Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

658 in response to the lighted match than Juana faced him. | “Now, then, Senor Capitan, you think you can mak’ Juana promises out of the thin air which the chameleon eats? You think you can deceive Juana as sailors de- ceive other women—and give her the dust instead of the satin and silk? “You say you will clothe me for the fiesta to-night—eh? And with what? With shame—that is what! With paint on my face—eh? With the bruise of your fin- gers on my arm and the marks of your teeth on my cheek! Those are the clothes you spik of! Come closer, Senor Capitan, Senor Liar! The hombre who mak’s prom- ises, the hombre who thinks to deceive! Come closer so that I may—-” Juana paused breathlessly, her lips part- ed, her thin jet eyebrows raised in aston- ishment. Something—a gorgeous heap of scarlet and gold on the floor—had caught her eyes. Could it be that this sailor’s boast was to be fulfilled? Could it be that be was not a liar? What manner of man was this who made such strange promises and kept them? It was bewildering, as- tounding! She stared as if spellbound at the serapes and silk, the tangle of brocade, the onyx glowing in the dust, and the re- splendent jade comb which she had stepped on with her ragged shoe. “Caramba! But what is this dream I am dreaming, Senor Capitan?” Juana cried, her great brown eyes glowing. Tom Yarre looked at her laughingly. Be- cause of the dark frown upon her face and the hair tumbling down over her forehead, he noticed that her eyes were like onyx jewels glowing beneath dust. The boatswain swept up the silks in his two arms. ““When I hoist these sails on you, sefio- rita, you'll be a sight to see! You'll be like a wrecked hulk changed to a full-rigged ship bubbling along in a breeze!” “And is it for this you called me up here, senor?” the girl asked excitedly. “Take down your hair!” the boatswain cried. “ You can’t be the Queen of Spain with a jury rig like that on your head.” There’s little doubt what Juana under ordinary circumstances would have done ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, when Tom Yarre thrust his hand into the black silk mesh of hair which was her coif- fure. But at that moment the sound of a lively syncopated fandango thrummed up through the floor of the room. The me- chanical piano in the dance hall below had started its rhythmical vibration. Guests were arriving. A guitar stabbed the air with taunting chords. Down came the luxuriant black mass of Juana’s coiffure, rippling over olive-colored shoulders, dividing in cloudy, black streams between the fingers of the boatswain’s tat- tooed hand. Juana had forgotten herself! ‘““ Have you an eye for beauty, seforita? Or are you so used to this ugly, vermin-rid- den place that you want to keep on the old oilskins?” “It is ugly things that is all I have seen of this world, sefor,” the girl cried. “ No man has ever offered me anything but ugli- ness before; it is a world of cactus, and hog wallows and desert sand and mud arroyos. I hate cactus, sewor, except when the blos- som comes upon it. I hate adobe, dirt, dust —for that is all that any man has given Juana. ‘““[ came up here for to kill you, senor, because I thought you were like the others. I wanted to cut you in pieces. I wanted to carve out your heart. See, with this knife— [ brought it up for that—sefior!”’ The girl burst out passionately as she dropped the knife clanging to the floor. “Senor Capitan, instead of adobe you have give me silk; instead of ugliness you have give what is beautiful!” “Tt so happens that the skipper and his mate did not leave me what is generally called filthy—money. The lucre they kept for themselves. And what they left me in their grim, joking way was a suit of sails to unfurl upon a woman. What they gave me as a joke I give you with the hope that you will blossom out in-beauty as a mustard bush I once saw in Yucatan which was like a stink bug one day and a Christmas tree the next. Take this stuff, sezorita. It’s yours, as the skipper said to me, to have and to hold!” Juana clutched the blazing scarlet silk, pressing it to her face and mouth as if she were drinking in its beauty, tasting it, smell- COMmicloooks (C@