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do happen’ to babies and drunkards
she had escaped all the perils of the
deep." She was still afioztt, drifting
and yawing like the typical Flying
Dutchman. '
Kalputa cleared his brain of the
ftimes ‘of liquor, and tried to esti-
mate the damage his ill-begotten
leadership had (lone. Vlt took him
some time to itemize the whole story;
but one thingrstood out quite clear-
ly before his dazed mind. ‘ Several
of the officers had been killed and
wounded before they had been set
adrift in the long boat, with pro-
visions enough for a two days’ voy-
age, and in the melee Captain Barker
had been knocked over by a blow on
the head that may or may not have
killed him. ,
‘Sandy McKay, alias Kalputa, was
not so much worried a tit whether
the aged skipper had been killed as
to whether the small boat had
reached a safe harbor while the de-
l'iauch‘on board the Bounty was in
progress.
“It must be two days,” he re-
flected aloud. “Two days and a
night.” , ,
Could the boat reach land in that
time to spread news of the mutiny?
Kalputa was troubled by that, and
he scanned the horizon a little anx-
iously for any signs of a ship. Then
he looked tip with.a blank stare at
.i
A Queer Looking. seedy Figure 5““""F
Blocked the “'ny AI-end ax Kalputa.
HE crew of the Bounty had
mutinied two days out from
New Castle Bay, and the ship
was drifting thru the Great Barrier
Reef, with the probability that she
would stub her toe before night if
order was not brought out of chaos.
It was a Bolshevist sort of crew, and
no one knew exactly what to do with
>1
‘the prize now that it was in H1611’
possession. ,
’ Kalputa, a white half-breed, had
generaled' the uprising, and been
’ foremost in the pursuit of loot; but
he had the qualities and instincts of
a rebel and not those of an organ-
izer. Besides, he had been half
drunk with the captain's liquor ever
since he had seized the ship.
Kalputa had the reputation of be-
ing the worst cutthroat atioat in the
South Seas, and his signing up with
Captain Barker had been under the
alias of Sandy McKay. Otlierwise
there would have been no sigmng-
' certainly not on the part of the aged
‘skipper, Sandy might seem -a mis-
nomer for a half-breed, but Kalputa
really had sandy hair that he had
inherited from a white forebeaf
whose blood had contributed to the
perpetuation of a species hardly
worth saving. V 1 >
When the crew, made up for the
most part of the scum of the South
Seas, came partly to their senses
after their alcoholic debauch,‘ the
Bounty had been drifting across the
sun-lit seas for forty-eight hours.
and thru one of those miracles that
the shrouds and flapping sails. He
knew perfectly well that he was to-
tally ignorant of the science of navi-
' gation, and not one of his crew was
any better informed. They had
the whole crew with the food he
cooked for them, but for reasons of
his own had not, drifted into view.
Li was the only one who had not
submerged his mind and reason in
an ' alcoholic bath, and Kalputa
sensed as much‘.
“You cl-n Chink, where are we ?"
demanded Kalputa threateniiigly.
“You li:iven't been drunk. No,
you're as sober as a dried mummy."
“Me here. Mister Kalputa,” re-
plied Li, grinning.
“Captain! An’ don‘t you call me
anything else or I‘ll string you up
by the hair."
“Me here, cap'n,” blandly and
obligingly responded the cook.
Kalputa surveyed him with evil
eyes. “Yes, you're here, but you
won't be long if you don't answer
my question. kfhere are we-the
ship, I mean?-the latitude, longi-
tude-the--the-”
Li shrugged his shoulders. “Me
no sailor4me cook-me not know
navi tion.”
Kalputa dismissed him with a con-
temptuous oath, and walked aft. His
progress was erratic, for he stopped
frequently to kick a sleeping man or
let out a volley of South Sea. pro-
fanity at some crawling native or
half-breed like himself who essayed
to interrupt him.
“A devil's crew if there ever was
one!" he growled Sullcnly.
Then he fell to berating himself
for a fool in not holding one of the
officers he had set adrift. Navigating
a ship blindly in the South Seas was
V Bolshevisted the ship, but whither
were they drifting?
A drunken native staggered up,
holding a bottle in his hand, and with
a leer on his moribund face offered
him a drink‘. Kalputa chucked the
bottle overboard, and kicked the man
out of his way. .
Li Sin, who could have poisoned
on a coral reef. they would stumble
upon one of the gunboats that in-'
fested that region; or if they cs-
caped both a storm might come up
and wreck tliem.
Kalputa swept the horizon again,
and then the sky arched overhead
like an inverted copper bowl. He got
hardly a grain of comfort from
either inspection. They were alone
on the sea, and he had no sixth
sense to enable him to foretell at- ,
The barometer‘
mospheric changes.
and chart-house had been smashed
in the tight for possession ,of the
ship, and the compass had been
wrecked by a stray bullet.
Imagine a man cast adrift on the
sea without chart or compass or any .
knowledge of navigation other than
the simple duties of a sailor who is
accustomed to receive orders and
not give them! And in that whole
motley crew there was not a man of
them who knew as much as Kalputa
-not unless is was Li Sin. V '
He half suspected Li, but a ‘China-
man has a way of concealing knowl-
edge that baffles the white man. Kal-
puta dismissed him from mind with
a prodigious sigh. Once more he tried
to reconstruct the events that had
led up to his present predicament.
They hail been two days out from
Newcastle Bay on the morning of
the mutiny, which ought to have
made their position somewhere to the
east of Torres Strait-perhaps not
far from the Gulf of Papua. In
that case the southern coast of New
Guinea ought to be visible on the
north; but it wasn't!
Or if the ship had drifted directly
east, they were soniizwliere in the
Coral Sea, uihich no man could safe-
ly sail without a good chart and
trustworthy compass. Ships had a
way of disappearing there that was
often annoying to the owners. The
theory was that coral formation
went on so rapidly on the bed of the
’ son that new reefs were constantly
rising to lance the hull of any un-
fortunate ship that first discovered
them. But Kalputa tool: less stock
in this theory than one of his own.
The day when pirates could roam
the sea in detiance of the law was ‘
over; but what was to prevent a few
hold spirits making temporary ex-
cursions into Captain Kidd's
particular field? If you could
get away with the goods, and
sink the ship in time, the po-
not to his liking. If they didn't trip -
