Argosy All-Story Weekly — "Sea Marauders" — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

SEA MARAUDERS. 457 them until they were lined up in front of the porch in a solid mass. A cold perspiration broke out upon the fore- head of Steve Reardon. “‘ Oh, the devils from hell!’ he mut- tered. “It can’t be possible!’ It was possible. The pirates drew off, and moved in a body down the slope. The muzzle of the machine gun was pointed directly at the mob of prisoners. It was evident that the in- tention was to mow them down with- out mercy, to leave no living creature to tell the tale. And when they had been massacred, the hunt for himself would begin. After they had disposed of him they would sail away with the loot of Gas- con Island, and the world would never know who had attacked it, robbed it, and slain all its inhabitants. CHAPTER VII. - THE MACHINE CUN. S these things made themselves plain to him, Steve, pale as death, was retreating along his limb to the trunk of the tree, and then he be- gan to work himself out upon the low- est branch. There were rustles of limbs and leaves, but the pair at the machine gun were intent only upon the spectacle be- fore them. ‘The prisoners were silent, for they had not yet comprehended the fate in store for them. Gibbons and his followers were not so trustful of their machine gunners that they put themselves in range, but they were coming down from the left with the intention of ranging them- selves behind it. And then Steve dropped from the limb, a distance of twelve feet, and landed between the two men at the gun with such force that he toppled over. They recoiled in natural alarm and, lying on the ground, he shot them both. In a second he was up and in the sad- dle. He knew the theory of the gun, but for a moment he could not get the hang of it, and Gibbons and his mob, with shouts of alarm, were charging, firing as they ran. Steve had it. He swung the muzzle of the gun and grasped the crank. Fright and the fact that they were run- ning caused all the bullets directed to- ward him to fly wild, and suddenly the Maxim began to rattle and roar. Bill Gibbons was ten feet distant when a bullet caught him in the chest. Pedro, bringing up the rear, turned to fly, and was hit in the back. Before © the belt was half empty all the pirates were lying on the ground still as death, or writhing in agony. They had approached in a mass and it was impossible for the Maxim to miss them, for the rearmost of them was only thirty feet away. Before the bat- tle had well begun it was over, and the victor rose unsteadily from his saddle. It is one thing to fire at human tar- gets a hundred yards distant, whom the gunner sees fall, but whose piteous ex- pressions and dying groans are out of range of eye and ear, another to slaugh- ter at the mouth of the gun. E glanced at the prisoners and for a moment feared he had fired into them also, for half a dozen women lay on the ground and others were on their knees. But a golden- haired girl was bounding down the slope, and in a few seconds Mildred hurled herself into his arms, her lips seeking his in an ecstasy of delight and hysteria. * Steve, oh, Steve!” she cried. “JI knew you would save us! I knew it!’ “Look out,” he exclaimed, and threw her to the ground, and cast him- self before her. Bill Gibbons, mor- tally wounded, had reared himself on one elbow, his face distorted with pain and hate, and fired one more shot. Steve had seen him and saved himself and Mildred by going to the ground. The shot passed over them. It was the last bullet of the battle. comicbooks:com — , A aes