Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

SO ENDS THE DAY. inlaid in bronze. They were chameleon eyes,- the eyes of a seaman, blue m fair weather, gray in storm. Whenever he looked at Mary Leigh, they held the hue. of the shadow of midsea waves under a sunny, cloudless sky. He was perhaps a year or so older than Samson, both around thirty. ; The barkentine sailed easily under the stars, the southern cross a glittering pen- dant over her maintruck, her canvas pyra- miding, umber in the shadow, high-lighted to ivory where the rising moon caught it; the harping of the fair breeze in the rigging in harmony with the whispering rush of the water along the vessel’s run. A forking wake stretched luminous with phosphor to meet the moon-path. In it a troop of por- poises, hunting their supper acrobatically, _ turned continuous \somersaults, churning the sunshine into green fire. The skipper and Mary Leigh stood at the taffrail. “ Beautiful, ain’t it?’ he asked. “ And a ‘fair wind. We're heading up for Serang, Mary. Like a‘big garden it is, with a live volcano in the middle. The Spice Islands they call the group; where the mutmegs come from. Nor’ an’ east of that is the western end o’ New Guinea. The Malay’s call it the Head of the Dragon. Looks like it on the chart. ‘“‘ There’s where they get the best birds-o’-paradise. Skins like jewels, purple an’ green an’ reddish- gold. I’m goin’ to get you some, Mary.” - He slid an arm about her waist. She moved away from the embrace without -immediate reply. ; “ What’s wrong, Mary?” “ Nothing. But that man, Badoun, at the wheel?” ‘“‘ His eyes are in the front of his head, not his back,” answered the skipper. But he did not replace his arm. “ Doesn’t anything ever happen at sea?” she asked him suddenly. “Lord, ; yes! sometimes. But you can fight the one an’ dodge the other if you’ve a good ship an’ use judgment., Nothin’ you need worry , my dear.” “Oh, storms! Her voice was petulant. “ 1 was hoping you’d like it all,” he said. She shrugged her shoulders and turned, a Storm and shipwreck, 597 facing twnboard, back to the rail. Behind Badoun the spark of a cheroot showed. Then,the first mate, emerging from the shadows into the spotlight of the moon. ‘“‘ Great night,” he said affably. “ Have a cheroot, skipper? You don’t object, Miss Leigh?” “Not at all,” the girl answered. The skipper refused the cigar. ‘‘ Isn’t the moon gorgeous?” asked Mary Leigh. AH her indifference had vanished with the coming of the second male, the formation of the triangle. | ‘Looks like the inside of a pearl oyster,’ said Samson. “I’ve seen it when it looked like the open door of a furnace. I mind one time in the Solomons. I was mate on a recruity schooner. We'd gone ashore in the red boat in the afternoon. They paint all the‘ whaleboats on a recruity scarlet, Miss Leigh, so the natives know what you're after. Saves time. “ Three natives wanted to go with us; we 7 promised ’em trade rifles over and above their wages for a premium, but the chief didn't want to lose em. So we fixed it they ~were to come down to the beach after dark. ‘Well, there wasn’t any dark. The ; moon was up before the sun was down. ' We stood off the island and fetched it again after sunset. The moon showed through the cocopalms on the point like it would set the trees afire. The men were there in the scrub—they were worth twenty pounds apiece to us at the plantation—but just as we're gettin’ ‘em in the boat the tribe comes down with a rush, an’ there we were © at it; in the shore-surf, up to our middles, spears flyin’, clubs whirlin’, pistols poppin’ an’ flashin’ in the shadows. The boat looked more like a porkypine than a boat, time we got clear.” ‘“ Were you wounded?” The girl’s voice rang eager. The mate showed a scar on his bare forearm, flexing his muscles in the moonlight as she bent to scan it. Her lips were parted, her eyes big with excitement and admiration for this Ulysses of the South Seas. The skipper, hands buried deep in his pockets, said nothing. He had heard an- other story about that scar. The girl turned to him. Original fror NEO) an =) lDOOK CO