The Argosy, August 1905 — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

b a> = . > = rid ; or il was, and Tarr felt that he lacked only the keyword to explain the secret about which Crowding muttered. ‘Suppose the doctor or Helen or some other visitor should discover this se- eret! Suppose while Helen sat there, this yery hour, Crowding had murmured the keyword to the problem. Tarr looked at the paper again. “The red diamond! I wmnust (pee | Open what? Ah if Crowding should say what he wished opened while Tarr was absent. “I must remain here from this time on, until we land. Nobody must learn the meaning of his mystery until I have found it out myself,” he told himself. He was not disturbed by visitors for the remainder of the afternoon, and nobody but the physician came to the cabin during the evening excepting the steward with ice and with his own dinner. ; The change in the weather which had threatened early that morning finally culminated in a thunder storm and elec- tric display about nine o’clock. This drove everybody below but the officers and members of the crew whose duty it was to remain on deck. But after the rain stopped, an hour later, Tarr set open his door and sat there watching the foam-flecked sea and dun clouds for a long time. Sea and sky were as perturbed and troubled as his own mind. CHAPTER XVIII. AN ASTOUNDING MBSSAGE. Tur thunder storm was a prelude to a bad night—the overture of a Wag- nerian session of wind, rain, and beaten, maddened sea. After midnight the re- turn of the rain drove Tarr inside the stateroom, and a little later he heard the men rigging lhife-lines along the upper deel. The Yantie began to heave unpleas- antly, too, and the slapping of the wayes against her tall hull sounded like the crack of a long pennant in a hurri- cane. Now and then the clouds seemed to open and the water came down by the bueketful. eo DOWNING THE KING-PIN. ; > “thad would reveal the mystery, whatever * — ‘ _As the night grew old and the worry of the storm increased, the sounds evi- dently made some impress on Crowd- ing’s troubled brain. Once he weakly rose up in his berth—something he had not done for hours—and looked wildly about. : At the moment be came close to being conscious—he knew that he was in Tarr’s room and that his cousin was with him. The latter had sprung to his side and enfolded the man’s form in his Own strong arms. “ Wha—what is it?” gasped the sick man. “It’s storming, old man.- Lie down. It’s all right,” said Tarr soothingly. The patient’s eyes rolled around in their sockets till their glance was focused upon his nurse. Then suddenly he whispered : “What day is it?” “Saturday morning,” replied Tarr in amazement. “ Saturday—Saturday My God! Let me get up. I must stop it! I must stop it! Only one hundred = His eyes were glazed with delirium again, he sank back upon the pillew, and was babbling his mysterious phrases once more. The momentary flash of intelligence had gone. But this incident assured Tarr that he was right. The moment would come when Crowding’s secret could be ob- tained by his nurse. - “Nothing shall get me out of this room again if I can help it,” thought Tarr. “And the next time he shows the least intelligence VU ask him what it is he wants opened. Tl get to the root of the matter then.” It was almost dawn when he looked out of his stateroom door again upon the wet and glistening deck, Torn rags of cloud were seurrying overhead, ap- parently scarcely out of the reach of the steamship’s snubbed bowsprit as she shot heavenward upon the heave of every giant wave. About these tattered storm-flags was a heavy and impenetrable blanket of mist, of a dun color excepting where the wind had whitened the edges. The dawning day threatened to give the passengers of the Yantic a taste of the Atlantic in ~ her worst mood. oe