Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

142 Gilbert Lang answered evasively even as he looked at her, wanting to say some- thing of how his ironed ankles and the danger from Willerby seemed merely the persistence of the tragedy that had come on his family. And she in turn could hardly repress the name of “Alice Btown,” thinking of how she could pretend to have known “Miss Brown” and to have remembered “Miss Brown’s” mentioning a Philadelphian fam- ily of Langs. But common sense restrained the name. She left after urging him again not to hesitate to use the revolver if he saw he was in danger. Nothing had been said that let him know DuBeque was in any way tied to her by blood; nothing that had revealed to him her name. She seemed a very wonderful woman. But, in thinking of her, he thought of Uala, and to think of the two at once was in a degree to compare them, not critically, not appraisingly but as one might set side by side to view at once some piece of earthwork out of Tuscany and porcelain out of Limoges. He flushed at remembrance of Uala, yet the charm of her was evoked by the flush. When Lania had left him, she went back to the poop to await the return of Willerby. She was very agitated and perturbed, know- ing scarcely what to do—in fact, scarcely knowing what to hope for. Then the devil thrust a thought into her brain that thrilled and frightened: supposing Paul DuBeque were artfully egged on to remember his threat against the boy and the boy killed Adventure him! It would be the fate he deserved, and she would be rid of DuBeque’s tral, sinister shadow. She did not docks tenn it hut nursed the thought tentatively, and itycame to seem less revolting, She soon regarded it as less of her own planning than that of Nemesis, of justice, Those seeking desired ends through violence always manage with more or less sincerity to put the full responsibility to God, Destiny or the abstraction, Justice, It is as if something innate within most of mankind shrinks from murder, until— as savages with their own hands make monstrous images which can only be satisfied with an altar-heap of dripping heads—they have created some idea that not only sanctions the killing but often commands it: vengeance, by the avenger, anyway, is always looked upon as an un- masked headsman who wears the insignia of Justice. Lania never gave such matters as these even a trace of thought, but by the same psychological processes just mentioned she arrived at the feeling that it would be right for DuBeque to die by the hand of Gilbert Lang. 2 And so almost resolved, thrilled, appear- ing vivacious, but agitated, she stood awaiting the coming of Willerby. And he came proud and boastful. He gloated over the way he had turned Gopassa into a drunken village, seduced Baraka into dislike for Williams and prepared what he thought would be death-dealing trouble for the alien Samoans and Tongans. TO BE CONTINUED , ichooks.com i} ‘ A |