Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 7, 1928 — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

‘ HIS SERVICE TO FOLLY. was youth and that was love in those dreadful times. _At the street end, in the square, Em- peror Henri Christophe waited, a great commanding figure, clad in scarlet not more red than the rivers he had set flowing down those streets, rivers of the blood of white men and women and even babes. He scowled as he saw the chair turn and between him and the French girl obtruded the gal- lant figure of this boy who held her soft white hand. When an attendant sprang forward to open the chair door, Basil stepped in front of him and swung it wide. Violette rested her fingers on his hand and stepped daintily to the crimson carpet laid before the emperor. Her white silk petticoats spread like petals of a huge flower as she curtsied. Her soft fair lashes lay for an instant on her cheeks, then were lifted. As she caught a full view of the im- posing blackness of Henri Christophe, Basil felt her fingers clutch his hand and saw her shrink from that figure so repellent in its wealth of color and jewels. The eyes of Christophe gloated on her tiny, satin-shod foot and slender silk-clad ankle. As he looked full in her face, his lips parted in a broad grin, and he moistened them with his tongue. It was as if he tasted something pi- quantly pleasant. Violette’s own eyes were horror- filled. She shrank back to the chair door, her free hand caught at its frame and she swayed in sudden faintness. For Christophe had stalked forward and held out his hand for her to kiss! “Dieu! I cannot,’ Basil heard her murmur; he saw the white pallor of her face and lips, and the sudden limp- ness of her body. Quick as a flash he caught her in his arms and lifted her to lie over his shoulder, a soft, lifeless burden, shocked from the joyous reunion with the man she loved, into unconscious- 69 ness, at the shock of that command she had neither will nor power to obey. “My Lady the Marquise de Tour- raine has fainted at the sight of your magnificence, royal highness,” said Basil in French to the emperor. “I pray that you will grant me permission to carry her to her quarters.” CHAPTER IX. WITH CAP AND BELLS. ORCHES flared beside the road and crowds cheered as the pro- cession went by. Basil Trelaw- ney sat in the sedan chair with Vio- lette beside him, and he realized that their carriage was part of a gorgeous cavalcade of which the most dazzling a Wb was the Emperor Christo- phe He felt as if he had been trapped and held in the power of some medieval monster who would plot torments for Violette and himself. She lay against his shoulder, a perfumed sweetness. He chaffed her small wrists with his hands and pressed the lace closer against her small cold cheek. The faintness had passed quickly. His arm tightened about her, and lift- ing her head she laid her cheek against his cheek in the first voluntary caress she had ever given him. ‘* Basil—tell me it has all been an evil dream. Assure me that none of it is true. Oh, I have been so terribly afraid!” His two arms held her close. ‘And gripping him in turn, were those tu- multuous emotions, of happiness and fear. “You will not fear with me beside you, dear. It is because the emperor is a black man, a giant, that he fright- tened you.” He had saved her from that ordeal of touching her lips to Christophe’s blood-stained hand. He had claimed her before the emperor as his “ lady,” his wife, and the falseness of that as- Gomichbooks (E(0)