Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

-_ | ’ 328 ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. were something puzzling as a study in con-. trast. At that slip of my tongue I thought Mistress Joyce’s suddenly softened to an almost maternal sympathy for my youthful maladroitness. But Ruth’s. brows were drawn in a tense frown and still her eyes stared at me, full of some not quite ex- plicable warning. For a few moment we were at a deadlock. Rather, the tables were completely turned against me. I was helpless to act, for Joyce still interposed her body between my pistol- point and the king’s breast, while Charles himself marked time with some flippant re- marks over her shoulder. It was really too bad, he said, that a plan so well thought out should go wrong through a gentlemanly youth’s sense of chivalry. That his own chivalry was not lacking in that moment was made clear when he sud- denly placed an arm about Joyce’s waist, swung her gently but firmly to one side, and confronted me and my pistol without ad- vantage, save to me. - “ Enough of this!” he cried. ‘‘ See, young sir. My heart is now in even line with your weapon. Perhaps this, like all things, is fitly ordered. And Cavalier Stuart is quite ready to be shot by Roundhead Brooke, if indeed the son of an English gentleman thinks it is God’s justice to shoot his king!” Again I felt my moral courage ooze, melted by his personality, his smiling brav- ery. Or was it that he knew I would not shoot? Aye, that. was it! trated my weakness. The knowledge angered me. I knew that if I did not pull myself together and as- sume an attitude which was not in my heart, not only was my game lost, but I must be left in a painfully humiliating situ- ation before Joyce and in my own esteem. ““ For the last time,’’ I said, ‘“‘ and I knew you will not again shelter behind a fair lady—I bid you march out of this house. And I swear that if you do not obey before: I ha’ counted three—I will shoot!” “He says he will shoot,” said the king, turning humorously to Joyce. “ One!” I cried, my blood aboil at that aside, as if he translated a child’s gibbering boast. | It must have been dramatic to all con- Digitized by Google He had pene-’ cerned while I counted, although to the king the situation seemed to appeal only as mild- ly amusing. To me, the moments were hor- rible. I found myself purposely drawing out the spaces and there must have been 2 significant long pause while I tried to read the meaning of the signals that Ruth was now making with her hand. What was she trying to convey? 6c Two!” Still the king did not move; and neither did Joyce. Perhaps she, too, understood that long pause as a sign that I was weak- - ening, that I would not shoot, even if I did bring myself to the word—three! But—she was wrong. I would prove to her that I was no moral weakling to be abashed by circumstances. As I wetted my dry lips and shaped my tongue to the word, my heart was like cold lead, I must either surrender myself, or retire ignominieusly beaten, or—shoot the King of England. “Three!” I barely whispered. My finger crooked on the trigger just as a slight sound came from behind me, and I heard a little gasp from Ruth Prynne. Before I could spin around, sensing danger behind me, I saw Joyce’s right arm fly up to the level of her heart and heard a pistol explode. Whether that pistol went off in my own hand, or hers, I had no time to decide in my mind! for with the roar of the exploding weapon I saw the whole room fill with a red flame, which died out, leaving the cham- ber—the whole world—and me—in dark- ness—silence. CHAPTER XIII. I TURN CAVALIER. HEN I ascended from a region | which may have been Hobgoblin’s ‘Flaming Abyss,” I was conscious of some one applying something cooling to a burning sear along the right side of my head. I opened my eyes and discovered a heavy fog upon the world. In this haze there appeared a face—a face all softness, and wet with tears of concern. I closed my eyes again, deciding that I would wait until the py ‘i =) Sean Gl OOkSGO