The Argosy, October 1906 — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

ee : ty: : de could not give the ee order _without tailing on a torrent of abuse, ae -which was more often than not ° driven a home by a blow from his huge, hairy fist, : a belaying-pin, or the butt- end of a re- _ volver. = We were nearly dismasted in a@ white squall in about ten degrees south, being Ze caught all aback, the ship forced on her -beam-ends, solid seas curling over the lee the main deck. It was “cut away” and “ let go,” and we only saved the ship and her spars by al working like madmen for our lives. The skipper was scared out of his drunken _.. wits, but Hogan stormed and threatened = and bullied it through as usual, and _ when we were out of the mess he knocked coiling a halyard before obeying some = ae small order. < - The crisis would have come then, for we were all tired out and mad clean through, bat Captain Milligan ordered e a pig to be killed and served out to the ~-. crew, and for the first time since leaving ms port we had a square meal. But the false calm did not last long. _ We took the trade- wind in about twen- ty degrees south, and started on our long z reach down the Atlantic parallels for the ec POTD: = : Never” was the old adage about how great a matter a small fire kindleth bet- ter exemplified. slop-chest that started the trouble. As the Horn drew near, the men be- gan to overhaul their scanty wardrobes, getting out woolen shirts, heavy socks, . and furbishing- up oilskins and sou’- westers—those who had them, that is. And a pitiful array of crazy duds they . . were. . = . The old hands aboard knew what the aS ee passage of the Horn meant, even in sum- ee '; warm clothing was an imperative tae iectieity. and so, one by one, they made | . Tequisitions upon the supplies kept by ~ <- Mrs. Milligan in the lazaret, only to come back swearing till they were black in the face at the outrageous prices ‘charged, and vowing all sorts of vengeance. It was maddening to think of that old = harridan sitting there at the receipt of -—s- custom, exacting double and treble prices ise her equipped for ‘the passage of the bleak - and biting waters off Cape Horn. -. bulwarks, and the water waist-high on — : r year, and already our running-gear was a man down because he stopped to finish It was Mrs. Milligan’s © ~scowls than ever. shoddy goods, meeting the clumsy objections of the men with pious ~ ejaculations and Scripture texts, and all — _ the while knowing that she was imperil- ing the safety of the ship by her unholy greed .for gain. So the farce had its tragic side as well. = As for me, I “blew in” another month’s wages before I felt fairly well We were in latitude forty-eight de- grees south and longitude fifty-five de- . grees west, with the Falklands some- where itr the black haze to starboard, ~ looking up for the Cape ctose-hauled, the wind southwest, with a dark and greasy : swell out of the south’ard. It was bitterly cold for the time of stiff with frost and the canvas like sheets of iron in our numbed fingers. We had been half-starved and wholly maltreated for weeks, and the hardest ‘part. of the. voyage was at hand. We were a sullen ant an aoky crew, and yet a smarter set of hands never tal- lied on to halyards or swung out on the foot-ropes. I verily believe at that time there was murder in every man’s heart, put there by cruelty and suffering. — At this juncture our tobacco gave out; the supply in both watches seemed to come to an end_as if by magic. No one “had any to lend, and it was comical to see the poor fellows going through the corners of their pockets, trying to scrape together half a pipeful of the precious _black fragments. But there was plenty on board—ih the hated slop-chest—and no doubt we could have all we warited if we chose to pay the Milligans’ price. But such was their hatred of the skipper and his wife that many of the men preferred to suffer rather than meet her extortionate rates. At last, four of the most insistent went -aft, among them Jack Harris and the Lascar. They came back with blacker “Ho! mates, d’yer ‘ear the soos ws sang out Harris. “The price 0’ ’baccy’s gone up—I’m charged two bloomin’ bob an’ a arf for this,” holding out a small — ‘square of plug half the usual size. It was even so. Mrs. Milligan, pemape puing her own stk a Bode ‘ “"$ Mi,