Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

BUCCANEER BLOOD. knew it when I first sat in this chair—yuss, me lydy!” He shouted in a thin voice that seemed scarcely to carry beyond that table. “T thought so! Goin’ to truck wiv me— same as you did with Zim/ But he was ’arf seas under—McCorkle was—and I ain’t. He wanted to Rotten Row it like a Creole— - and so he swallowed your gaff. You prom- ised him yourself—and he believed it—the poor softy! But not me! You ain’t no little goer, me gel! _I knows a little goer when I sees one! But you ain’t. You'll stick a knife acrost him first bloomin’ charnce you git! Don’t tell me! smile at me, me gel! I won't be put upon, You're tryin’ to undo the bally lot of us by your wiming’s wiles—but I’ve ’ad my lesson with wiming—long afore this—damn you orl—’ot ones and cold alike!” Jacqueline remained calm and unmoved under this gush of invective. ‘She was studying him—his agile thin fingers, his grimaces, his bubbling mouth, his narrow- set triumphant, twinkling eyes. She looked at him with the passive amusement of a little girl watching a jumping-jack, as if trying to discover what string was being pulled to cause such comical antics. Wing had shambled into the room, his arms full of altar cloths, silver sconces, a censer, a chalice, an ornate compass. He heaped these antiques upon the table, his eyes gleaming, his chest heaving. Dorset waited, wrinkling his pimpled forehead in a frown, as if this intrusion of Wing with his loot were a personal affront. The old seaman shuffled out, nodding his white head affirmatively, as if to say: ‘‘ Yes, there’s lots more. It’s endless. The quicker I go for it, the more we'll have!” “ Think you can truck wiv me, do you!” Dorset went on muttering at the girl, find- ing a tremendous exhilaration in scolding and bullying something weaker than him- self. ‘‘Ya-ah! Good mind to clump yer one in the mouth. A good mind to— Yuss, I said I’ve a—” He spoke tonelessly, disconnectedly as if trying to say one thing while thinking an- other. “T won’t be put upon—not me.” He was not looking at the girl now although there was the same grimace—compounded Don’t of a vicious frown and an insolent smirk, His look was focused on something just as fascinating. That pile of stuff which Wing had heaped upon the table seemed to grow in luster with each moment that Dorset stared at it. Certain details—a jewel on the chalice, a band of gold on the sconce, a cluster of semiprecious stones on the altar cloth— caught Dorset’s eye. The heap of antiques placed there on rich yellowed linen seemed to kindle into a dull glow under the candle light. Dorset blinked. And as he blinked succinct rays of green and yellow light radi- ated from the heap, as if there were buried flames in a mass of embers. CHAPTER XXV. THE FIVE—AND THE ONE. ‘ : HEY are merely heirlooms, mon- sieur,” Jacqueline said. ‘‘ There is no other worth to them.” Dorset had left his cathedral chair and was now examining the stuff which old Wing had brought. It was ridiculous to suppose that Wing would have left anything of real value on that table. If he had found a jewel that could have been classed as precious he would have pocketed it himself. Dorset knew, of course, that Wing had examined everything he had left there. That was the reason he had taken so long a time in collecting one handful of loot. McCorkle was taking a still longer time—an indica- tion that he was meeting with more success, “The gel’s right!” he said disgustedly. The stuff heaped on ancient linen, illumined by soft candle beams, had looked more precious than it was. It was flamboyant, and, further, it kindled the imagination. ‘ Heirlooms—is it! And so it is, b’God!| Good for the museums back in N’Orleans —if you can sell it to em. The real stuff Wing keeps! And this here truck is what T gits—while Wing and McCorkle rifles the ‘ouse!”’ “Tt is worth nothing, monsieur—this heap,” Jacqueline said, ‘“ except as heir- looms. To us they mean much—to you 9 q they are worthless.” camichoolks.com