A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

THE DBVIL-FISH 97 Saxon. Yet he was bound here for life, as truly an exile from his own kind— by virtue of the brand on his forehead—as if he were a leper. In his despair he overlooked for sev- eral days an insignificant paragraph tucked away tn an obscure corner of one magazine. When he did find it he read it with unbelieving eyes. It was a brief discussion of the history and significance of tattooing, with a hint that French surgeons, by an operation which involved the treatment of each in- dividual needle prick, were finding the ost complicated designs entirely eradi- cable. When in a month Journeaux’s suddenly anchored one night just outside the la- goon, the climax came. Journeaux wanted very much to accom- pany the American to Paris and await there the outcome of the operation but received no encouragement to do so. * * * “Frankly,” said the Frenchman, at the conclusion of his story, “I was not con- vinced that the end had come yet. I had seen before these reconversions to civiliza- tion; I awaited the real dénounement. What do you think?” He turned to face Miss Talbert. She met his gaze with a troubled smile. “IT am thinking of course, of the girl,” she said. _ “Ah, you are sympathetic. You cannot forget the girl of the atolls, waiting for her man?” She shivered a little, daintily, her deep eyes on the horizon. Denton interrupted. ‘It appears to me,” he said didactically, “a question of what he owes the other girl. As I understand these islanders, they have no standards of right and wrong which he could have outraged. But the girl at home he has struck at the very foundations of her world—moral integrity. You agree, Miss Talbert ?” The dimple at the corner of her lips tolerated his suggestion. “Oh, but much worse than that,” she said disdainfully; “he has outraged her sense of dignities. If she ever knows, she will think of him ever after as the grossly primitive thing he must have been with that—brand on his forehead.” Jorneaux and I stood near her as we docked at Honolulu next day. When her eyes fell upon the tall, keen-eyed chap who stood so gallantly erect as he waved his hat to her, she responded only with a smart little salute and a dimpling at the corners of her mouth; but the expression of her eyes. was a cry of joy. 'E WAS then that my arms was caught in a grip that was excruciating. Turn- 1. » I saw Jorneaux’s face, white as paper, as he murmured something unintelligible and vanished into the cabin. Supposing him to be ill I followed, but he had disappeared among the crowd. Eventually I went ashore alone. I met young Salisbury that night on the beach. The visit of a congressional com- mittee to the island had been made the occasion for a luau, or native feast, to which some of us had been fortunate enough to receive invitations. Jorneaux secured me mine. He sought me out at the hotel he had recommended with some _ inconsequen- tial excuse for his disappearance in the niorning, and placed his time very much at my disposal, with the hospitable air of giving me the key to a favorite city. I was beginning, in spite of myself, to find his serene, good-fellowship irresistible. The luau staged at the beach. Ainong the palms, hung with primitive native lamps, strolled amply-proportioned kana- kas, noisy and care-free as. children, in American clothes—their one barbaric touch the fragrant wreaths of many colors about their necks and hats. Canoes, manned by bare, glistening dark forins, shot toward us in the trail of moon- light on the crest of the breakers. Throned in the doorway of an in.provised grass hut, a withered crone, her quavering vuice supported by the music of native in- struments, intoned in an endless chant the glories and deeds of Kamehameha the Great. "t was among the reverent crowd - of natives surrounding her that Journeaux and I came upon Miss Talbert and Salis- bury. Almost immediately she saw us and quirked an imperative forefinger. “Roger,” she cried, “I want you to an) (C 6)(0)©) Ss (C(O)