Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

QUEEN OF THE NIGHT, ‘arf the money and I'll stand by your word. As for the bos’n, who’s young and ‘ot’eaded, mebbe it’s best we explain to him in simple plain terms of one syllable.” Mr. Grimpen turned to Tom Yarre and spoke in a tone that was a mixture of sar- casm and pity: “Nah then, bos’n, you remember that our stoker kicked off when we was rangin’ up the coast. Y’ understand likewise that in his effects is a sea-chest, which was give to him by some blahsted robber down in Yucatan to pay orf a gamblin’ debt. Y’ understand, too, bos’n, that the stoker be- queathed this here chest to me and you and the skipper, warnin’ us not to open it on board our good ship, nor yet in any port south of the Tropic of Cancer—because, says he, there was stuff in it as would get us into trouble. As he announced when he lay dyin’, this ’ere chest was obtained by the sheddin’ of much blood.” The mate smiled condescendingly as he concluded. “Nah then! Let’s have no more blahsted truckin’ over a ’andful of pesos. The skipper ’ere was appointed the executor. The stoker made that clear. ‘It’s a mess 0’ stuff,’ he said, ‘and leave his nobs the skipper divide it among the three of you.’ ” “So this is what you call dividin’ it?” Tom Yarre cried angrily. “ Am I just, or am I grafter?” Captain Jarvy roared again with the obvious desire that Tom Varre would give him an opening for a good fight. “Hush! Hush!” Mate Grimpen warned desperately. Tom snapped back: ‘“ You’re both double-crossing me, bein’ you’re my Officers. It’s plain rotten thievery—that’s what it is! That stoker was my friend. He told me I was the best friend he ever had. He said those words when he was in his bunk sick, knowin’ he’d never smell grass again. He would remember me, he swore, when he was stokin’ coal down in hell! Be God, I hope he sees how I’m gettin’ stuck on this deal! And he'll straighten it out, damn me!”’ The skipper would stand no more. “You're a kid, Yarre, or I'd have put you under hatches for this talk. Now shut 647 up, take what I’m givin’ you, and clap down your rotten ole teeth. Here!” He gathered up the shawls, serapes, jade combs, silver bracelets, and stuffed them into Yarre’s arms. “They are yours to have and to hold. Now cork up, take your valuables and go below.” The boatswain untangled his arms from the filmy mass of scarlet and yellow. ‘“ What do I want of this stinkin’, moth- eaten stuff, skipper? Valuables you call it? A bunch of blowsy rags that haven’t been worn for a hundred years. What’s it for—but to give to some painted fool of a woman? I have no woman, and if I had, would she be seen in anything one winter old, let alone a century? Hell, no! They want the style month to month—not something worn when Cortez came to Mexico. Take this truck, wrap it around your fat, sweatin’ carcass, and be damned!” He rolled the embroidered satins, the Spanish lace and shawls into a bunch, and hurled it into the faces of his two officers. A golden scarf unwound, a shawl of laven- der and emblazoned coats of arms bal- looned out and descended upon Mr. Grim- pen’s head. The skipper’s upraised fist, beating the air, was clothed in ancient lace. When he emerged, cursing, spitting, chok- ing, Tom Yarre had gone below. CHAPTER Il. JUANA TAKES HER TIME. HEN the three mariners walked into the dining room to sit down to Butch Herzog’s Creole table d’hote, the boatswain took a separate table. It was a long, dark room, with sweating walls and a low ceiling. The rafters had been ravaged by ants. The ceiling, too, was traced by little roads fortified with red mud which the ants had constructed. They had eaten their trenches into the oak table, an antique transported from a Spanish mis- sion or the hacienda of some grandee. A hanging lamp, with a wide reflector cutting off its illumination sharply from the upper half of the room, cast a dim light as far as the walls, the ant corridors, and a mot- tled painting of a toreador flagging a bull. Gomichbooks (E@