The Argosy, Vol. 81, No. 4 — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

FOOLS OF SACRIFICE. waters of the lagoon. Beyond, toward the east, smirking waves sidled up on the sands whether they lapped the living or the dead. ‘“Where’s your dead man?” growled Mother Juliet as she marked with a waving gesture of her umbrella the vacant beach. Jolly George wrung his hands and glanced here, there and everywhere in amazement and alarm. “Yah!” he screamed suddenly and thrust both his hands from him in the direction of a clump of bushes that sprang from a crevice at the foot of the cliff. A bare hand stuck up in the air. On the fingers, Mother Juliet was quick to notice, were the gleam and sparkle of rings, a sight dear to her heart. “Vah, you fool!” she cried to the boy. “He will not be dead. I told you, you are dangerous.” Running down to the man she hooked her fat hands under his armpits and with a force astonishing in one of her years and build dragged the six feet of emaciated, un- conscious humanity up to the lowest level of the cliff. Turning him over on his back, she listened to his heart and felt the castaway’s pulse deftly, knowingly, without aid of charm or incantation. Jolly George came up hesitantly and at a safe distance observed her doings with mingled awe and inquisitiveness. Without lifting her eyes from the man Mother Juliet seemed to sense the boy’s presence. She called out loudly: “Your dead man is alive and I am going to make him strong again, you fool and dangerous person!” The boy retreated a step or two at the odious term, yet watched her as a very worker of miracles. Mother Juliet took a small glass flask from her capacious pocket. It was filled with a liquid white as water. Uncorking it, she drank from the neck of the bottle three times, tossing her black and scarlet turban backward as she did so. The brilliants and metal ornaments on it flashed in the sunlight. Then Jolly George, open-mouthed, saw her pour some of the liquid into the palm of her hand. Having laid the bottle beside her on the ground, she rubbed both her palms briskly together and held one after the other flat against the castaway’s mouth and nostrils. For a long time, it seemed to Jolly George, she continued to repeat this operation. 669 A fact beyond belief it was to him when he saw with his own eyes that the ‘‘dead”’ man raised both his arms and made an effort as if seeking support from Mother Juliet. His slow mind was confusedly turning over this wonder, only to be jarred by a stern summons and motion of the hand that he come to her side. Shifting this way and that, the boy ap- proached suspiciously. Once he was within reach Mother Juliet caught his hand and dragged him close. “Son,” she hissed, “if you ever dare tell a soul or speak to any one about what you see me do here or about this dead man— then remember the blood-spell will get you at the heart and go all over you. Remem- ber!” ‘“T swear ’fore Heaven, Mother Juliet!” Jolly George responded. ‘‘No word more, then. Jess catch a good holt on his legs by the knees and lift when I lift his shoulders.” Jolly George bent down and took hold of the man’s legs as he had been instructed. Mother Juliet seized the castaway under the armpits and thus they bore the half-, dead man to her hut. Alone they had covered this distance in fifteen minutes. With their limp burden of dead weight they were obliged to pause every so often to rest. It must have taken them half an hour to reach the grove of the seeress, though she toiled and made Jolly George toil hard. When they rested for the last time within — close sight of their destination they were both dripping with perspiration and eo with animal-like groans. ‘Son, hark to me!” Mother Juliet said between breaths as she stepped across the form of the castaway and laid her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “IT hark everything, I bet,” Jolly George answered, mopping his brow. Mother Juliet’s thick lips were laid close to the boy’s delicately rounded ear. ‘“‘A good and brave son you are. You’ve done right and worked hard. And you’re afraid of me, ain’t you?” Quite unexpectedly she gripped his arm. Jolly George’s eyes rolled till only the whites showed. Never had she been so mighty and so fearsome. Never had she been so near to him. Nor could he move a jot from her. She laid her fat fingers against his mouth Go NOOKS AMUG (C@)