Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

606 feught helplessly agamst his. captors, she saw Badoun advancing toward her with the face of a devil! She tried to scream, but her parched throat failed her. At last she forced from it a hoarse cry that, by some weird fantasy appeared to have been made by some else. The mate was being dragged forward. They were to starboard. She had a dim impression of Pinckney and Sykes spring- ing from the bows, clubbing their way aft along the port side, the sight of therr fight- ing hidden and the sound of it nreffied by the screening cattvas. Badoun’s arm reached out. She shrank back, galvanized into action, yet weak from terror and the swift precision with which the open mutiny had started. Agam she screamed. A great bulk leaped past her. It seemed as if the wind of its passing swept her to one side. Her faculties returned with a gas of relief as she saw the skipper. His face was set with furious resolution, his forehead seemed made of stone plates be- neath which his eyes flared like blued steel under the sun, the hard line of his jaw showed under his beard. One blow from his left fst sent Badoun sprawling over the hatchway, collapsing into the slack of the mainsail, his. knees caught at their bend by the boom. Then, with a roar, the skipper sprang upon the men who were draggmg off the mate. He had come weaponless from the _cuddy, but he caught up a belaymg-pm from the rail at the foot of the mainmast and smashed it down upon the skull of the nearer Malay. The man collapsed. The other tet go of the mate, ducked under the skipper’s blow, and ran in with his Aes. The skipper bent his body, supple for all its weight, caught kris and forearm between his own left arm and his chest, and once more brought down the metal club. He glanced over his shoulder. Badoun had got himself together agam. Four Ma- lays were closing in from the bows. There was a fight going on by the companionway. “Get back to the cuddy, Mary!” shouted the skipper. ‘“ Quick—while we bold them off. Samson, get 2 pm!” But Samson had already retreated, rush- 6 L ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ing past the girl, who stood undecided. The Malays charged. One of the stunned men was coming to. Fhe odds were im- possible. She saw Badoun on the hatch- way ready to spring on the captain, and shrieked a warning. “ Back,” roaréd the skipper. His haad shot up and tilted a boat in ks Iss, Shutching for an oar. He needed to lengthen his arm, the belaying-pm was no match for so many knives. He swept the stout ash about him as the girl at last obeyed him. Badoun got the thrust of the blade in his chest, and once mere toppled, the rest, crowding aft, hesitating before the swing .of the oar as the skipper charged, and then, still facing them, took great strides backward.. The gizl was im the cuddy-deor. Pinck- ney and Sykes had broken through their gauntlet with the penalty of flesh wounds from which both were bleeding. But they were hard pressed, and the skipper covered his retreat for the moment with his ffail-like weapon. <A shot came up the companion- way. Instantly the Malays closed and se- cared the door, while Sykes and the second mate, the skipper last, gamed the cuddly. The whole mad mélée had lasted less than three minutes, and it left the crew in pos- session of the deck. Evans m the main ca- bin—the two women, the skipper, both the mates, and Sykes, shut up in the little ca- bin beneath the poop. There were shutters to the skylight, shut- ters to the windows, placed for protection against Malay pirates when the barkentme was new to those seas. These they closed and made fast with bolts. The cuddy door was halved, Dutch-fashion, and it was also prerced, ike the window shutters, with loop- holes for guns. Brut all the pistols, a riffle and a shotgun, were in the main and sleep- ing-cabins with Evans. He might defend himself with them, they were useless to the holders of the cuddy. The only light that now came in to them was through the square ports in the stern. The skipper swiftly took cutlases from the rack about the mizzen, and har? them om the table, testing their edges, and shak- ing his bead at the result. “TheyT) be at us with the axes,” he (FOOO