The Argosy, Vol. 81, No. 4 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

674 the time his eyes were fixed on the floor, because his head would sway whenever he glimpsed the serpents writhing about her. “And the little boat that went to Hon- duras?” she queried. “You remember, Wil- liam?” “Ves, Mother Juliet,” he whispered. “To bring the guns to make William mas- ter of this island? You remember, Wil- liam?” “Ves, Mother Juliet.” “Let me see what the secrets of these little birds tell of that boat from Hon- duras,”’ and she maundered over the con- tents of the bowl from which she had taken _her bread and milk. “Don’t they say she came in safe and sure?”’ William demanded sharply. “Let me see! Let me see!”’ the seeress mumbled with irritating slowness. “They got to say that, anyway, or they lie!’’? William whispered impatiently. He could hold his tongue no longer, feel- ing an adverse fate impending, although not this particular one. “Don’t you accuse the birds like that,°or they'll never tell you nothing,” Mother Juliet growled in a low voice. At the same time she wriggled the snakes about her arms and head so swiftly that in William’s eyes the room was full of their flashing, sinuous streaks of light. “No! You hear me, Mother Juliet?” the man protested. ‘I never did accuse them birds. I only said the little boat made safe harbor in the fog last night down along here on the east shore. “The three men I sent landed their cargo safe, too. But they did not slip into, the Settlement till to-day, after I had been here and left the pigeons for you.” “There was only three you sent, William,” the seeress suggested in mollified tone, dron- ing each word. “Jake Haas, Henry—Black Henry, you know—and Sailor Pete—the three men I could trust in every way.” “And they didn’t bring a stranger with them?” asked Mother Juliet. “To trick us? Catch them letting on to a stranger! As it was they had to be awful sly a buying of those things, and it cost a lot of money and trouble. “Catch them letting on to a stranger! Two whites and a black a buying such stores. No. coming can’t be about the boat or the cargo. Anyway not yet.” The trouble the birds say is. THE ARGOSY. Mother Juliet. had begun to croon again, her head slightly inclined toward the door of the timber shed. She interrupted herself to prophesy from the reading she made of the contents of the bowl that she pawed jerkily. with her fat fingers. But first she must ponder, mum- bling, and think of a matter William was far from suspecting. The stroke she had counted on making through the discovery of the man on the beach had failed. There had been, then, only three men in the small boat. They had landed secretly and safely with their contraband purchases. When William assured her that they had brought no stranger with them she believed him absolutely. The men would not de- ceive William, for they had a respect and fear of him equal to that which he himself had for her. Nevertheless, the castaway was.a stran- ger. Neither she nor Jolly George could identify him as one of the small colony on the island. She began to mumble in singsong as she slowly wound and unwound the snakes in all manner of coils around her arms, her neck and her waist. ‘First and last and over and over again,” she declaimed for William’s benefit, ‘‘I see a stranger who is coming to the island. First and last and always the same sign.” “Is he a friend of the Settlement or of the folks in the big house?” William whis- pered in his high voice. The question nonplused the seeress, but only momentarily. ‘Strangers may be friends, strangers may be enemies,” she mumbled sleepily. On her crooked arms three of the snakes » Were twisting about her head so that their phosphorescent gleam looked like mon- strous, horrible, disheveled hair. “It is for you and me to make this stranger our friend.” “How? How?” quickly demanded Wil- liam, to whom the unsought introduction of a stranger on the island presaged only mis- chance and evil. “First we must find him,” the seeress re- sponded. Mumbling, Mother Juliet wound the snakes up on her forearms, flying swift as a wheel. They might have been so many strips of rags. Each of them she laid ten- derly, however, in its place on the hearth; then called to William: CORMICOOOKS (©)