delight in taking chances that terrified other men. Heddon had become aware that often he was being stared at from behind, though not by Pelew. Time and again he had de- tected the little Chinese girl staring at him from a corner of the deck-house, or through a dark doorway. It exasperated him; it 119 exasperated him all the more because he could not feel as angry as he wished. She was a toy girl, a dainty doll that breathed and spoke and laughed, with dark moist eyes. He did not want her; did not dis- like her, but simply would not have her. She was a pleasing little thing, though Heddon simply wouldn’t be pleased. The inexhaustible Woo Lung, who from almost the first sight had worshiped at her small feet, somehow from his chest, or with what he could pillage, and with fresh water, soap and the lid of a stove for a pressing iron, had proudly seen to it that she was dressed as nearly like a princess as possible. Her dark almond eyes would always be wide as she looked at Heddon, and her red lips parted breathlessly. She conveyed very well and a little shamelessly that she wished him to know that he was worshiped; and after a pause, as if afraid of displeasing him, for always he scowled darkly at her, she would draw back quickly, and the long jade earrings tapped her cheeks as if they too trembled. Vioux and Madame had quarreled again. Heddon brazenly eavesdropped. Vioux called her a bungling fool of a woman, said she was unlucky, that he washed his hands of her, that she was never to speak to him again—never! Madame was no longer Madame. It was as if the python, which she had once said could when it wished almost draw the life out of her, had with its death drawn out of her what was more precious than life— courage. Much of her audacity had been merely the impulsive scheming of a selfish, cruel, foolish woman; but she had at least been high-tempered and dangerous. Now she begged so worthless a fellow as Vioux not to desert her. He swore at her. Vioux was much on deck, and would sit all day long and half the night staring away at nothing. Men noticed that he was growing a beard. Heddon now and then stepped aside to kick him out of the way, but for the most part contemptuously let him alone. But Madame did not stir from her room and Heddon at times caught a glimpse of her through an open port where she stood to get fresh air. Her face was shrunken, her ex- pression weary, dull, almost unintelligent. She was no longer at all the woman he had known. Something within her had died. TO BE CONTINUED COmiclboooks.c© 5}