Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

a panic the master and the officers of a vessel are not liable to forget their working-tools. And then in the log-book we'd discovered and brought back there was no hint of anything amiss. It was written up to within four days previously and reported only fair weather. I remember I pointed out to the skipper that no crew would be likely to abandon a vessel and leave the log- book and ship’s papers behind, but he brushed all that aside. He was a man almost completely without imagination, and all he could think of was salvage. “TH give you six men,’ he said to Mathews, ‘and you can take the third mate along with you. Bring her to Callao ard we can go into the whole matter there with the port officials.’ : “Mathews wasn’t a bit pleased with the prospect, though most mates would have jumped at the opportunity of making themselves a nest-egg and enjoy- ing a first command, even if it would be only for a short time. ‘I don’t like a the idea at all, sir,’ he said. “There’s something queer about the whole busi- ness!’ : 3 “The skipper waved all that away. ‘Nonsense!’ he said. ‘You ought to thank your stars for the chance!’ But then, you see, he hadn’t been on board the Robert Sutter, and we had to admit—now we were back on the Doyon, surrounded by the curious crew—that our feelings did seem rather silly. So the long and short of it was we picked out six men, or rather the skipper appointed the six most useless we had on board, and we pulled back to the deserted barkentine, four other men coming with us in the longboat to take it back. The Doyon squared away on her course again and I can remember that Mathews and I stood on the Robert Sutter’s poop and watched her with something of the feeling of being deserted to our fate. “There wasn’t any use of our worrying about that, however. There we were with a perfectly sound and well-built ship, amply found with water and provisions, rolling at will on a bottle-green sea and with a fair wind blowing for Callao. Mathews pulled himself together and we got the vessel on a course, set watches, wound up the rundown chronometers, setting them from a spare one we had brought from the Doyon, and so prepared to make port. “It was somewhat uncanny to clear out two of the cabins below ready for & our occupancy, for the gear of the previous inhabitants was scattered about, 3 and in the room I chose, which had been the mate’s, there was even the im- print of his head still on the pillow and a half-whittled plug of chewing- tobacco tossed on the blankets, together with an open clasp-knife. I shook off my feclings however, before very long. I was young, healthy, usually in good | spirits and it was not long before I was whistling to myself. Mathews came and stood in the doorway while I was fixing my bunk and his face was very serious, more serious than I had ever seen it. I think I have said he was a highly strung maa. : ““T don’t see how the devil you can whistle! he brust out irritably. ‘Good God, man, doesn’t it bother you? The crew—fourteen men, according to the articles—all gone!’ | : “I stopped whistling and looked at him. ‘It is queer,’ I agreed. ‘But it doesn’t do us any good to worry about it.’ | | “Mathews shivered and looked over his shoulder. ‘Buc where did they 109 eomicbooks.tconn -