211- The Adversary

Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Wanna get away from it all? We offer you... Escape! Escape! Transcribe do free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure!

You are groping your way through the belly of a sunken ship. A fortune and pearl secured to your belt. While above on the ship that tends you, working the pump that sends air to you, is an adversary.

Those plans include the taking of your pearls and your life. Listen now as escape brings you John Russell's story, the adversary. It was a dust, and on an ed tide that the purling schooner, fancy-free, came smartly up into the wind and dropped anchor in the harbor of Thursday Island.

And it was after dark when a master came ashore and paid off his canaka crew. He was a big man, this captain, with a crop of black hair, a smooth, long jaw and gray eyes.

As he went swinging along the waterfront, the crowd parted right and left before him. Now, news of any arrival travels fast on Thursday Island, and with such a figure as this, the conversation at the Portuguese bar had been going on for some time.

One thing I know for certain, he's got the trimmest lager in these parts, and where's he from, Snake? First time I ever laid eye on him or his boat was this evening. If he was from these parts, Portuguese, Captain Smite would know him.

Wherever he from, he'd be like the rest of you, up to no good. Oh, you've no use for furloughs, have you, Portagie? You're all cut from the same cloth. Thebes, drunkards, brawlers in worse. Ah, you fat devil.