Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 7, 1928 — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

GOLD. ‘He saw merely the sphinx. There was no telltale flicker across that pallid countenance. Her face was something carved out of marble. He was sweating, this fellow Swope. Not blushing exactly, but sweating. He found it embarrassing spinning lies to this girl. It would have been easier to come right out with it, and tell her the truth: that she had cast her spell over him, as over the rest of the ship, and over the city on shore. But she was half child, half tigress, and that was not an easy kind of being to make love to. He wiped his forehead. The yellow face darkened. “‘ Well, then, miss,” he said, almost whimpering, “call me a liar. Every one else thinks I’m rotten. They none of ’em believe me. Not even your father, who I’ve followed to the ends of the sea as a friend, a brother. “Call me a liar. But so help me God, I’ll follow this same course. I came here to right myself, but the skip- per wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t lis- ten. Joshua wouldn’t listen, The sniv- elin’ old loon like to have stuck a har- poon into me. But I forgive you all. Joshua goes free, but—” She was listening intently, hungrily now. What was he going to say? He had told a string of lies, but she sensed the coming of the truth. “But I ain’t goin’ through all this for nothing. No, b’ George! I come back to help, and get rebuffed. All right. I ain’t goin’ to be hanged for mutiny. I’m goin’ back to the hills.” He did not know that her mind was racing. What was he heading for? Cer- tainly his very incoherence had method to it. But just what sort of trick card was he going to play? “You can see I’m in a hole,” he said almost sobbing. ‘“ Every hand against me who never harmed a living thing. In a damned helpless mess, that’s what! Same as your father’s in a hole, same as Joshua’s in a hole. Same as you are—” 103 He drew his chair closer and leaned forward, speaking with a tense, almost whispering eagerness. “ Yes, miss, you are in a pickle too—see? But it’s dif- ferent. You’ve got a way out, which none of the rest of us have.” Blank amazement swept over her face—the first sign of reaction. “ Surprised to hear me say that, eh? Well, look here. You’ve got the key to everything. There’s your father made prisoner by a black baboen and that whimperin’ Brass. The boy up above who laid hands on you, he would torture your father just for the fun of hearin’ him howl. That’s the sort of devil the doughboy is! “ Torture him, burn his hands, shoot him down by inches, fix up some sort of jury rig to stretch him. That is what that young pimple-faced angel would do. But you can stop it.” He saw that the last vestige of color had left Priscilla’s cheek. She might have been wearing an alabaster mask with a dab of violet red across her mouth. * But it won’t happen,” he hastened to assure her. “‘ I won’t let it. Yes, I’ve still got ’em under my thumb—those killers. They'll do as I say. They'll stand up in a row, and I'll shoot ’em down—one, two, three! Then you and me get into a boat—see? It’s got to be that way. I can’t go without help. It “ll have to be you.” His words began to pour out in in- creasing rapidity, a crescendo of ex- citement, of frenzy. “ You and me and the gold. Got to have gold. Can’t buy a rotten potato in this country without you have gold pouring from your hand. “You see your father freed. You see Joshua freed. You free yourself. Your enemies drop like ninepins. You win the game—see? You and me to the hills. We stay under cover for awhile, then to the camps. How we'll live! There ain’t any girls up there, they tell me. “The miners travel miles just to COMIC OOO KS (EO)