Adventure, November 1915 — page 173: what you’re looking at

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

Gold at Sea authority in Von Werner’s voice. His hand left his hip empty. A movement and an exclamation abrupt- ly focused our eyes upon the divan. Dacy was getting to his feet. His face was messed by the flow from his wound. He swayed unsteadily for an instant and grasped at the table-edge. His arm supported the droop- ing, half-conscious form of Mary; and when he spoke, his voice was steady and suave. “Vou lose, doctor,” he said to Farley. To Von Werner he ordered, “Take McNeil to his room and lock him > P] XVIII suffered the German to take me by the arm and lead me away, and the ward-room receded before my eyes like a blurred picture—Mary clinging to Dacy’s arm and hiding her eyes from the horror on the table; Dacy, gory and smiling; Farley’s ~ face of baffled rage; poor Podd’s form, tum- bled upon the far corner of the divan. Von Werner told me something, but, al- though I saw his lips moving, I had no idea what he was saying. Presently, I found myself standing in the center of my own room, staring at the locked door and listen- ing to Von Werner’s faint, retreating foot- falls. For I was stupefied by Mary’s cry. It dinned in my mind, and drowned all other thoughts. “My brother—my own brother!”’ Her brother! Dacy was her brother. I paced the room, saying the words over and over again to myself. A great joy pervaded me. Her brother! A hot shame flooded me at the recollection of my ignoble suspicions. It was so simple. What a dunderhead I was not to have suspected it before! Brother and sister! The explanation of those mysterious visions of her which Dacy’s personality had called into. being. It was the resemblance they bore one an- other, not resemblance of feature, but the intangible, subtle blood-likeness. And the glorious part of it—she cared! She loved me. She loved her brother, but she had shot him to save me. It filled my - heart and mind, that wonderful thought of her love. But my rosy dreams flitted abruptly when the ship began to tremble as the en- gines started. The vibration increased rap- I7I idly, and in a few moments the Wasp was under way at full speed. I became alive again to mere mundane affairs, and a stabbing disquiet assailed me as I realized my position. I looked at my watch. Half-past. ten; two hours since I had brought the engines to rest; two hours packed with significant incident, replete with the violent meetings of men; two hours, and two men dead and a third dying. How would it end? What was the mean- ing of my imprisonment, what the reason for Dacy’s friendliness and mercy? They knew I had killed Henderson. They sus- pected I had something to do with Podd’s escapade. Farley hated me and believed me danger- ous. But Dacy? Had Mary’s influence, her magnificent courage, actually won me my life? Or had Dacy merely spared me until a handier time when she would be un- able to interfere? And there was the impression I retained of Dacy and Farley fighting a duel of wits. Were they at loggerheads with each other? Was it merely callous indifference that en- abled Dacy to look upon his first officer’s dead body unmoved—yes, with smiles? I found no answer to these questions, and scant comfort in reflecting upon them. But, indeed, I couldn’t keep my scattered wits upon them for long; they would fly off at a tangent. Mary was the hub of my con- sciousness. | But on a sudden thought, I repossessed myself of Henderson’s revolver from its hiding-place beneath the mattress. A six- chamber Colt’s .38, it was, loaded and in good condition. I slipped it through my waistband and felt more comfortable as its weight assured me I would not be struck down without at least a chance to put up a fight. The Wasp slowed down; I felt the gradual lessening of the vibration. The ship began to lift and pitch to a choppy sea, and I knew we had entered uneasy, shoal waters. A half-hour or so of this and then we stopped, backed and stopped again. I looked at my watch and found it to be just midnight. Heavy feet trampled on the deck overhead. I decided we had reached Dacy’s destination, Bodie Island, or wher- ever it was. I pressed my ear to the crack between the door and the jamb. I could hear nothing. I hovered about the ventilator, (EO) 0)(0 6) ANU S (E@)