Adventure Magazine Cover — page 140: what you’re looking at

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

134 The Crebawethens, Jacky’s Rock, Rose- vear, Rosevean, Pednathise Head—all jagged bones in that destroying barrier— were taking powerful green seas over their black sides and threshing them into white foam and flying spray. The dull shock of blows of water on rock, and then the rumble of the broken, repulsed water, came over the cresting seas with awful plainness to Rob, though he was well to windward of them. ‘These were no ships, to reel and shudder before the blows of the Atlantic; these Rocks and the Scillies behind them were the advance guard of the sturdy En- glish isle, and it was the waves that must give and break, not the unflinching rocks. Rob glanced uneasily at his straining mast, and the patched canvas of the mainsail stiff as the planking of the bottom. Sturdy the spar was, but old, and though longitudi- nal cracks are nothing to give thought to in a good mast, the cracks in the Banner’s were deeper than Rob liked to see them, and the forestays and shrouds had more slack in them than he had thought. Luffing cau- tiously at every puff, he came alongside a string of pots. The thunder of the old mainsail as the wind seized it when the boat hove to along- side the string warned him that more loss than profit threatened that day. After he had hauled a few pots, he gave up reluc- tantly and let the old Banner run before the wind back up the Broad Sound. She yawed threateningly as the wind filled her mainsail, but Rob’s quick hand on the tiller balked every hint of a broach-to or gybe, and the broad stern rode the follow- ing waves that rushed up to her, intent on breaking over the counter. As he looked ahead up the Sound, past the isles of Annet and St. Agnes toward the roadstead of St. Mary’s, his keen eyes sub- denly contracted. There, just off Annet Head, storming along on the port tack, were the cutter and the yawl that had come to the Scillies the previous day. Sir Ansel and his “friend” Miller were settling their little wager. “Ah, the fools!” exclaimed Rob Trevel- lick, squinting intently at the two trim craft that slipped through the seas, seem- ingly without displacing them. It was a pretty sight they presented, but not to Rob Trevellick. The cutter was carrying only two sails, a double-reefed mainsail and her jib, while the yawl had RICHARD HOWELLS WATKINS three: jib, single-reefed mainsail and mizzen. ‘A double reef’s no cure for rocks,”’ Rob muttered as he watched the two cut the water. Their course was taking them into no danger at the moment, and if they fol- lowed their chart down the Broad Sound, with a care for the Gunner’s and Crim Rocks, they would have a beam wind to sail outside the Bishop and far to westward of the Westerns. The tide was setting strong into the Sound from the northwest, but the boats were so fast they need not fear its menace. His own boat was rolling toward them before the wind at a pace that cut down the distance swiftly. He prepared to give them room and to spare since they were close- hauled and had the right of way. Now he could see that each boat carried only the owner, crouched beside the helm. He would soon pass astern of them. Then, suddenly, Rob saw Sir Ansel, in the cutter. look to leeward, stand up for a moment, and look again. What he saw was the flurry of foam that danced above the Old Wreck Ledge. “Tis well to leeward, man; that white water’ll not hurt ’ee,’ Rob murmured, frowning. ‘Hold your course, man, there’s—”’ He stopped, and the blood in his veins seemed to cease its flow, too. For Sir Ansel, apparently seeing more perils in the innocent whitecaps between him and the ledge, had pushed hard on his tiller; the cutter’s head was coming around. Her sails were filling on the starboard tack. “Go about!” shouted Rob, though he knew his voice could not carry that distance. Sir Ansel, after his impulsive move, glanced around to look over the possibili- ties of his new tack, and his startled eyes in- stantly brought him the realization that Annet, and the rounded heads of the Hay- cocks, off her head, were uncomfortably close aboard. The silent, strong tide had done that to him. Uncertainly he swung his tiller again, and the cutter, which had not yet gathered full way, hung in stays for a moment and drifted. Sir Ansel desper- ately attempted to retrieve his error by bringing her back on the same tack to gather more speed for the maneuver. It was a futile effort. The cutter slowly forged on, but the tide, cutting across her course, bore her nearer and nearer to the island of rock. DOOLK C©