Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

438 For some reason he was suffering keenly. Donn Riley could appreciate that at a glance. “I’ve taken a deep fancy to you, Riley. Good God, a man must have some one to talk to! There’s too much on my mind for one man to carry. And that girl! You were looking at her photograph. She’s wild —unmanageable — like quicksilver. With queer little ideas. That girl’s too honest for her father.”’ His rumbling voice stopped. He looked old and worn and unhappy. There was a helpless air about him that somehow caught Donn Riley’s sympathy. Yet he felt shocked, as though he had been listening to the blurted confession of a criminal. ‘And the way she treats men, good men—she laughs in their faces! If she would marry some good man—not a man of our stamp, Riley—but some straightfor- ward, honest, upright man, it would take the load off my mind. I tell you, she’s a responsibility! ”’ Donn Riley murmured sympathetically. That. Captain Murdock classed him as something between a rascal and an irrespon- _ sible adventurer did not irritate him, be- cause he realized that that was the class into which he had permitted himself to fall. And he had taken another step away from respectability. Captain Murdock’s frank admission, his very existence upon this ship, testified to-that. He had cast his lot with scamps—lawbreakers, madmen! He had heard of ships called madhouses, but this was his first contact with one of them. She was sailing without a charter;. she was packed full of an ominous mystery, of evil that could fairly be felt. She seemed to be peopled with the unhappy ghosts of other dark voyages. Her owner was speaking again, almost plaintively. ‘I should like to know what is going to become of us. Riley, will you look me in the eye? You give me confidence when you do that. There’s something about you that inspires it. “I think you’re clean inside. Well, you are wondering why I slammed that door in your face, aren’t you?’ It was none of your fault. “You had a perfect right to ask that & ARGOSY AND RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE. question. It was manly of you to ask it. Because you are decent — decent! That rotten Spaniard is mad about her. Mad! Good Lord! I don’t know whether she hates him or not. She is a wise one. But she knows, as well as I know, that Cordella has me—like this!” He extended a clutched hand. “In there. Like that. You understand now. He can undo me if he pleases. He is a power down there, Riley. And I think she is playing with him—to please me. Think of me standing for that!- Ugh!” His forehead was a mass of white wrinkles. “My daughter—and that rotten Span- iard!”” He was silent for a long while. Rain fell in a fine shower, hissing- on the deck, gurgling in the gutter. Fore and aft che donkey engines were wheezing and gasping to the groaning accompaniment of straining rope. An odor of stale bilge water and old oil rose up in a vapor almost visible from the noisy engine-room. They were giving her a dock test. Far in the distance through the pitch black night Riley could make out the swim- ming glow of a ferry-boat from across -the bay. He. guessed that the time was past midnight. The fleshy jowls of Captain Murdock hung down in pads. His eyes were fixed gloomily at Riley’s feet. He drew himself together with a shudder. “Riley, you have seen my daughter. Don’t deny it.” Riley thought it over and nodded glumly. He was still marveling at the great change that had come over Captain Murdock since afternoon. The breezy, cock-sure, and pros- _perous mariner had suddenly been trans- formed into an anxious old man. ‘Well, she’s threatened to come aboard either at San Blas or Pinar del Rio. Of course I told her not to. But she'll be there —at one of those places. She'll keep her word; I know her. “It gives me the shudders to think of that girl crossing Mexico alone. I said I’d not let her come aboard, and I meant it. You can see I’ve changed my mind. ‘““ Maybe you’ve helped me t’wards a so- lution without knowing it. Perhaps because | COMICEDOO© ‘eo S (CO) mM