Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 83: what you’re looking at

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

WAR SPAWN. send my servant there with the coat and slippers I was bringing to you when the crash came. In about ten minutes [ll go out on deck. Will you be ready?” “Yes, Dll be ready,” acquiesced Judith. Fifteen minutes later they were standing beside the railing. The character of the night had perceptibly changed. The moon swung now like a censer in a haze of clouds. The waves churning against the sides of the craft looked like buttermilk. A sudden gust of wind cut through the rigging, whistled around the smokestack, and would have lifted Judith from her feet had not Stephen grasped the railing tightly, his arm across her back. He felt her sway from the impact, and then recover. He glanced down at her. The cap—one of his—that she was wearing framed her face severely, bringing out the clear lines of her profile. Who was she, he wondered; what had her life been like? Stephen had never felt toward any woman as he now did toward this unnamed waif standing beside him, who had crept into his boat, into his life; and now he was obliged to confess to himself, into his heart! Stephen Fenwick had known passion, unameliorated by softer emotions; he had known admiration for the qualities of a woman’s mind; he had venerated the soul of one woman in sheer awe. , But now all these various emotions seemed coalesced into a great pulsing, be- wildering elation. It seemed almost as if the girl had risen like Aphrodite, from the sea, a gift to him from the gods. She must be his, to protect, to love, to tenderly cher- ish. All the depths of him were stirred by her need for help, her loveliness, her entire ignorance of the conventions; even her strange way of speaking attracted him; and her little austerities, her gaucheries! They were all a part of her! . Suddenly there swept into his brain words flung at him by Beverly Randolph. “If you were in love you would be ruthless!” She had been right, poor, simple little Bev- erly. Her words had been right, but his appli- cation of them was different. He would be 393 ruthless in love, but it would be toward any one or any thing that could harm the girl standing beside him. CosPIi ER. TX THE STORM. N angrier man than Captain Lang it would have been difficult to find upon the high seas. His heels ringing militantly, he suanraed . up and down the deck, giving brisk orders. The storm was eapily gathering force. Churned by the wind, the waters foamed and swirled around the craft, flinging spindrift into the faces of the pair stand- ing by the railing, watching in repelled fas- cination the white-fanged wolfish waves. The captain growled to himself that he would put the damned young cubs in irons if they dared to fight on his ship again. He paused alongside Stephen. “Nice thing you’ve done!” he shouted, above the roar of the elements. ‘“ How d’ye suppose I’m going to keep discipline in the face of that. Besides, Ill need Mr. Allerton to-night. I mean I need him if the crew has any respect left for him!” ‘TIsn’t he all right by this time?” bawled Stephen in reply. ‘Physically, yes!” gloomily wailed the skipper. “I just wish I’d heard of the thing sooner!” he grumbled. “Yes?” queried Stephen, with rising in- flection. “Well, you’d both have known I am master of this vessel!” truculently called the captain. “Glad to hear it, captain!” boomed Stephen cheerfully. ‘I feel safe now from raiders, storms, and _ all perils of the high seas, except the yellow peril you just con- veyed to his cabin.” For an instant the storm seemed to pause for breath. There was a foaming lull. “What was it all about?” complained | “One of the seamen said there was a ‘skoit’ in it. Was it the stowaway? Leave it to a woman to raise hell among a lot of men!” Stephen’s compact figure hid from the skipper’s view the slim form that straight- the captain. COMIC LOOKS (GO)