Adventure Magazine Cover — page 145: what you’re looking at

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

EAST OF THE BISHOP He looked about fearfully, and his eyes widened with surprize. The Banner was rising over the regular, crested swell of the open ocean; there were no rocks anywhere save astern; no white water save the white- caps raised by the gale. Rob Trevellick read his gaze. ‘““Ay; the open sea beyond Gorregan,”’ he said calmly. The Banner came about, and the fisher- man shaped his course toward St. Mary’s Sound. Within him a tumult of emotion was raging, but his hand was steady, and his eyes ignored the two shaken men in whom an uncomfortable self-consciousness was rising. In silence the Banner, her boom creaking ominously, ran down the wind toward the Sound, rounded Gugh, and ran into the Road, and the harbor. Not until she was within the harbor, alongside the old dinghy at the Banner’s mooring, did any one speak. Then Sir Ansel cleared his voice. “You will be well paid for this, my man,” he said in a voice he endeavored to make cooland assured. ‘‘You have saved my life, and I do not overlook favors of that sort.’ “Nor I,” spoke up Miller. Rob Trevellick stood up. His eyes dwelt steadily on the shamefaced countenance of one man and then the other. Witha blunt, rough forefinger that quivered with his emotion he pointed to the dinghy. “Get ashore, where ’ee belong,’ he com- manded sternly. ‘“The two of ’ee came to Scilly to settle a ha’penny grudge—what, I care not. The sea an’ the rocks ha’ settled it, for there’s been naught but the fear 0’ death in your faces this day.” Sir Ansel’s pale face flushed, and Miller smothered an ejaculation and spoke sharply. “That tone will get you nothing, my man,” he warned. ‘‘We’re grateful, both of us, but be careful. There’s more reward 139 likely to come from respect than from im- pertinence.” “Respect!” repeated Rob Trevellick. His mind was full of his escape, and what it meant to him, and to Luke, but of that he could not speak before these men. “Respect!” His accusing finger stabbed at Sir Ansel. ‘Tell I how I can respect a man who loses heart an’ head before danger threatens?” He swung around to confront Miller. ‘*Tell I how I can respect a man whose wild fear drives him from his boat when danger’s past?”’ Rob laughed brokenly. “Thought I’d leave ’ee, to save my own life,’ he charged, and Miller’s eyes fell. “Listen, man, ’ee deserted an able boat in the open sea—from fear. ’IT'was nought but foam a-lee o’ the rocks that terrified ’ee, when I pushed her off my stern.” For a moment he was silent, and his words still scorched the two yachtsmen. ‘And for reward—’” he went on. He flung his arm toward the southward. “T’ll ha’ none from such as ’ee. Out on the sea’s my reward—a fine stanch yaw], wil’ a sup o’ water in her, adrift an’ deserted. There’s salvage there enough to set a man up for life an’ school his sons. Out o’ my boat, cravens; I'll ha’ her if I chase to Cornwall.”’ Out into the gale, with the wind whistling through her splintered boom, her rigging slack, and water sloshing about her cockpit, stormed the Banner, bent on a venture that might bring returns greater than a pound a day. Certainly she was no craft to sail the seas in that weather, but there was stout heart at the tiller and the Western Rocks were well to windward. And since it is courage that wins success at sea, it is hard to doubt that the Banner accomplished her mission. COmiclbooks.c©