The Argosy, Vol. 81, No. 4 — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

FOOLS OF SACRIFICE. had come from the eastern beach near her grove, where he knew she often prowled in quest of he knew not what. Not all the tokens through which Mother Juliet wrought wonders for her devotees were re- vealed to them. | “You, William!” she droned in singsong. “Tt’s good you’ve come back. Things are clearer to me. Jess as soon as If found out what it was that was;a fightin’ between you and me this>afternoon I could see every- thing plain.” “T wish I could,” the overseer piped shril- ly, though the humor in his statement was wholly sardonic. “Captain Neville’s got Black Henry tied up, and he calls it mutiny. Jake Haas and Sailor Pete, they’re both sea- men and sees that thing ‘mutiny’ as some- thing pretty bad for us. What d’you minke “Mutiny?” echoed Mother Juliet. “Mu- tiny! That is pretty bad, but it could be worse.” “That’s just what I tell Jake and Pete, ut they won’t believe me. They’re for going at the captain and the big house to- night. I’m puzzled all account of what you told me about that stranger, who’s maybe with us or maybe against us.” “How many of you folks are they, now Black Henry’s taken?” asked Mother Juliet. “Jake and Pete and myself; that’s three. Then there’s about two dozen of the blacks.” A Briton was William Ransom, though a mulatto. Jake and Pete, both of whom were white, he kept in a class with himself. “The blacks, them as works the coconuts, you know,” he went on to explain, “are all primed for us. But then if I can’t hold Jake and Pete in hand why they are likely to bust the blacks off with them and act sudden-like.” . “Too quick—too slow is no way to go,” the seeress droned admonishingly. “Then, too,” the overseer went on, “they talk like they’re going to act rough. Mother Juliet, I want to manage this job with no more rough doings than are positively neces- sary. “As long as the captain’s got that wire- less up at the house—and it’s workin’—why he can fetch folks at us from all over crea- tion. And we can’t afford no outside in- terference, can we?” “THs sensible. mured Mother Juliet. Yet she did not take much stock in this The wireless,’ mur- 679 remark of William’s. It was her firm con- viction that the wireless was mere guess-. work, lucky chance—not half so accurate of presage as the entrails of a pigeon, and similarly to be maneuvered. “Have they been moochin’ round you from the big house this morning?” she asked after reflection. “Captain sent word by Jolly George he wants us all on parade before the big house at nine in the morning,” William replied. “He wrote me a letter, sayin’ he wants to know whether we obey orders or don’t obey them. “That’s what brought up the row with me and Jake and Pete. They’re for going up against the big house right off to-night. Recollecting what you said about a stranger coming to this island, I set my foot hard down. “Better wait, says I, and they says—not meaning no disrespect to you, Mother Ju- liet—they says I can come and have fifteen minutes with you to talk about the stranger arriving or anything else, but they don’t be- lieve one little word about him. So away I hurry.” The seeress emitted a low cry. It was the utterance of a tigress rather than that of a human being. She threw her hands wildly above her head and gazed upward at the innumerable gold stars of the serene blue sky. It was the stars that she seemed to be addressing, not the huge, awed figure of William Ran- som as she muttered sullenly: _“They mock at me! They mock at me! Stupid fools that have never been brave enough to see what I can see and do! “They may laugh—let them! TI shall laugh, too. And my laugh will bring trouble and sickness and bad luck on all the Settlement, from the little children upward. “Blood drying in the heart—feet that wither on the ground—arms dropping off for rottenness, and in the eyes a fire that blazes outside and burns to madness within! “White man, black man, yellow—all’s the same and sure. By my fire to-day I have seen it—by the stars to-night I see it —the stranger will prove my words true! “Let them laugh, and you laugh! [I laugh with you and against you.” A weird gurgling noise issued from her mouth. She clapped her hands on her hips as if bursting with merriment, and started quickly down the path to her cottage. For a moment William Ransom was spell- COPNICLOOKS (E@)