Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

THE ROARING FORTIES. ‘“ What do you think of her now?” ‘We may be in hell in a minute,” an- ' swered Richard, “ but I wouldn’t be else- where for thousands.” “ Bravo!”’ exclaimed Forbes, unbending for an instant, then checking himself, he was back again on his weather side, aloof, inscrutable as ever. In his bitterness at his reduced position, Dunbar for a time had loathed the sight of the ruthless skipper, just as he loathed the sight of Bucko Pugsley. But now he saw the difference. “Yes, he’s a man,” said Dunbar with a sudden burst of admiration as he gazed upon Captain Forbes, pacing up and down like a king upon his poop. Every hand before the mast was paralyzed with fear. Pugsley was with them in his dread. When all others quailed, there on the weather side was one whose spirit, in keeping with Val- kyrie, was invincible. Dunbar looked at the gallant clipper rid- ing upon the gales, like some archangel of a tempest; then he looked again at the impetuous tossing head, and the imperious movements of the skipper. ‘““ They’re two of a kind,” he said to him- self. “Each of ’em was made for the other.”’ The long period of calm which they had left behind was but a prelude to a longer period of snoring Western ocean weather. Each day the log of the Valkyrie was en- tered with increasing satisfaction. On February 24 it was three hundred and twelve miles; on the 25th, two hundred and eighty-five miles; on the 26th, two hundred and seventy-five miles; on the 27th, two hundred and sixty miles. On the last day of February the Valkyrie was in latitude 52° 33’ north, longitude 22° 45’ west. The wind which had been from the west veered until a strong south- erly gale was piping up in earnest. In the height of the gale, in the afternoon, carrying on like mad, his crew almost be- side themselves, Valkyrie logged twenty-one knots in one hour, with her lee rail under, and her rigging slack, it was small wonder that’ Bucko Pugsley finally decided that the old man had gone entirely daft. With this, Pugsley took it on himself to give the 867 order to shorten sail. But even before the anxious crew could leap to do his bidding, Forbes, like the Nemesis of Doom, ap- peared, silent and threatening. ‘“Did I hear you give an order, mister?” ‘Yes, sir, but it’s countermanded.” During the night with a report like a gun the foretopsail and jib carried away. At this dread alarm all hands came scram- bling on deck, expecting that the last mo- ment had arrived. Instead they found Captain Forbes upon the poop, defying the gales, as imperturbable as ever. During that day and night of awful driving, never for one instant did the captain loose his iron hold upon his ship, or upon his men. The position at noon, from noon of the previous day, gave a run of four hundred and thirty-six nautical miles, the greatest day’s work ever accomplished by a sailing ship. This in the year 1854. Richard Dunbar as he gazed upon the log that day felt certain that this entry would pass into history, a sailing record for all time. As one who loved Valkyrie, he gloried in her triumph. But behind the fame of the clipper, instinctively his heart paid tribute to that one man, upon the weather poop, who had carved this record out of roaring, shrieking chaos, the patrician and the master. CHAPTER THE WOOD BUTCHERS OF LIVERPOOL. A NIGHT of infinite stars, reflecting it- ANT, self in the black sheen of the Mersey. Midnight had just gone from the great clock at the Salthouse Docks. The booming tones answered by the note of ships’ bells, faint and far. Richard Dunbar, pacing the deck of the Valkyrie, gazed at the limpid flood, think- ing wistfully of another night when moon- light on the water had been for him as the path to fairyland. _ There was a soothing softness, with springtime in the air. Liverpool and the Mersey alike were sleeping. All were at rest, all except Richard Dunbar, who paced up and down, up and down, like a man beside himself. COMIGD OO! (©