'Ship of Flaming Death'

Black Book Detective Magazine from its pre-'Black Bat' days.  This February 1935 issue features a very prominent skeleton, as did several others from the era.  A very striking illustration typical of its time.  Other than it concerns the sinking of a passenger ship (obviously), I have no idea what 'Ship of Flaming Death', the lead story, is about.  Clearly, there is a high casualty rate among the passengers going by that menacing skeleton, (obviously symbolic of death).  

These old pulp covers are a constant source of fascination for me - it is the sheer raw vigour they exhibit.  Illustrations like that just want to make you open up the issue and the stories, even though you know that, nine times out of ten, they will never live up to the promise of the cover.  But those covers really do the job, no matter how crudely drawn they are (and some were pretty crude), intriguing and sometimes even shocking the potential reader, firing the imagination with their promise of sleaze, shock, sex, horror and/or romance.