Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

_ 534 “ Th’ South Seas are full of such things, skipper. I guess no one knows who carved them idols.” Micky lashed his pony and galloped through the jungle until he reached the beach. Longtown lay a mile or more to the north. The Borneo floated in the still water with her towering masts reaching into the blue-vaulted sky. Around her, like cockroaches, darted flat boats and canoes. The cargo was going aboard. There followed a period of getting the ship ready for sea. Micky and Red Land- yard took off their coats, donned wide- brimmed straw hats, and hazed the crew back and forth upon the deck. They gave their orders in sultry tunes, torid oaths and blazing commands. The standing-gear and running rigging was inspected for faulty splices. A leak was calked in the seams. Dunnage boards and litter went overside. The sails were unfurled and allowed to drape from the spar-varnished yards. Neat patches were sewn. Then came paint. - Red Landyard littered the cook’s galley with a mixture taken from the stores. He boiled turpentine and added white lead, sent out by the Scotch traders. He ob- tained a color never before seen on land or sea—a rich cream inclined to a yellow base. “ Just th’ thing to preserve th’ planks,” he told Micky. ‘ We'll wake ’em up when we reach Valparaiso.” Micky tapped the upper pocket in his shirt. ‘ Liverpool, you. mean. “ Th’ pa- pers call for Liverpool.” : “So,” said Red Landyard, and went on directing the painting. _ He reached, that afternoon, the bow of the Borneo, where the tarnished figurehead, representing Aphrodite rising from the sea, was bolted on the stem beneath the bow- sprit. One arm, a leg and half the lady’s side was missing. A careless native had smashed the figure with the cap of a lug- ger’s mast. McMasters went forward when the mate called to him. Red Landyard sat swinging in a boatswain’s chair which was lashed to @ pin-rail on the fore-peak. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘““She’s a mighty scrawny mermaid for a first-class windjammer,” commented the Yankee when he pointed a brweh at the figurehead. “ Any. way we can fix her up, skipper?”’ ‘We'll ’ave Chips make a new one!” Red Landyard chewed reflectively. “Chips,” he said, “is a deep-sea fraud! He couldn’t make a work of art. This gadget comes under the head of art, skip- r.’’ “ Blym hif it don’t!” admitted Micky, leaning over the rail. ‘‘ She’s our mascot!” “She looks like a half-breed girl I saw in Singapore when a wild Lascar got done carvin’ her up, skipper.” Micky rubbed the bristle on his jaw. He swung a baleful eye toward the grinning crew. His glance took in the cool green of the palms back of the pearl-thatched roofs of Longtown. “Yes, skipper.” - ‘““Mr. Landyard, take a boat, two men, go ashore to-night, an’ visit that shed we saw in th’ interior.” _ ‘““ Th’ heathen temple?” 6 Th’ same! > “What. for?” ‘‘ Bring out that Billiken! Fetch aboard th’ luckiest idol you can capture. Don’t let th’ natives see you. We'll rig a figure- ‘ead that ll be th’ talk o’ Birken’ead when we get to th’ Mersey an’ Liverpool.” The Yankee mate lifted himself, laid his brush on the rail, and sprang to the little skipper’s side. ‘* There’s bad luck in them things, some time,”’ said he. “‘T don’t believe in bad luck!” The Yankee shifted a chew from one leatherlike cheek to the other. He ranged a calculating eye over the half-garbed crew. ‘“To-night, then, skipper. Il fetch a new figurehead.” Micky went ashore at sundown, checked. his papers with the agents, gave a receipt for the cargo, visited the consul, and came to the ship slightly hilarious from many drinks of trade gin and limes. He found Red Lanyard perched upon! the bowsprit. The Yankee swung a ship’s mallet, drew back his long arms, and THE OHIC ‘STA ATE L UNM EEHEDOOKS Conn 2