Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 68: what you’re looking at

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

538 _ driver from Judique. No = Where does she hang out?” “ She’s a singer up at the Starboard Light place on the top of the hill with all the flags painted on the front and the green lantern over the door. You'll see—” ‘““J know the place,” broke in the other, starting off with quick impatience. A few hours later when the upper streets were awakening to nighttime melody Red Alec strode casually into the music room of the Starboard Light, occupied by a group of mariners, including Ronald Donn, of the -Judique Fleet, who gave his brother High- - Jander a Gaelic greeting. Raymond, at the _ piano, favored the stranger with a stealthy smile, then turning to her music, began to sing a popular Highland ballad: “Knees deep she waded in the pool— The Banshee robed in green— She sang yon song the whole night long, And washed his linen clean; ~The linen that would wrap the dead She beetled on a stone, She sped with dripping hands blood red Low singing all alone— ~ His linen robes are pure and white, -. For Fergus More must die to-night.” Red Alec did not wait for the second verse. He left as suddenly as he had en- tered, while suggestive winks and pees passed among his fellow mariners. The singer sang on to the-end, then a around inquiringly for the stranger. ‘““Where’s he gone?” “Into the ballroom. ‘That song was too much for him.” “Why, who is he, anyway?” “Who is he? It’s funny you don’t know him, That’s Red Alec Campbell, the heil wonder he couldn’t listen to your song. He’s the man who’s doomed to die.” The first note of a fiddler’s jig issuing its summons, emptied the music room of all save Ronald Donn, Raymond sank down beside him. But her mind was all on the other Highlander of tragic fate. “Tell me, do you know this lad they call Red Alec?” “ Sure, I ought to ken the lovely devil. He’s one of our ain of Judique.” _ “Js he with your fishing fleet?” “Sometimes. but not for long. Fishing ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Se is too tame for the like o’ him. Mostly he’s running booze frae the Treaty Ports, or dodging his majesty’s cruisers.” “Well, what makes him say he’s going to die?” “Why, so he is. He’s due to take the Banshee out this Saturday night for a run to St, Pierre.” .. “Ts that the bad luck schooner Mr. Mac- “That’s her, same one as was sprawled out, and took twenty-one men, heaven rest ‘em to their graves on the western ground. She’s a proper jinx, gone bad and gone bad for good. Ye can’t trust her now no more than a wicked woman who’s had taste 0’ “Mr. MacLehose ought to ’a’ kenned bet- ter than to gie her sic a name. But nothing ever phases him, and when the Dundee towed her in bottom up, he just had her righted and run her onto the ways, an’ made her over good as new, and, like the dare- devil that he is, he had the name Banshee printed in gold again upon her counter. ‘““ They towed her up to Judique harbor to fetch another crew. But that crew never came, “The first night she was lying off the Inner Island, Old Jean of the Mist, who has the second sight, was awakened by voices sounding around the Banshee. Then she heard the dogs barking in Stella Maris churchyard, and every time a dog barked a man was drowned, ‘“ Next day when the seer had told what she had seen ye could na get no man nor lad in Judique parish te ship aboard the Banshee—not for all the gold that Mac- Lehose could offer. So the chief had her towed back to MacNairs, and she’s been - lying here ever since—until this verra De- cember morn Red Alec, who’s always in league wi’ the devil, makes some dicker wi’ MacLehose, an’ has his own boat, the Corsair, hauled up, and put his drunken foreign crew aboard the Banshee. And now they are outward-bound wi’ that evil witch. “But it Il -be Red Alec’s last voyage, not because of ony gossip, but because Jean 0’ the Mist has seen it—it ll be another case of a new boat and the old rocks.” A troubled look stole over Raymond’s Gomicbooks.co