Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 176: what you’re looking at

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

2 638 she'd started her plankin’ when we hit the whimbampus or plezysorus, whatever it was—lI ain’t a goin’ ter risk my repytation fer truth an’ voracity by claimin’ any per- tickler name fer it. Ez a truthful man I jest state what we all seen, an’ the scientific guys ken do the rest. What we hed ter do mighty pronto was to find a harbor 0’ some kind where we could careen her an’ calk the leak, fer ef our pumps broke down we stood a mighty good chance of founderin’ an’ makin’ a call on Davy Jones. The chart showed two little sand keys, Rat an’ Mouse Island, was the nearest land S. E. by E. of our course. Ez I was givin’ the man at the wheel his course, the lookout forward sung out - Sail ho!’ an’ there on the stabbard beam was a square rigger bearin’ down on us with a bone in her teeth. It was dark already, but we could see her plain, ez she was all lit up with a kinda green light like foxfire on sails, spars, riggin’ an’ hull. “*Hard a port!’ I hollered, an’ we sheered off jest in time. I could ’a’ throwed a chaw of terbaccer aboard of her ez she passed us; our bowsprit almost raked her port counter. An’, fellers, I’ll allow thet I was wabbly in the knees an’ gooseflesh all over by the time she was outa sight in the darkness, fer we hailed her, an’ she never answered. Her ports was all closed; she didn’t carry no lights; an’ there was nary a livin’ soul aboard of her, fer ez we could see, but the devil must ’a’ been at her wheel, fer she was steerin’ a straight course with never a yaw ter port or stabbard. ‘By her build, high poop and low at the bows, besides the cut of her canvas an’ the way her shrouds was rigged, f knowed too durned well it was the Flyin’ Dutchman. An’, boys, of course I never git skeered, but I’d ’a’ give a thousand dollars right then ter hev been sittin’ whar I am now, in Pat’s grocery, with the crackers an’ red herrin’s handy an’ the cider bar’l close up, fer every sailorman thet’s sailed the seven seas, when that craft comes abeam of him, knows bad weather an’ bad luck follers in its wake.” “Josh, what is the ‘Flying Dutch- man ’?” asked Jeff Tate. “Nobody knows fer certain, Jeff, except ’ it is Davy Jones’s flagship, They tell in ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. the fo’c’s’les thet about three hundred years back an old Dutch sea cap’n named De- trick Van Dam sailed outa Amsterdam on his ship the Full Moon, bound fer the East Indies by way o’ the Cape of Good Hope. Off the cape he run inter contrary winds an’ got blowed back every time he tried ter round it, till he swore he’d double it in spite o’ God Almighty, the devil, hell, an’ high water! He’s been tryin’ ter round it ever since, except when he takes a cruise through the seven seas, leavin’ hurricanes, shipwreck, an’ every other kind o’ bac luck in his wake fer every ship thet sights him.” Link Brown took his corn cob pipe from his mouth, and as he knocked the ashes from it, remarked: ‘“ Josh, I can believe that you struck a plezysorus an’ sprung a leak, but claiming that a man has been sai!- ing the ocean for three bundred years is kinda hard to swallow.” ‘Link, twenty years ago, ef Jed Styles, sittin’ over there, hed sed he was goin’ ter fly from London to Paris, an’ afterward callated ter fly to Berlin an’ Vienna, you’d ‘a’ notified the county commissioners an’) they’d ’a’ shut him up in the bughouse fer vilent lunatics. But only last week he told us how he flew over half o’ the old country, an’ we all knowed he told the truth. The Bible tells how Methusley lived nine hun- dred an’ sixty-nine years—what’s ter hin- der a hard-biled Dutch sailorman like Cap’n Van Dam from livin’ several hundred years. ‘““* Commodore,’ I sez ez the craft went outa sight in the darkness and the wind and sea began ter rise, ‘ the quicker we make a safe harbor the better, fer it’s goin’ ter blow great guns before daylight.’ ‘* He turned kinda white around the gills, an’ asks, ‘ How d’ye know?’ “< That craft thet jest passed us is a sorta stormy petrel, an’ means wind,’ I told him, an’ he went below an turned in, while I ordered all sail clapped on. “Next morning we made the two is- lands an’ dropped our anchors in a little bay on Mouse Island, layin’ snug an’ safe till the blow I knowed was comin’ hed blowed itself out ez we lay to the lee o’ the island. We run the Foaming Wave ez near the beach ez we could at high tide, an’ with a Spanish windlass on each mast careened See COMMICOOOKS (E@)